big girl in a small city

a big girl's neurotic oddessy through life in a city with country town soul.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Perth, WA, Australia

I'm a sporadic organisational psychology phd student, full time day dreamer of alternative careers: cafe/bookshop/day spa lifestyle village empire entrepreneur; artist; travel writer; domestic goddess; property developer; fashion designer; retiree; organic farm/bed n breakkie; wife to billionaire heir; buddhist nun. when i'm not entertaining the above in my head, i'm busy navigating through life battling with myself to find eternal happiness armed with a skinny hazelnut flatwhite in my hand, twinkle of passion in my eyes, love in my heart and a barrage of great friends n family by my side.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Wanted: Tomato eating Crustacea

Weeks since sown: 2.5

Sprouts: 0

Tomato seedlings: 2 down, 4 left.

Since i started my "Project: Plant more stuff" I’ve lost 1 tomato seedling on day 2!! then on day 3.. I found another seedling down!! It died the same way the first one did, laying horizontally with a severed stem near the roots!

so notttt happy.. actually i was seething madddd.. So I decided to do a bit of a CSI - Sherlock Holmes style... I caught the culprit in the act half way chomping around the stem of my third tomato seedling!! Little grey black buggers with segmented scales.. took me a while of googling and rummaging through my garden books to find that these little buggers are called - SLATERS!!!!!

apparently they are scavengers, but in large quantities they can attack plants.. (yes, in my case, the little guy is either very popular or have one mighty big family.. may be they are enjoying the bountifulness of my newly buried compost material in my vegie patch).. so guess it's still my fault.. so with a dust pan and some encouraging prods with a broom.. i've moved the party to another compost spot..

so... my tomatoes are safe.... for now...

2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Slaters aren't so bad. If you get annoyed with them just wreak your revenge by playing slater marbles when they roll up into a ball. :-)

The idea of you going through the garden books to find their name is hilarious! Did you have CSI-style music playing in the background? Do we have a video montage of various shots of you looking alternately thoughtful and serious?

7:43 am  
Blogger j said...

though there was no music, i did wear white latex disposable gloves, my thinking glasses, and a look that is best characterised by the joey-tribbiani-what's-13952-divided-by-5 inquisitivity with a twist of geeky problem solving determination and a big splash of 'how dare they eat my tomatoes' rage :)

11:00 am  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home