The Conservational Gardener

By Nanny Fontanella

Of slugs and bugs

Last weekend, two beetles were being sexually intimate on a plant stem, hoping to pass themselves off as ladybugs. They didn’t fool me for a second, being twice the size, spotted red and white and the wrong shape, but I couldn’t hurt them. Their fantastic shape and beautiful colors are a minute work of art.

I have a confession to make: I think bugs are lovely, but don’t get me wrong, I still crunch Japanese beetles. While I admire their colors, I don’t like aphids or mealy bugs. Yccchhh!

There are several schools of thought regarding the relationship between insect and gardener. Some authorities maintain that there is no such thing as a bad bug, and if the gardener learns to share and deal with a little plant mutilation, peace and harmony will reign.

However, most experts have a knee- jerk reaction to insects and spray: dust or “pelletize” them into oblivion. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was largely responsible for the prohibition against DDT in this country, but most of our winter fruit is imported from Chile where DDT is still legal. Oh well. You can’t win ’em all, but it does seem each year fewer bees and songbirds appear in the garden.

There are alternatives to insecticides, such as predatory insects, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), traps and a line of powders and sprays that are supposedly environmentally correct, but traps attract every moth and Japanese beetle in the neighborhood, plant poisons like pyrethrin may be harmful and these methods are expensive. What’s a mother to do?

Taking a middle of the road approach, I use tarpaper collars around seedlings, a brew of garlic, cayenne and cider vinegar sprayed on plants, lacewing wasps and soap spray. I also smusch aphids, crush beetles and burn tent caterpillar nests. I enjoy these activities. While they are time consuming, they help work out aggressive tendencies and make the world safe for beneficial insects, animals and children.

If crunching a beetle or stepping on a grasshopper disturbs you (oh no, I think that was Aunt Jenny), just drown them. After all, it’s their karma. They chose to be born bugs.

One the other hand, wasps, yellow jackets, bats, daddy long-legs and dragonflies eat insects, so before you chase them from your garden, practice tolerance. If you want a butterfly garden and lovely moths flitting about, do not murder big, green or khaki caterpillars found when cultivating. But if white or yellow moths flutter around cabbage and other brassicas, take them out because they become the infamous cabbage looper worm.

There may be some value in most bugs, but slugs and snails—who are really recycled sea creatures—are just evil (“You’re no good, you’re no good, baby you’re no good”). They’re sneaky, slimy and stupid, and remind me of deer (we’ll discuss them later). Forget beer, which produces drunk, slithering slugs. Pick them off early in the morning, after rain or under plant debris and smusch snails any old time. I also staple three-rolled copper to edging, and Jerry Baker says the English sprinkle aluminum sulfate hither and yon.

Our daughter’s only garden pastime was gleefully pouring salt on pails of collected slugs, which was also the wicked witch’s end in “The Wizard of Oz.” I deal with flying demons like May flies, June flies, black flies, deer flies and of course mosquitoes by sticking sticky patches on my hat, wearing netting (as my temperature rises to at least 105 degrees) and pine tar oil, the gardener’s savior, which works in Maine where blackflies are so numerous they fight each other to suck your blood.

Finally, the most elaborate ruse of all is working near a person with high blood sugar levels; you’ll get nary a bite. Applying vinegar to insect bites stops the itching as does toothpaste (it’s the clay).

If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, “ask Nanny” at asknanny@riverreporter.com.