A Shocking Betrayal of Friends!

I thought these guys were my friends!  Their cute, tickly crab legs, their somersault bodies, their way of munching all the leaves I was too lazy to rake...  But clearly, strawberries have major appeal for these land crustaceans.  Last year, I bemoaned every nibble found on the handful of strawberries my plants put out, clutching them to my chest and muttering "my precious..."  I blamed the slugs.  I shooed away the seed bugs, who seemed to cause the least damage but were present nonetheless.  I even did an experiment this year: letting strawberries run rampant among several companion plants.  I tried pairings with chives, lemon balm, mint, borage, feverfew, thyme, and just mulch.  Well, guess what?  Mulch is were seed bugs and pill bugs hang out, over-wintering as well.  I found them everywhere except above the creeping phlox.  The creeping phlox is dense and spiky, blocking access to the mulch and none too pleasant to walk across, I bet.  I think the thyme (especially wooly thyme) would work as well, but my plants are still quite sparse.  One thing is clear: strong smells do not keep these pests away.  My solution: Let the strawberries run rampant.  You'll still get pest damage, but the 88 "good" strawberries we picked this morning make me feel less precious about sharing a few here and there.  Then make a strawberry pizza with spicy oregano or lemon thyme and tangy goat cheese share it with your friends.

Mommy, there's something in my room...

Dear readers, this post will not be about food.  In fact, don't read it if you are eating.  On that note, I'd like to share with you the many unwanted visitors to our home this summer and how we got rid of them without resorting to toxic chemicals.

First, the male harem.  We returned from our vacation to find male winged ants all over the floor.  There's the tiniest of holes near my front door that goes under the floor to a crack opening about two feet away.  Whether it was the promise of water or the smell of food (we cleared everything out before we left aside from pet food), the summer Romeos found their way in, clumsily ambling about and mostly hanging around the bathroom.  After several sweep-and-flushes during what appeared to be their active time (3 a.m. – I was still on GMT), a blend of borax and sugar in the above-mentioned crack as well and the trillion spiders that cobweb the ceiling and stairs, they are no longer.  Such potential mates for the queen only hang around a short time anyway.

Next was the "Mommy, there's something in my room".  Not knowing what to expect from a four year old, I thought maybe the stinkbugs of winter were back for more.  No, something worse: narrow-waisted, alien, long-legged, flying...a black wasp!  It appeared to have come from her closet.  I wasn't sure how it got in, but shooed it out through the second-floor window and promptly shut the screen.

"Mommy, there's something in my room again..."

Agh!  Another one?!  Same deal: Coming from the closet, and I chased out the window.  After six more times of this, I decided to investigate the closet.  I looked around with a flashlight.  Nothing.  I took out all the clothes and stepped inside, peering deep into the cedar-lined corners.  Nothing.  I turn around in the closet (a very small closet, mind you).  There, above the sliding door, was the mud nest.  I grabbed the first thing that looked thick enough: my daughter's corduroy dress that she had left on the floor.    I pulled the thing off whole, wrapped it tightly, and ran!  (Later, I found a minute opening in the ceiling and sealed it.)

Outside, I dumped the mass into a jar with a perforated lid.  Who needs to waste money on those cheap plaster science toys that come with the wooden chisel, when I had the real cracker-jack prize right here.  I had caught a glimpse of a larva as I had grabbed the nest.  Mostly, the nest looked like just a mass of gray mud.  Not exactly being scientific, I shook the nest into oblivion, fearing more wasps were inside ready to attack.

 Now the nest was reduced to powder.  Nothing moved.  I spread the contents onto a towel.   There were the larva, which moved slightly.  I counted 8 with my fork.  And orb spiders.  THIRTY orb spiders!  All dead.  I wondered who was food for who, but considering the life-less arachnids, I made an assumption.  After some internet research, I learned that "mud marauders" build nests from mud, lay their eggs in tube-like chambers, and leave paralyzed spiders either in the chamber or adjacent to it.  The web (no pun intended) cited jumping spiders as the likely food source, but these were definitely orb spiders.  I even found one in the window sill.  Well, that took care of that...

"Mommy, something's in my room AGAIN!"

