The invasion is in full swing. Aphids abound. They are overwhelming this year and are doing what aphids do: devour. There is no winning this battle, just the hope that you can keep them under control.Our property came with roses - too many roses. After removing more than twenty I still have twenty-five or so left. I'm not a huge fan but some of them are quite nice and until I figure out what else to do with those spaces the roses remain. That fact makes the aphids quite happy. They line up and suck sap. They crowd one another and eat until there is nothing left but dead stems. They are, in a word, evil.
Having an aversion to chemicals, I introduced ladybugs and initially they worked, but now even they are undone. Those ladies either look like dead, tank-floating, goldfish done in by overabundance or; as if they're in some kind of gluttonous, post-Thanksgiving, torpor. They lounge next to the aphids trying to nap: "Oh no thanks, not another bite. I'm stuffed." I feel as if I should enroll them all in a gym or Jenny Craig. Still the aphids come.
I have taken to working myself around the rosebuds daily and simply squeezing the life from the suckers between my thumb and finger as I run them up the stem. Aphid guts have stained my fingers brown. Yet everyday, there are more. They especially like the new shoots, covering them so thickly that they are two and three critters deep. Where do they come from?
I have made it my mission to wipe them out. If ahimsa really does matter, I'm going to have a lot to answer for.
4 comments:
ahimsa is a total load.
so what, are the seal lions going to experience negative karmic consequences because they tortured that sunfish and left it to die at the bottom of the sea, finless and bleeding? fuck no, they're sea lions. that's what god made them for.
and what, plants don't qualify as living organisms now? how convenient for the ahimsa-hugging vegetarians. corn is murder!
and what about the millions of microorganisms my human body destroys each day as a matter of course? should i take immuno-suppressant drugs to compromise my immune system so as not to wreak havoc on these cellular structures specially designed to wreak havoc on me?
hells no. it's Job's universe baby.
excuse my spleen.
yes, much better, thank you.
i suggest you go make a mild soapy water solution, put it in a misting bottle, and spray those fucking aphids, daily, to death.
that's what god made you for.
now as for that last bit of smallpox strain they're keeping alive in that WHO lab, well, I think it's kind of cute and I sort of feel sorry for it. that's what god made me for.
Banks, you ok man?
oh yeah. i'm having a good chuckle as I reread my miniscreed.
more boringly though, i used to have aphid problems on roses in Cali. see the thing about lovely Cali is that you get a climate which provides 3 to 4 bloomings a season, unlike the sucky Midwest, which gets you 1, rarely 2.
in return though, the sucky Midwest provides summer rainstorms which regularly wash the aphids clean and allow the bushes some respite.
not so in lovely Cali, where you get one long dry season in which the aphids thrive unabated. So
A) you can replicate the Midwest and hose down your bushes with powerful jets of precious water every few days, or
B) you can call the Orkin man, or
C) you can pretend yr Al Gore.
i too bought buckets of ladybugs, with limited success. My best results were obtained via repeated misting of the mild soapy water solution. doesn't hurt the plants, but aphids don't like, no. other organic remedies include misting solutions of cinnamon, garlic, or cayenne pepper. the key is constant applications.
i'm sure you know all this tho'.
so am I ok? sure. i think I just missed my garden.
Yeah, I've tried the hose and the soap, but to be honest, I get some pleasure in the up close, mass slaughter.
Aphids take the brunt of my bad days.
Post a Comment