While reading reports of calamitous invasions of hurricanes, floods and displacement of whole populations; attempting to track the directions of two world leaders bent on outdoing Mother Nature in threatening destruction of the planet, I find myself musing on a tiny beetle eating our zinnias.
In a way, the beetle is the worst of the other two pests — the hurricanes and the presidents.
Why? The hurricanes may not affect the same area twice; the presidents can be ignored by those around them with greater sensitivity and brain matter. The beetle will respond to the same location with the same ferocity annually.
Its name is diabrotica but it also answers to cucumber beetle and Japanese beetle. I wish it would answer to the birds’ call for dinner.
It is decimating our flowers, ruining probably 90 percent of them — all colors and sizes, particularly our zinnias. The bigger the flower head the greater the munches and there isn’t much we can do but complain.
They are attracted to the color yellow, hence, flowers of the cucurbit family fall prey to them. Cucurbits include melons, squash — both winter and summer. All of the flowers are a rich butter yellow.
The pesticide industry cleverly created a cardboard card, painted it butter yellow and then slathered a sticky substance over the yellow paint. If the card is affixed to a post or limb near where the beetles feed, they often land on the sticky card forever.
Sadly, I caught a lovely bumblebee, a honeybee and a few ladybugs on the card, but there are enough diabroticas attached to make it worthwhile.
I am hoping that flocks of birds will descend and remove them en masse. Or, an additional hope would be the weaving of spider webs amongst the zinnias, trapping them as gifts for thirsty spiders, so that the spider will wind them up and suck the juice out of them, dropping their dry little carcasses onto the ground.
Which reminds me: a little girl named Charlotte visited the farmers’ market last weekend. When she was introduced to me I asked her if she learned to like spiders when she heard the story of “Charlotte’s Web.”
“Yes,” she answered. “There was a wolf spider in the bathroom!” she added.
“Did someone catch it and put it back outside?” I inquired.
There followed a rather lengthy discussion about how to accomplish that, using a drinking glass and stiff paper such as a postcard or a small envelope, and the little girl listened. At the conclusion she said “Mom came in and squished the spider with her shoe.”
In the comics, the “Pickles” wife is wearing a pair of steel toed boots to step on spiders. I hope it will be followed by her carefully returning the remaining spiders to their outside world, using the glass and paper routine. Is there any need to explain how and why this should be the procedure?
The “how” involves three steps: place a water glass over the offending spider. Slide the paper beneath the glass and the spider will hop onto the paper. Holding the paper against the glass, lift it altogether, walk outside and release.
The “why” has many reasons — personally practical and universally healthy.
Personally, I find nothing more irritating than house flies. They land on food; they land on us; they buzz into the last lamplight next to the last reader at night. A spider web in the house can catch flies and also mosquitoes.
Out in the garden, spiders eat their weight in insects that cause crop damage and disease. They are the largest members of the beneficial insect world.
To conclude: even if you are afraid of spiders, you can get over it.
My sister and I did. We were taught by our mother to scream every time we found a spider in the corner of our bedroom wall near the ceiling in our Larkspur home. We had a giant pine tree near our house and all sorts of quiet corners spiders found welcome.
We need more quiet corners in our world, for beneficial spiders to inhabit; less mass extinction, biocides, hydrogen bombing of the Pacific Ocean. By the way, what on earth or in the sea did the whales and dolphins do to warrant such a threat?
Renee Kiff weeds and writes at her family farm in Alexander Valley.