You've got to be kidding me!  I sealed the crack!  With a framed picture, I batted the wasp out the window again, quickly closing the screen.  In a minute, I saw another one.  Wait.  I looked under the blind.  The top half of the sliding window was open a full inch.  No screen.

The newly started nest was removed.  The pieces vacuumed.  The window if officially closed.  It's been four days, and no more mommy wasp.

Now we have meal moths!  They started in a quite old box of lasagna.  These moths usually begin as eggs already present in the food when you bought it, but the food is usually consumed before the tiny eggs hatch into larva then pupate into a tiny off-white moth.  In fact, the accidental eating of insects is what staves off anemia in vegetarian Asian Indians.  When these people move to, say, London, where food sanitation is stricter, they develop anemia.  Still, I'd rather not eat bugs if I have a choice.  We tossed food, transfered any thinly-packaged food to glass or thick plastic containers, and have two teenage boys eating 3-4 boxes of cereal a week as well as all the pasta.  I'm killing any moths on sight.  Bay leaf is supposed to deter them, so I will put some in the cupboards as soon as I finish this post.  The cobweb spiders earn their keep, but I'll be cleaning up all those cobwebs again!

Getting Buggy With It

Hard at work...

I love watching insects.  They are so specifically designed.  The Madagascar Star Orchid, or “Darwin orchid”, has an impressive 11” "nectar spur", a long tubular extension of the flower that holds the nectar.  When Darwin studied it, he anticipated a pollinator with an equally long tongue that could reach the nectar.  It wasn’t until 40 years later that this moth was found, with a proboscis averaging 10”.  It’s likely the hawkmoth Xanthophan morgani praedicta kept evolving a longer tongue to better reach the nectar while the flower developed a deeper spur to accommodate it.  This is called "coevolution."  Fascinating.

This past weekend, my friend Christian Drake, who writes the Quantum Biologist, was in town.  We explored the woods, he identifying the various trees and me the edible plants.  We came across an unusual looking insect, something that looked like a moth but built more like a fly, with one pair of black wings with orange stripes.  Maybe a snipe fly.  I will research that later on Bug Guide.  It was on that excursion I told him 

about the ants.

Sphinx Moth caterpillar

I don’t mind ants, per se.  If they’re in the house, I squish them and set out Borax traps, but if they’re outside, I mostly leave them alone.  They let me know when I have an aphid infestation, because they harvest the honeydew off them, herding them like cattle.  (They’ll even fight off the ladybird beetles who try to eat them.)  They certainly aerate the soil.  And my daughter enjoys lifting up the rock border of our garden beds to look at them.

Earlier last week, I went out to just enjoy the garden on a warm spring night.  On top of the steps was the largest ant I’d ever seen, dancing around with a small ant with wings.  I presumed the winged ant was male, and after a quick Google search, revealed the behemoth to be a queen carpenter ant.  I squished it with a small box on the welcome mat.

A few days later, it happened.  Mid-afternoon, as thick as brownies, tiny ants were crawling back and forth in a big trail around my strawberry plants...  “They’re after me gold!” I felt like shouting.  I tried researching if this swarm was because I had killed the queen, but all I could find out was that they quite like strawberries.  It was time to get medieval.

Crane Fly?

The slugs and snails had been lured to dessicated, beer-filled ends.  The garlic chives were at the end of their flower.  Now to whip out the big guns for I.P.M. (Integrated Pest Management): I transplanted two of my new feverfew seedlings to the area, chock full of pyrethrum, a potent insecticide.  I also tore up leaves from the parent plant to release the oils and threw those all over.  Next, I shook out a heavy dose of diatomaceous earth (microscopic ocean critter skeletons) right over the ants and all access points to the strawberries.  The stuff feels like talc to us, but is like walking on broken glass.  (Don’t breathe it in or ingest it.)  By morning, they were gone.  I spread coffee grounds all around, because the smell deters them, just for good measure. 

I even stake the taller plants with the biggest berries to keep them off the ground and away from tiny feasters.  I know ants and slugs can get up there anyway, but they'll have to work harder.  Meanwhile, the long-necked seed bugs are back.  A quick shake and squish (put a plate underneath), and the strawberries are safe.  For now.   

Long-Necked Seed Bugs