Of Wasps and Half-Marathons

"Are you training?" my sister asked in a recent email. 

Last September three siblings (out of seven) walked a scenic half-marathon around Schroon Lake, in the beautiful Adirondacks. This year, we will be four. My brother from Arizona, 10 years younger and 10 inches taller than me, is joining us. And no, we are not in competition. It’s a solidarity thing. It’s a sentimental journey. We had a summer house not too far from Schroon Lake when our parents were alive.

Am I training? I was training, a little, until Friday, when I injured my toe running from a wasps’ nest I had disturbed with my weeding tool. They were probably northern paper wasps, which are downright amiable, compared to their cousins, the yellowjackets. Paper wasp colonies are small, and if you get too close (that’s assuming you actually notice that you’ve gotten too close) you will see one or two guards giving a threat display. They stand tall, spread their wings, and look menacing. It is very effective.

This is a European paper wasp, sipping dill nectar.

Wasps are omnivores, like us. They like sweet nectar but also kill caterpillars and beetle larvae to provide food for the developing larvae. This is a good thing, for gardens. The colony includes a number of females—males are not produced, or in fact needed, until the end-of-summer mating time approaches—but it is the queen who is most diligent about defending the nest. As the workers invest more time in the care and feeding of the colony, they get a little more aggressive, but they don’t mark and chase you.  

If you’ve ever disturbed a yellowjackets’ nest, you know what that means. These aggressive wasps deposit a chemical pheromone on the hapless one who disturbs their peace, communicating alarm and riling up the entire colony—of 5-10,000! The chemical persists for hours. I once watched a whole hive of yellow jackets converge on a sweatshirt that was stripped and tossed midway through a breakneck run. Remarkably, the young man who put his foot in the nest got away clean. The wasps had marked his clothing, not his person. It was a full day before he could safely retrieve the sweatshirt.

Had I been thinking logically, I would not have risked my toe to escape the paper wasps, because when they retaliate against an interloper, it is generally a one-shot deal. The sting hurts like heck, but a single infusion of venom, or maybe two, each summer seems, at least in me, to dampen the immune response; it has been years since I have swelled and itched after being stung. 

This is the offending guardrail, dressed in moss phlox last spring.

So, there I was on one side of a low guardrail, along with the wasps. Below us was a ten-foot drop. It was the guardrail that, literally, caused my downfall. All in all, northern paper wasps are friendly neighbors, as long as you give them their space—which I did not, last Friday.

This was my second digital injury of the season caused, indirectly, by an animal. A month ago, after repeated attempts, I caught a groundhog in a Havahart trap. I did not (have a heart, that is), but that’s another story. I set the empty trap down on the ground, and then, with my arms full of lettuce and scallions, tripped over it. I hit the ground—hard! The ugly thigh bruises came and went but one little finger, to all appearances uninjured, still remembers the fall every time someone shakes my hand. All in the service of an armload of greens.

Am I training? I will be. Last year I was lax, and I paid for it with aching thighs. This year, I aim to do a weekly 5-mile fast walk, starting now, so that my muscles will be ready. This means no more stupid moves in the garden.

Over the years there have been plenty of purple bruises and tender joints, and even a couple of black eyes. One I acquired the traditional way, by stepping on the business end of a hoe, the other more creatively when my pruners flew out of my hands (of their own accord) as I was wrestling a giant wisteria, and landed on my brow. I hate it when that happens.

Yes we can and we will walk 13.1 miles through a stunning fall display of leaves and lakes and mountains without embarrassing ourselves by strolling in after the food tent has been disassembled. Yes we will have 3 hours (ok, 3 ½) to talk and remember and experience the day, to create pictures and memories, to build solidarity. Last year, the young, fit sister could not deny her competitive spirit and “made the break” at mile 8. She may do it again—probably earlier this year, to improve her time. That’s all right. I will not run. 

Assuming, that is, there’s not a yellowjackets’ nest along the course.

