Friday, July 29, 2011

Gardens and Hatred

I did not know that there was more hate hidden inside me than what I feel towards injustice and repression and political grandstanding. But today, I found out that yes, there is a living thing that I loathe much more than any of these wrongs.


That living thing is...


the SQUASH BUG.


Last night, I spent some time with a friend who was house-sitting for some organic gardeners with a lot more experience than I have.  These gardeners had left her pictures of the really bad bugs that must be killed.  On closer inspection, it turned out that these were familiar bugs that in fact inhabit my garden.  Several reliable-looking sources online recommended spraying them with a bit of soapy water, so I went outside to do just that, expecting a few peaceful squirts to deal with half a dozen menaces.


Silly me.  Living on my beautiful, vibrant squash plants were HUNDREDS of the little pests, each just chomping away on my precious darlings as if their lives were important too.  Me = LIVID.  Soapy water did help paralyze them as I went on a squash bug massacre, scraping their hideous little eggs of my plant leaves, squirting their despicable guts into a gallon of soapy water, drowning them, squashing them (ha-ha), sending them to bug hell however I could.  But there are just too many of them, and I might be too late--all the stems looked powdery on closer inspection.  DAMN SQUASH BUGS.   All the squash harvest is in danger now, and I can't pull up the potentially diseased vines without taking out my most promising butternut squashes, and damn I hate squash bugs, the non-human paraquats. 

These little blankety-blanks are actually going to replace all the other blankety-blanks in my vocabulary.  What worse could you possibly call someone or something than a squash bug, sucking life out of all that is good and beautiful, then using that magnificent healthy life to spread your pestilent evil?  



On the up side, I harvested four cucumbers, four large tomatoes, and a pint of cherry tomatoes today.  Last night I made a pesto pasta dish using several ingredients from my garden.  Almost everything I cook right now, actually, has at least an ingredient or two from the garden.  My work is helping provide food for my family and friends!  This is the desired outcome!  Garden Love!


Squash bug hate.  Garden love.

1 comment:

  1. I hear free range chickens are a good solution to squash bugs!

    ReplyDelete