I have to say, spring is my favourite time of the year. Everything is growing like mad and all the foliage is bright and fresh and new. You can sit out on the deck in the evenings without needing to wear three layers and the mosquitos and european wasps have yet to put in more than cameo appearances.
Having said that, here are my…
TOP 3 HORRIBLE JOBS FOR SPRING
- Picking the shield beetles off the citrus– There’s no decent organically friendly way of killing these little buggers, at least not that I know of. They fly and they squirt stinky stuff into your face if they get the opportunity. I’ve taken to putting on a glove, grabbing them and drowning them in a bucket of water. I heard a story once about someone who sucked them up with a vacuum cleaner, needless to say, his partner wasn’t very amused.
- Picking the cabbage-white caterpillars off the broccoli and kale-
White cabbage moth caterpillar we have lots of broccoli and kale at the moment, which is a good thing, because half of it is being consumed by caterpillars. I’ve tried organic control methods for these little bastards without a lot of success, but I’m going to give the sprays another go, because very few things are more revolting than picking them off one by one and stomping on them. Last year I didn’t know they were there until I found them, nicely cooked, at the bottom of my vegetable steamer. Yum.
- Hunting molluscs with a torch in the rain– okay, maybe I’m getting a bit obsessional, but I confess to having been out there with a set of tongs and a heavy pair of boots on various wet evenings. For the record, ringing your baby plants with eggshells or coffee grounds doesn’t work. I tried the whole beer trap thing only to go down one night and find I was running a free bar for enormous slugs, who were all busy slurping away at the beer while very obviously not falling into the trap. Now they just get grabbed and mashed and I save the beer for more worthy purposes.
