Gardening brings one closer not just to the plant world, but
also to the world of creepy, crawly bugs.
Gardening brings one closer not just to the plant world, but also to the world of creepy, crawly bugs.
Being that close to the dirt so often makes one more aware of the variety of life in the soil, on the plants and flying through the air.
Since planting my garden earlier this year, I’ve gotten snails and slugs, of course. And I’ve gotten aphids, although these are like none I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen quite a few in my gardening career. These are red and plump, like the fruit of the tomato plants they’re feasting on. They are just as destructive as the little green kind, although maintaining a strict schedule of weekly aphid destruction has prevented them from really wreaking havoc.
Then there’s this other bug I’ve seen lurking in the back yard. It’s black and yellow (no, it’s not a bee. I know what those look like.); it’s skinny and about a half-inch long, and it moves really slow. Plus, it always looks like it’s smiling, which doesn’t make me afraid, but makes me suspicious. Is this appearance merely a ploy to lure unsuspecting victims into its poisonous trap? Or is it really a nice, friendly bug, the kind you might find as a hero in a Disney cartoon? And I’m not quite certain what it’s been doing in my yard. All in all, it’s a pretty enigmatic bug.
I have also found a green version of this bug hanging out back there, but I assumed the green one was a grasshopper. It’s an assumption I have been happy to maintain because I’m not an entomologist and don’t care to probe the bug’s identity further.
Getting closer to the soil, I have found the ickier life forms – those without legs or with too many legs – squirming around. I’ve also found little white balls that I believe are earthworm eggs, and which I find disturbing because of their size relative to the earthworms from which they allegedly came. They’re pretty big, for earthworm eggs. The only problem with this hypothesis is I haven’t actually seen any earthworms. However, I will continue to hold fast to my belief that these are indeed the eggs of the elusive earthworm, because anything else they might be is probably a lot grosser than an earthworm.
Take, for instance, the grub. There are a lot of them in my soil, and I find them to be one example of something that’s a lot grosser than an earthworm. They’re usually buried kind of deep and all curled up, and they always startle me when I’m digging in the garden, even though I know they’re there. Plus, I’m never quite certain if they’re alive or what they’ll eventually become. Because a grub doesn’t stay a grub its whole life, you know. Frequently, they turn into beetles, which I’m fairly sure will start to munch on my plants, or they’ll turn into something else, which will also start to munch on my plants. It’s a no-win situation with grubs, as far as I’m concerned.
Still, it’s not like my garden is overrun by menacing insects, but I wouldn’t complain if there were a snail-eating bug.
