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Bug Hunting
It seems we have an infestation of earwigs in my garden. They’re rampant. You know how sometimes grasshoppers take over like a plague? It happens every seven years or so and you can’t walk without stepping on a grasshopper? No? I guess that’s just me. I’ve lived through a couple of those and they eat everything! It’s crazy.
It was great when it happened when I was a kid visiting my uncle’s ranch. We used the easily-caught grasshoppers (who practically flew onto our hooks) for bait for fishing and after a while they stopped creeping me out. But other than that one time, I just hate bugs. I especially hate bugs who eat my plants. I hate them with a vengeance.
You can imagine how I felt when I went out to my garden one morning, eager to see the progress all my baby sprouts were making, and saw this! Stupid $%@#! bugs!! They ate my basil down to nubs! They left nothing but but but little itty bitty broken plant bits. How dare they!!! I couldn’t figure out what ate them. There were no bugs in sight. I checked under all the leaves. I googled everything and quickly learned that best way to figure out what’s eating your garden is to track them down at night.
The hunt was so on. I waited until it was really really dark, grabbed the only flashlight I could find, which happened to be Bug’s black cat flashlight that meows loudly every time you squeeze the handle, and set out into the dark. I don’t know what I was expecting to find. Rabbits?
Sure enough as soon as I got close enough to the plants I could see them. The leaves were literally covered with earwigs. Dozens and dozens of them! It was a creepy crawly mess with pinchers and wiggly legs. I should have taken pictures but my night photography isn’t so hot and I was just really grossed out. I couldn’t really do anything with them at the time since I had no intention of picking off each one by hand and I was afraid that spraying them off with a hose would damage the plant and probably wouldn’t really work anyway. So I went back inside to consult google some more and get some rest.
The next night I was prepared. I filled up a squirt bottle with soapy water and armed myself with a canister of Sevin Garden Dust. I had been resisting using any pest control chemicals up until now because I wanted to brag about my vegetables being organic. Well pffffttt. There went that idea. I had no idea the earwigs were going to attack my baby plants in mighty armies!
My parents are big fans of Sevin Garden Dust. They use it to fix any kind of problem that ever arises. Fleas? Sevin Garden Dust. Earwigs? Sevin Garden Dust. Pesky five-year-olds? Sevin Garden Dust. Just kidding. But sometimes I feel like they are forcing it on me. It doesn’t help that my dad was a pest control operator for like twenty years of his life and swears on a bible that you can drink the stuff. I don’t believe him. I think getting cancer from chemicals is a 50/50 chance and we’ve all just gotten lucky so far. But then again that might explain why I have eleven toes. Just kidding again!
Back to my story:
I squirted those earwigs with fury and then lightly sprinkled Sevin Garden Dust around the plants, careful not to actually touch the plants. Fear the wrath of a gardener scorned, I seethed silently to myself as I squirted in the flickering light of my meowing cat flashlight. Who knew gardening would bring out such a hunter in me.
I really shouldn’t be surprised my garden is crawling with nocturnal earwigs. I built the raised garden bed out of earwig-infested bricks after all.
(and a black widow! eeep!)
Since I couldn’t afford to buy wood I just used what I could find around my yard (which is surprisingly a lot of cinder blocks) and every time I unearthed a brick, scads of them scurried in all directions. I didn’t think much of it until my late night inquisition but then it all made sense. I pretty much created a heaven on earth for the earwigs and then offered them some tender juicy leaves to devour. How nice of me.
Consider me schooled.
Feel free to leave me chemical-free alternatives in the comment box if you have ’em. So far the soapy water seems to be working but I’m also on the hunt for some Neem oil (whatever that is) that googles says is just the thing.
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Working out at Earth Gym
Here I’ve been complaining about how much I miss my old beach town and how I used to walk all over the place to burn calories and I’ve got my very own gym to work out in right in my back yard! I’m so dense sometimes. All I needed to do was pick up a shovel and hack at the ground for a few hours and I got the best workout I’ve had in years! My arms hurt, my legs hurt and I went to bed with that tired-muscle feeling that lets you relax into your pillow like butter melting on a hot summer day. There is nothing better than a good hard tired. And I didn’t even have to pay an astronomical gym membership fee to get it!
Really, I should be paying my mom for this workout. It’s all her fault. She keeps buying plants for me even though I protest over the money she’s spending. She sets them right in plain view of my desk and as soon as I clock out for the day from my freelance projects I can’t wait to hit the backyard and plant them. It’s the best incentive ever because I can’t just let them sit there in their packages wilting. They must be planted! Nothing gets me bothered more than a poor sad plant dying because it needs some water and some soil to rest in. So thank you, Mom. Do you know how much money you could be making as a personal trainer?!!
Seriously though, not only is a workout at Earth Gym good for the body, it’s good for the soul. My mom and I probably spent four hours together planning and digging and daydreaming about what our garden will look like come summer. I’m so excited. It’s the best mood lifter ever.
We had wanted to put in raised garden beds but we just couldn’t figure out a way to make them inexpensively. I’m not very good with a hammer and nails and lumber costs a fortune. So in the end we just figured we’d spend more time weeding and do it old-school style in the ground. I mean, really, we have all this dirt to work with, it was a shame not to plant in it. So what if we can’t afford fancy garden boxes? What we’re short on in money, we make up for with time!
At first I was intimidated by the rock-hard dirt and the foxtail infested grass that grows so rampantly out here but after hosing it for an hour it finally gave way to my willpower. I just imagined I was on a elliptical machine and somebody had pushed the “hill mode” button to challenge me. You think you got the best of me, rock-hard dirt? Have some hose water and eat my sweat!
It doesn’t look like much so far but I think if I keep putting in regular workouts every other day, it will probably be the best-looking garden around. Who knows, maybe I’ll have to charge admission and start taking on other customers who want to get a good work out.
Of course I’m the one who will be paying the water bill this summer so I might be paying for this workout in the end but I will be eating fresh fruit and vegetables knowing where they come from and that they have not been treated with chemicals, so there’s that. Not to mention the hours and hours of child care this backyard has provided. That’s a huge savings.
Bug and the neighborhood kids had a blast digging “moats” around the tomato plant “castles.” Shoot, I had a blast too! I love playing with mud and water! It takes me back to my childhood years when my brother and I used to spend whole summer days making rivers and dams and massive cities in the runoff water in the ditch in front of our house. There is nothing more fun than water management.
And then to celebrate a long hot workout, we sprayed water in the air and got everybody wet. It was like champagne without the calories.
I kinda like this healthy Garden Girl look on me, I think I’ll be back at Earth Gym tomorrow!
