But let me
tell you about the bees first..
Making honey..
Bee party?
I am waging
a serious war against fungi; will tell you more about that later, but because
of the fungi I have a patch or two of half dead squash and marrows
growing/dying. The thing is, I should pull them because they might be affecting
other plants and they are just taking up space, the fruits are all rotting and odd shaped, but I do not have the hart to
do this, because it is late winter with very few things flowering at the
moment, so the bees just love the flowers. Then I realized that this is not a “waste
of space” I am making honey, or helping the little bees to make honey to be
more specific, so the fungi patch with flowers will have to stay for now.
Back to the
ants…
I have been
noticing that my lettuce, (planted directly into the ground) is just not coming
up. This remained a mystery until this morning. I honestly tried to take some photos, but you
try taking photos of an ant and a lettuce seed with a 300mm lens….
Anyway I am
watching for signs of something happening where there are suppose to be lettuce
happening soon and what do I see? The ants are carrying away the lettuce seeds!
Now there
is a whole new mystery here. How did the
seeds get out of the ground, they were planted after all, now they are being
dragged off by ants! It is possible that some birds scratched them out, this is
actually quite likely, or maybe the ants are digging it up themselves, is that
possible?
As I said, I
am mystified…. But for now all lettuce and other small seeds will be planted in
trays.
On the
positive side, these seeds cannot be to Monsatofied if the ants are going to
eat them, hopefully they do not morph into Ninja Ants or something… then they
will be carrying away pumpkins and not seeds! The seeds where harvested (by me)
from plants in the garden, but those plants came from packets and in South
Africa that simply means that Monsanto had a “finger in the packet” so to
speak.
I am joking
now, but seriously I am very grateful I noticed this “theft” this morning. This
is why it is important to spend quality time with your garden, things can and do
go wrong and the sooner you are aware the sooner you can fix the problem.
I am
also like mad mother hen with my milk mix, fighting the fungi, I want pumpkins and
squash and more and this fungi thing will not take them away from me. I have
tried other things, like the Bicarbonate of soda and Dish washing liquid, but I
am not mad about the chemicals in the soap getting into the garden and the
Bicarb is rather merciless, it kills the effected leaf on the spot and that
makes we wonder what else it is killing. So, 100 ml milk with 900ml water (makes
a liter) and there you go, spray spray… I read somewhere that you can plant in
milk and that makes the plants immune to the fungi. The problem is, with the price of milk this
can become and expensive solution.
