- Dec
- 16
Charlotte: Our Garden Spider
Posted by Kerry Anderlik at 5:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
We’re not sure when Charlotte, our garden spider, moved into the pepper patch. Ma first noticed her back in September during pepper harvest. She watched Charlotte weave a new web in exactly the same spot in the pepper patch every day for a month. Every morning, Charlotte would disappear, and Ma would worry that she was gone forever. But sure enough, Charlotte reappeared each afternoon to work on her web, until our first heavy frost. And let me tell you, she wove a very magnificent web.
Ma has a very special fondness for spiders. Two years ago, she had a spider friend living in the outdoor garden sink. Ma named him Spidey and swears that when no one else was around, Spidey would come out when she called him. She says her favorite birthday gift ever was the Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, which we ordered from the PETA Catalog. The Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher is a safe and easy way to catch spiders and other insect critters in your home and relocate them outside. We like it so much that we bought a supply for gifts and also to stash around the house so that we always have one handy. It is a wonderful and humane alternative to “pest control” methods that involve killing the poor little critters.
Since we haven’t seen Charlotte since the big frost, we are hoping that she is hibernating in the garden soil and that our little friend will return to the pepper patch next garden season.
We think Charlotte is an Orb spider, but we are not sure. If there are any spider experts out there to help identify Charlotte, we would love to hear from you.
Posted to Home & Garden | Posted to Tags: bugs, garden, Kerry Anderlik, spider
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Judy says...
December 22nd, 2008, 11:43 pm
Think we have these spiders in the east mountains outside of Albuquerque, NM. My husband calls them pumpkin spiders.
kerry says...
December 26th, 2008, 11:20 am
Judy, the guy who helps MA with her computer saw our blog and gave MA a picture from Colorado State University Cooperative Extension. It is called the Cat-Face spider. It looks exactly like Charlotte, and fits the description perfectly. Do your spiders come back to the same spot year after year??