My husband and I have been busy planting in our yard, this is our first year at the house, so it has been an education.
I take care of the flowers, he takes care of the veggies, and we are a little competitive about whose garden is doing the best. However, both our vegetable garden and our many flowerbeds have become the most popular restaurants for insects in our neighbourhood. I think that when we turn off the lights and go to sleep, there is an entire nightlife going on amongst the tomatoes, squash and basil. We have no actual proof of who, or what is partying there, but the damage is obvious every morning……
My husband has become a chemist with all the various liquids and powders he has sprayed everywhere. At any moment, I expect to look in the mirror and see that I have a third ear growing out of my head, or that I will contract some obnoxious disease from the ingestion of man-made bug killers. So my solution was to buy ladybirds, or as you say in the USA, ladybugs. I purchased a mere 1500 of the sleepy little girls and brought them home and put them in the fridge (so that they would stay dormant). I told my husband I had them and planned to release them later that day. When the time came and I went to the refrigerator to get the ladybirds, my husband almost knocked me down in his haste to get there first! He thrust open the fridge, grabbed the container and suddenly became Mother Teresa…..
I watched his male hands gingerly open the lid a fraction, and he gasped in delight as several of the little creatures escaped. He brushed them gently into the air to fly away. I marveled at his tenderness, what a sweet man! But my joy soon turned to annoyance as he allowed a mere 5 or 6 to escape onto my first flowerbed. I reminded him that I had purchased the bugs for my flowers, and that there were at least 1500 of the girls in the tub, but he continued to mete out this menial amount on my beautiful munched-upon flowers while chuckling.
By the time we reached his vegetable garden, there were probably about 1450 of the ladybirds still left in the tub. I continued to berate him, but he just grinned, mumbled something about his tomoatoes and then happily let the rest go free in his garden. I was furious! They were my ladybirds, not his! He was fascinated by them. He made comments throughout the day about how he might go and check on them to see if they were happy to be free. He wondered if there were still many about, and if they were enjoying eating all the nasty little bugs on his vegetables……. I casually smiled and told him that I hadn’t seen any out there last I looked, but the dragonflies looked really full……….. Jude The Vengeful…………………………….