Monday, July 25, 2011


HEY, THAT'S MY LEAF!

All my life I've been nice to various species, Ever since I got past the frog-snake-salamander-catching age, it's been live and let live. Even in gardening, a worldwide battlefield, I say let's go organic, no insecticides etc. But when I walk out to my quietly growing garden and observe that many of my tomato leaves look like antique lace, gnawing at the edge of which lace is not a cute little aphid-devouring ladybug, but a Bob’s-tomato-leaf-devouring bug, to whom I say "Hey, that's my leaf!" but I'm talking to myself, they never listen, so

I amble back to the house to get some liquid detergent, pour a little into a cutoff PET bottle, then add hose water to 2/3 level to get a good head on it, after which I make my rounds from laceleaf to laceleaf, tipping and flicking the not so lucky notladybugs into the frothy mixture, where they can enjoy a warm bubble bath and come out all clean and dead. While I'm at it, I do the same for the weasely weevils on my peppers, who also love a bath, and dive right in with a little prodding. I do two rounds to be sure. A couple days later the tomatoes and peppers are taller and healthier; the bugs are clean and together with their gods.

It is a service I perform for the vegetable world, which rewards me with its delicious and nourishing fruits, some of whose seeds I save for the following year; it's a deal we got going. As a vegetable vassal I help the scarlet, emerald and golden nobles grow, and they help me get from year to year.

Now if I could get a bubble bath that would hold a dozen monkeys at a time, we could move on into the Renaissance...


7 comments:

esbboston said...

Just as I'm reading this story an ant walks across my iPad screen. I have had unusually good luck with few tomato worms this year, maybe its our drought conditions, not sure. I do enjoy my mantises very much, both indoors and out. My grapes are getting close to picking, I think, its my first year to have fruit.

Robert Brady said...

Grapes, ah, grapes-- I remember those-- Fortunate indeed is he who is without monkeys... Enjoy the fruits of your labor...

Tabor said...

I must say, the vision of monkeys in a bubble bath is quite a vision. Although I see them in a hot tub with cold drinks in hand.

Robert Brady said...

Good idea! Maybe if they had some stiff drinks first...

Mary Lou said...

I thought Japan is where they tell tourists that the monkeys DO sit in hot springs in the falling snow! Maybe you just need to dump some bubbles into it.

Robert Brady said...

I need something much deeper. The bubble bath idea might work as an enticement though...

esbboston said...

I was randomly wandering through wikipedia and came across an article on "Shishi odoshi", it sounded just like the kind of thing you need for your garden, at least for the things with ears.