When you are a gardener, something is always trying to destroy all your hard work. It’s frustrating. Seems like most of my conversations with other growers involve commiserating about the shit that’s eating our garden and brain storming about how to remedy those situations.

Gardeners can get surprisingly violent. They’ve got murder on their minds. Even the Boss started using combat terminology — declaring war on the bugs.

Typically, gardeners are fighting a war on three fronts: 1. Four legged creatures (skunks, coons, voles, deer, etc.) 2. Weather (too cold, too windy, too dry, etc.) 3. Bugs (too many to name)

We are currently fighting on the insect front. No mercy for bugs.

It’s the smallest creatures that drive the biggest wars. We are fighting against an invisible army that moves quietly in the dark. Those little buggers (not going to say fuckers, trying to cut back on that word) can do a lot of damage in a short time. We wake up each morning and assess the damage, oh the poor cauliflower. Then we play guessing games about what kind of evil is at work because we are too lazy to get up in the middle of the night and go out to the garden to face our enemies head on.

Know thy enemy. Isn’t that one of the main tenants of war? We know there are earwigs, slugs, flea beetles, cut worms and many other things we can’t see.

A common tactic amongst gardeners, us included, is to plant more than you need. Some for us, some for the bugs. But our brassicas are getting taken out en masse. The Boss has made three trips to the local greenhouse for brussel sprouts because the bugs keep mowing them down. I think we’ve planted something like 40 brussel sprout starts to hopefully get a few to survive. I’ve noticed other seeds sprouting, only to come out the next morning to nothing! (Wait, wasn’t there a tiny plant here yesterday or am I loosing it?) The bugs wage some serious psychological warfare.

We’ve been too afraid to put the marigolds on the front line because we aren’t prepared to loose them in the line of battle. Those things are so root bound in their little six-packs waiting for the bugs to either die or evolve into their next phase of life.

I’d say the bugs are winning at the moment. But the Boss is gearing up for WWI, which means chemical warfare (organic only, ‘cuz he’s a lover not a fighter). Pyrethrin is his weapon of choice. It’s made from chrysanthemums and targets the bugs’ nervous systems.

It’s a tricky tactic. We need ma nature’s cooperation and she’s in a rainy mood these days. We can only spray when it’s dry. When we can’t spray, we pray.

The plants seem to be slowly rebounding from all the bug damage. But the war isn’t over, there’s just a bigger plant to bug ratio so the damage is better mitigated. The General is still fighting the good fight, staying up late so he can spray, assessing the battle field each morning, and planing his strategy for the upcoming confrontations.

On the other hand, I’m having a party for the slugs and they’re all invited to the tuna can to partake of some Miller High Life, the Champaign of Beers. Apparently the slugs like to party because the tuna cans are full of drunk slugs each morning. So many slugs. Just call me the slug slayer.