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Writing History & Mysteries

When I'm not delving into historical research, I'm planning a character's demise.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Bugs My Nemesis

This post is part of the June Blog Chain at the Absolute Write Forums
The topic is bugs.


There are good bugs, and there are bad bugs that plot to interfere with my carefully planned garden with their evil destructive ways. So I created some rituals myself to DESTROY THEM!

See this bug here?



It is the dreaded Japanese Beetle. It’s a ninja bug. It sneaks in stealth like and hides on the underside of leaves.  You can wake the next morning with your gang of plants decimated, munched down so nothing is left but limbs and veins.

Oh, you can try to set a trap, but it won’t work. You’ll just encourage more to come to their aide. You must kill them! Torch them! Obliterate them if you want them gone. I inspect every under leaf as soon as I spot them. I use my handy tweezers, put them in a cup of gasoline—and light it. MWAH-HA-HA! 


Then there is the elusive, hard to catch, Cabbage White Butterfly.


She looks harmless as she gracefully flutters from plant to plant. But don’t let her fool you. She’s a liar, not a butterfly at all but a lowly moth. Her little children are spawns of Hell. The tiny adorable little green caterpillars lie unmoving like a chameleon in the center vein of a vegetable leaf eating its way through to the next stage of its life-- they hide in the cabbage, they blend into the broccoli head, and sometimes you don’t spot them until they are COOKED ALIVE!


I can’t forget my nemesis the Squash Vine Borer.



It lives up to its name and does exactly that. It looks like a colorful fly. They laugh at me as I chase them with my net, but this year—this year will be different. Pantyhose will encase my zucchini stalks down below the soil, tin foil on their tender limbs.

My defense is against its children who will munch their way up from the base through the squash vines until they wither and die. If you’re lucky you can spot an ill vine, slit it with a knife, and with your tweezers pull out the gooey, writhing, grub-thing. Then put them in a cup with gasoline—and BURN THEM!


HA! Oh bugs in disguise, you will find no rest for your offspring here! For I shall protect the fruits of my labor! 

Below are some pics of last year’s recycle bin garden.




You can read the other bloggers posts on bugs below.
Participants and posts:
orion_mk3 - http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to post)
Diem_Allen - http://mindovermistakes.blogspot.com (link to post)
Ralph Pines - http://ralfast.wordpress.com (link to post)
articshark - http://www.drslaten.com/blog (link to post)
Lady Cat - http://randomwriterlythoughts.blogspot.ca (link to post)
U2Girl - http://ancatdubh.org (link to post)
MsLaylaCakes - http://www.taraquan.com/ (link to post)
SuzanneSeese - http://www.viewofsue.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
robynmackenzie - http://iwanttobeawesomewhenigrowup.com/ (link to post)
Sunwords - http://susannedoering.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
Angyl78 - http://jelyzabeth.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
susanielson - http://somesemblancethereof.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
HistorySleuth - http://historysleuth.blogspot.com (link to post)
SRHowen - http://srhowen1.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
xcomplex - http://arielemerald.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
milkweed - http://www.thistlequill.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
***
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11 comments:

  1. I had to stop growing veggies because I couldn't keep the bugs out. And I didn't want to use store bought pesticides. So it's my local farmer's market for me. But I feel ya on the crazy veggies eating pests. DIE. lol

    ReplyDelete
  2. LOL You'd love my neighbour. He cut a branch from a tree that had a nest of tent caterpillars in it, doused it with gasoline, and set fire to it on his driveway. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's my kind of guy CR!

    ReplyDelete
  4. YES. KILL THEM. KILL THEM WITH FIRE.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I wanted to include pictures of bugs in my post, but really? Termites, fire ants, and cockroaches?

    Pretty butterfly!

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousJune 15, 2013

    So that's what those worm like things in the head of cabbage were...

    (Note: I remember screaming, dropping the cabbage in the trash, and then asking DH to take the bin out. Slight overreaction, I know.)

    MsLaylaCakes

    ReplyDelete
  7. I used to squish those green caterpillars where they lay. Squash bug, ugh!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Okay, I have to ask. Why is your garden in recycling bins?

    ReplyDelete
  9. I have a small village lot and there is no room to plant a garden in the ground. My back yard has room but there's not enough sun and I don't want to lose my whole yard space.. Sort of urban gardening and gardening by the square foot combo method.

    Nice thing is we can move them around if we need too. Requires no weeding other than a random straggler now and then. Plus no bending over. I rather like it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Very nice method, Cindy (oh, and the blogpost made me chuckle--you little bug arsonist, you!) I have some container plants. Next year I will have more. Our little garden above the wild corner of the woods has been decimated by wildlife this year, deer, groundhogs,bunnies, chipmunks...the list goes on and on. I'm disheartened. I have my swisschard in a container already because I can't grow it in the garden. Our dahlias and gladiolas have ALWAYS been safe, but something is eating even them to the ground. ~sigh~ Next year, I guess ;-) Happy gardening!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I did not know about the Squash Vine Borer. The craziest thing of all is that they looks like flies of bees but are actually moths! It just proves that convergent evolution is the mad scientist of nature, as the Tasmanian tiger already showed.

    ReplyDelete

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