Live or Let Die?

I’ve just got back from a long weekend running around Scandinavia with one of my girlfriends. Lots of interesting things happened that weekend. Among the less interesting things was her announcement that she no longer kills insects. She told me this whilst tenderly plucking a blood sucking flying thing from her arm and releasing it back into the wild. When I say less interesting, I mean less interesting for you. There’s no getting around it anymore, I’ve become a fully fledged gardening geek so in fact I find a decision like that fascinating.

For a few weeks now I’ve been studiously ignoring the growing sense of guilt at my brutal approach to any insect that manages to find its way into my garden. I’ve doubtless learnt this behaviour from my mum who positively enjoys the crunch of a snail meeting its doom. She in turn learnt this from her mother who used to throw spiders into jars of bleach. “How cruel!” I hear you cry? And whilst I must agree, “she lived in different times”, I find myself replying, “tougher times when it was difficult to muster sympathy for the Andrex puppy let alone an unwanted spider.”

I digress. I don’t think my guilt comes from the actual killing of bugs and grubs, it’s more that I haven’t taken the time to think about it enough and decide my stance. This has left me in a thoroughly unsatisfactory position. When I choose to ignore a woodlouse scurrying away from me back to the safety of my beetroot pots, I feel a little ball of resentment grow inside of me. By contrast, when I leave them to it, my lettuce end up looking positively polka dotted.

I think it would be a worthy thing to spend the time researching the ecological impact of the insect inhabitants of my terrace and making a valid judgement that way. Unfortunately I am not always a worthy person and I’m hoping that the more ecologically versed among you will comment and let me know what to kill and what to keep.

I think I should qualify here that my ambivalence to insectkind is not wholly unfounded. Some of you may remember that earlier this year my rosemary bush was infested with beetles, though they’re now departed, the rosemary failed to flower this year and has never quite recovered. I have countless similar such stories where my plants have been left battered and bruised by some insect or another.

On the other hand, I do love it when my plants are adorned with butterflies and bees. More than that, gardens depend on a diverse wildlife, and who am I to decide what stays and what goes?

But my rosemary… butterflies… basil… bees… oh the dilemma.

I think I’ve reached a conclusion… I pledge to only kill insects that I’m sure are causing harm to my plants. Oh and mosquitoes. My war on mosquitoes will be waged until my death.

Thanks for listening.

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The grass isn't always greener...

The first “we’re going to lose our deposit” moment came around about the time I installed the bath on the terrace. I was convinced that the weight of the soil would cause the roof to cave in… fingers crossed but so far so good.

The second “we’re going to lose our deposit” moment was a lot less hypothetical and a little more serious. The rabbits outgrew the first hutch we bought them within a matter of minutes… ok it was a fortnight but it felt like minutes to my wallet. Their new hutch is the granddaddy of all hutches. There’s an upstairs where they live, eat and sleep, and a downstairs where they frolic and play. The downstairs goes directly onto the decking. It took me a while to realise what they were doing… as if chewing their hutch up wasn’t enough for them, the cheeky things had started chewing the terrace up as well. A small part of me believes that I’ll be able to cover it up with some wood stain; a large part of me knows that that this is false belief.

The last “we’re going to lose our deposit” moment was four days ago and went along these lines: “Oh f$%k”.

I was knelt on the top level of the terrace gazing fondly at the new tomatoes that are starting to appear and then I saw it. It’s a fairly common sight so it took me a while to take it in.

Saw it, registered it, brain starts to process it, brain trips up, brain reports back that something is a little unusual, saw it. Four blades of grass, boldly standing there on my terrace.

What’s wrong with grass? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with grass shall I? My garden is a roof terrace with WOODEN DECKING, and wooden decking my dear friends is no place for grass.

I pulled one blade up. Got temporarily distracted by the grass seed… it really was amazing. The blade made a satisfying “pop” sound as it came up and still attached to one end was a wonderful, succulent grass seed.

Now I always remember grass seed to be quite seed-y, whereas this, well this was positively pip-y. I pulled the next blade up and the next and the next, and with a “pop” each one told the same story. Lush green stem, approximately 20 centimetres long, each attached to a juicy pip like seed.

How did this happen? Evidently fairly easily. My hunch is that every time I cleaned the first hutch out, a small amount of old bedding (hay) and rabbit droppings (poo) had fallen between the gaps in the decking. Now I’m a little hazy on the science bit but my assumption is that the hay we were using wasn’t thoroughly “cleaned” of its spores, and the dark, damp environment underneath the decking was the perfect condition for the rabbit droppings to decay into manure. Chuck in a bit of warm weather and rain, and lo and behold, four blades of grass appear.

Short of tearing up the terrace I now have no idea how I’m going to clear the rest of the hay out from underneath it. If I’m really unlucky, I may end up with a lawn to rival Wimbledon’s….

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