I’ve Learned Two Things About Rabbits

My wife and I have a system. If she calls my cell phone two times in a row when I’m at work, it means she really needs to talk to me and I should leave whatever soul-sucking meeting I’m in. When you are garden crazy, here are the kinds of double phone calls you get:

Me: Hey, what’s going on?

Wife: There are rabbits in your garden.

Me: Rabbits? S? More than one?

Wife: Kyle saw them. Yeah.

Me: In? In my garden?

Wife: Yeah.

Kyle In Background: He hopped away.

Wife: I let the dog out. He’s patrolling now.

Me: Good. Let’s not feed him for a while. Bet he’d love a soft little bunny.

In Winnie The Pooh, Rabbit was always the flustered gardener. Meticulous and neat, but always on the edge because he knew that Tigger was soon to come bouncing by, smashing his cabbages and carrots. He spent every waking moment with his garden and somehow always seemed to bounce back when some tragedy wiped out his work.

Well, I don’t really think that A.A. Milne spent much time studying the animals he wrote about. I’m here to tell you – rabbits aren’t the patient gardeners Milne led me to believe they were. They are, in fact, varmints and they will leave no clue as to how they infiltrated your garden. There will be no hole dug beneath your fence. There will be no ladder left behind. There will be nothing that indicates to you how they did it. And they will eat. They will not wait for winter and patiently stockpile things. They will eat as if their survival depended upon it because it does. And can you blame them for wanting to enjoy beet greens over grass shoots?

About two years ago I had some rabbit. Cooked in a french way.

So, I’ve learned two things about rabbits. First, they don’t garden in the traditional sense. Second, they taste delicious.

Filed under: garden pests , garden rabbits, varmints

Get Your Estate In Order Aphids: Good Guys Arrive

Here’s the thing with pests. By definition they must be doing something to bother you. And in a very weird way, I welcome the sight of pests in my garden. If they’re trolling around on my tomato, lettuce, and potato leaves it must mean that they value the meal. And if they value the meal, it must mean that good stuff is being offered. Twisted, but it just seems like if the bugs dig my plants I’m on to something.

I don’t use sprays and chemicals. As I explained in the monkeys eat bugs post, I mostly just get down in the dirt and pluck the bugs off myself. Still, I love it when the cavalry arrives!

Today the cavalry were all ladybugs AND (this was cool) ladybug larvae.

The ladybugs are all over the potatoes, peas, and greens. They cluster together sometimes in the shade of leaves (or twine), strike out on their own for some water or bugs, and get down to larvae business.

It is worth rejoicing if you are seeing not just ladybugs, but the larvae. They eat like my 1 year old son – cramming fistful after fistful of pests into their jaws while they build up the means to hit the pupae stage before becoming the black-spotted dealers of bug justice that we all know and love.

The larvae just look amazing to me. Most of the time they are described as alligators and I can see that. They taper toward the end and the tail can look like the scaly, segmented tail of an alligator. But the blur of dusty red on their middle, the black of their bodies, their impressive jaws – they look like deadly aliens.

The larval stage lasts a while, several weeks. The pupae stage happens when they decide to take a little rest. After about a week, the pupae are gone and we’ve got adult ladybugs ready to defend the harvest.

The good guys are here bad guys. Head for the hills.

Filed under: garden pests, pests , ladybug larvae

View From Above June 1

The moment has arrived!  The much-anticipated mostly indistinct view from above!

Things are growing.  Almost everything is in.  There is room for another tomato and I will probably replace a few plants that just aren’t doing well.  In the back, the potatoes are going bananas.  I spent part of the day yesterday getting them hilled with lots of soil and I laid down the straw mulch.  The lettuces have been great with only the arugula not doing well.  It’s in an odd spot behind the peas and I thinned it yesterday to see if that would help.  (While thinning I noticed a crazy infestation of some kind of weird, small, round bug.. not good.)

The beans… well, they got in the dirt when it was too cold.  Germination has been slow and small.  I’ve got more beans ready to go and later today they’ll get replanted.

 

Filed under: aerial views, garden pests, vegetable garden , aerial view garden, vegetable garden

Termite Terminator

Eek!  A termite!

After letting go of my skirts and climbing down from the garden fence, I confirmed my sighting.  Termites. 

I was turning the soil in the tomato beds and I could see a big scoop of winged buggies and several companion, pale, amber-tipped crawlers, blindly scooting through the dirt.  After some additional jedi-inspired soil smashing with my rake, I stopped to wonder if they were good for the dirt or not. 

Not, I decided and continued my pummeling.

Then I stooped and crushed with my fingers, combing through the dirt, unearthing them, sifting them, destroying them!

As it turns out, they are probably not good for the plants and will eat the stems.  Or, they are good for the dirt and carry organic matter just like ants.  Well, whatever.  My wife has a term for insects in the house (the ones I frequently save by guiding them gently outside) – trespassers.  In my garden all benevolent feeling for bugs seems to leave me.  They are, in fact, trespassers. 

Turning the soil is a good way to eliminate them.  They don’t like to be disturbed.  Pinching each of the several hundred of them is satisfying also. 

It’s typical to find several colonies of termites in a lawn so I’m not too worried.  But if I catch them even looking at my tomato bed again, I will not hesitate to bring the full force of my personal, chemical-free, shock and awe down upon them.

Just as soon as I stop shrieking like a little girl.

Filed under: garden pests , pests in garden