WEEVIL JUICE

I do my gardening pest treatment in true scientific but fully organic fashion. I never use insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, anycides. If it's necessary, I just do with less produce, but that rarely happens to any extreme.

This year I'm growing a lot of green peppers, naively providing major party hangouts for a kind of weevily insect I've never seen before and can't find on the gardening sites, so I figured it's time for my all-purpose hot pepper spray, maybe not as strong or detergenty as the one that killed the impressively sudsy peach tree back when I first moved here.

So I started with two fresh hot peppers (I always grow the Japanese "hawk's talon" kind), mashed them up in hot water, filtered it, added more water and a bit of detergent in a spray bottle then spritzed the mixture over the partying weevils, who scattered like the ceiling sprinklers had just come on at CBGB. I checked again an hour later and they were all back at the party, chatting, flirting, even mating, so I ramped the juice up with two more peppers, sprayed the party venues again and the weevs made greater haste away this time, but when I went back well after lunch (scientific method) they were all back in place as flagrant as before, leaning on the green walls and chatting weevily.

So this time, for the last attempt of the day I added three more peppers - that juice was getting pretty pink by now (had to be extra careful how I handled the incendiary mixture) and sprayed it over the numerous parties: the weevs stopped whatever they were doing and leaped for their lives; some dove for the ground, some flew away to unhellsome places. I stopped whatever I was doing too, because the breeze turned and I began to breathe the nanovapors.

No idea yet how all this will affect the pepper flowers or budding fruits, cough, cough, but it's all for science and I know those weevs were up to no good, they don't just hang around for the good of the peppers. Hack, hack. If they're back at it tomorrow (the sound of weevil laughter is a cutting thing), my thoughts will likely begin to drift toward organochlorine compounds, though I will never follow...

I'll just ramp the juice again, not breathe when I spray, and enjoy my share of the party leftovers.

SIMPLE VEGETARIAN RECIPES


Thinly Sliced Tomatoes

Ingredients: tomatoes
Slice thinly.
Stare at slices until satisfied.

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Onions comme ça

Ingredients: onions
Do whatever you want,
they're your onions.

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Fresh Green Beans

Ingredients: green beans, fresh.
Serve while fresh.
Discard immediately.

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Carrots aux Terre

Ingredients: carrots
Pull carrots from ground;
eat with dirt still on.

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Green Peppers In Situ

Ingredients: green peppers
Kneel on ground;
eat peppers from plant.

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Okra a la Gravité

Ingredients: okra plant
Lie on ground beneath plant
until desired okra pod falls into open mouth.
Change position for additional servings.

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Corn on the Cob

Ingredients: corn; cobs
Just make sure the corn stays on the cob.
Nothing more is required of you.

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Aubergines a la Idée Fixe

Ingredients: none
Think of nothing but eggplants.

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Zucchini sans souci

Ingredients: none
Don't even think about it.

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