Monday, June 29, 2009

Welcome and Unwelcomed Garden Guests

Hi, Hidinginmygarden!! Good to see you.

Seemingly the only good thing about July in Georgia is that the garden centers and craft stores start to freak out about their summer garden inventory and start marking everything down. We went to a craft store today to buy a dream catcher kit for the boy (he wanted one, but please remind me how spatially inept I am if I try to make another), and he spotted these frogs on 70% clearance. Who could resist!?

I couldn't, that's for sure. This dude takes up an entire SQFT, but he's worth it next to the sprawling cantaloupe.
This guy had a totally different feel, so I put him in the other corner yard with the sweet potatoes and butternut squash. Now that I look at him, I'll need to either put a drainage hole in the bottom or just dump him out when it rains.

Now I need to find one more to put in the side yard beds. They had additional ones, but the girl got tired of the "put your hands in your pockets" game and started touching things, so we left.

I found this little guy below on a zucchini leaf which I thought was rather odd. He was just sitting there, obviously not feeling well. Sure enough, a breeze came by, threw him off balance, and he fell down buzzing all the way, but not gaining flight. I haven't sprayed the garden with anything in the last month and a half or more, but I suppose even these guys have a life span. He did his fair share of pollinating. Thank you, Mr. Bee.

This next MammaJamma was cordially invited to leave at her earliest convenience. I've only seen one of these before in my life, but it was at the old house. She was in the corner of the gate door by the new corner yard. I found her when I was going to fetch the hose to water. I know EG posted tons of pictures of the black widow spiders he found last year, but it really makes me pause when I go digging around in those bush beans or zucchini bushes and the like.
She was a problem, yes, and I don't know what the tan thing is next to her, but that gargantuan, creme egg sac in the background was my real concern. Nope. No can do. The man came home and promptly introduced her and the egg sac to his hammer. It was beautiful carnage.

Now, I know spiders have their place in nature and I've never killed one in my garden for that reason, but there are spiders and there are spiders. My children play back there and I won't chance them picking up one of these lovely ladies while trying to coerce her into their bug box. Other spiders can stay. She will go.

Otherwise in the garden, we took the hanging beans and cucumbers which didn't do anything at all worth while out of the baskets and hung some wave petunias instead. Very pretty. The boy wants to plant lavender so badly because he thinks it smells like Mommy's lipstick, so we might go to find some later tonight, but I think we're out of season.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

16 comments:

  1. I don't blame ya with that spider! I have never seen one for real and hope not to! I try to leave the spiders alone so they can work in my garden even though I absolutely detest them! They just creep me out!

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  2. Ewww...one ugly freakin' spider. Never thought about a hammer as organic pest control, but it would certainly work! I have to watch out for these ladies, too, so I can sympathize.

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  3. Cute froggies but ugly spider! The dream catcher idea came from watching a show at grandma and grandpa's.

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  4. Shawn Ann and sb158, I know! I kept looking at it and saying, "Nah...Yeah? Nah," back and forth. I wish I could have transplanted it, but I wasn't going to risk a bite.

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  5. Hi Mom. The boy told us about the film after he had the dream that his grandfather called the police to take his sister away because she was eating popcorn kernels and they gave him a balloon to make him feel better but it wouldn't fly. He asked for the dream catcher the next morning.

    We did have a talk about how some bad dreams can make it through, but they'll always teach him something like don't let the girl eat popcorn kernels.

    Bad dreams may be difficult to contend with. Monsters are easy. Put a fake label on some Febreeze and you have instant Monster Spray.

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  6. I really try to be a live-and-let-live type of person but I too tend to squish the widows. Sometimes it's hard to get a good look at the belly so it's possible that other shiny black spiders have perished in error but I do try to positively ID them first. I've found enough of them over the years that it doesn't cause me quite as much panic as they used to.

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  7. Hammers-all around great bug-squishers!! I use mine for tent caterpillars (and now their cocoons!).

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  8. It's a good thing you spotted that widow! I think I found 14 around the garden last year....

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  9. Cute froggies! I love the one in the cantaloupe patch. 1 sq ft? MAN that's a big frog! EEEWWWWWW I hate hate hate spiders but I have left them alone because YOU GUYS said they are great. But yeah. I am with you on the black widow. I mean, what if she decides to move in the house? What is that tan thing was (gasp) babies!?!?!?! OH ick. My skin is crawling.

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  10. Sweet frogs!! And I totally get the "put your hands in your pockets" thing in stores with breakables...ohhhh...I get that! And blech on the black widow. I don't like any biting/stinging/evil spiders at all.

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  11. Amy, I thought the same thing, so I pulled out all of the books I had and then went to a site from UGA and was as sure as I could get that I was looking at what I thought I was. I was too in awe to be shocked, but each time I see a squash bug peek out from behind a stem I jump.

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  12. Sue, they're almost as versitile as duct tape!

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  13. EG, I tried to reference your blog to find your pictures because I remembered seeing them, but I couldn't find them. Yours was the first site I thought to look.

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  14. JenGC. don't say things like that! :) We had a run with a bunch of scorpions in the house once. That was bad enough.

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  15. Kate and Crew, my mom can tell you stories about when my sister pulled down an entire display at a dish store (I think Crate and Barrel). We're all about hands in the pockets, on the shopping cart, on the car etc.

    Have you seen those magnets with a hand print that you put on your car so the kids stay right there with their hand on the hand print while you load the groceries in or tend to the other kid etc? Mine know to put their hands on the car, but that magnet's a good idea as well.

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  16. Glad you found that beauty when you did- pretty spiders, but a bit on the painful-if-bitten side...

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