The story of the beetles

Let me start with a disclaimer. I did not put the thirteen beetles into the bucket of water last Thursday evening. No I didn’t. They dove in on their own, sometime during or after the storm, the same storm that filled the white bucket with about two inches of rainwater in about an hour. 

When I saw them squiggling their hairy legs in an effort to stay alive on Friday morning I considered doing the humane thing. Yes I did. And I almost emptied the bucket and its contents. But that would have meant releasing thirteen beetles of an unidentified species into my garden to do who knows what. So I turned around and walked in the house. I left them there to drown. 

But a curious thing happened. They wouldn’t! Drown, that is. On Sunday morning, about half of them were still squiggling furiously. 

European chafer beetles = lawn pests

My interest (but not my compassion) piqued, I did a little research on the prisoners. Ah hah! My callous non-action was well advised. European chafer beetles, it turns out, are a sneaky sort of pest, escaping our notice by emerging at night. They buzz about for a week or two, congregating on trees and light posts. They mate and fall to the ground, where females lay about 50 eggs over the two weeks of their adulthood. Each. They don’t eat leaves (unlike their Japanese cousins), but each egg they lay turns into a little white grub with an appetite for grass roots. Large numbers of grubs will ravage a lawn. 

Like I said, sneaky.

It is now Sunday, early evening, nearly three days after some mysterious force (or maybe my porch light) prompted the beetles to take a swim. Five are still paddling, their life’s mission—to mate and lay eggs—thwarted, but their will as fervent as ever. Every now and then, one will climb aboard a dead comrade for a brief respite before resuming the quest …  to reach the shore?  To find a soulmate? Relative to a human adult life span, their time in the water converts to something like thirteen continuous years in a pool, without lunch breaks or naps. It is becoming clear which of our two animal species will come out ahead, should a cataclysm befall us all.

Monday morning.  Rain pelted the thirteen beetles overnight, raising the level of water in the bucket by about an inch. At first all seemed still. Motionless beetles rimmed the edge. But, a little shake, and three of them resumed their paddling.

Monday, early evening. With a fascination turned morbid, I jiggled the bucket, now about 4 inches deep. Surely they must be dead. The three beetles responded by wiggling their legs.

Wednesday morning. At first I thought, why even mention the fourteenth beetle that dove into the bucket sometime yesterday? Except that it seems to have brought renewed vigor to the three still-alive-and-kicking beetles. The four live ones swim the rim, occasionally engaging with each other (rather than with the carcasses of their companions, which are looking a bit soft, and unappetizingly fuzzy). The water in the bucket is now about 4 ½ inches deep; thunderstorms have been rolling through every afternoon and evening, and Philadelphia and other nearby cities have set June rainfall records. Along the river, water spurts out of the hills and spills over the road, and the river itself is opaque with mud scoured from the banks of streams. This is all good news for beetle grubs—more of them survive in moist soils. Even in a dry summer, however, beetles are in no danger of disappearing. They’ve been around for nearly 300 million years … and counting.

Thursday. It is hot and sunny, perfect weather for a swim. The three determined beetles have nearly reached the 7-day mark.

Friday. Ok. I really thought that this story would have a nice concise ending. That I could count the beetles, and the days, and come up with an intelligent wrap-up about how the lowly beetle will prove its superiority in the end, as we blithely consume ourselves into oblivion. But there is no ending to this story. Twenty-some beetles, some (I have stopped counting) living, and some dead, float in the water of the white bucket, along with who knows what else. Mosquito larvae may be hatching even as I write. Life is just not neat. Lessons are not predictable. 

This story ends with Dawn, about ten drops, stirred with a stick. 

Unceremoniously, I dump the bucket and its now impotent contents onto the grass. 

Natural History Museum. 2007. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2007/december/news_13195.html

Catalpa: Full of Life

Maybe it was my Catholic upbringing—during a period when the liturgy was chanted in the language of the dead and stained glass windows of aged churches stretched upward in ceremonious supplication—that caused me to stop at the sight of the old catalpa with the huge cavity. The arched opening ushered my eye into a dark interior, like the nave of an ancient cathedral. Jagged wedges of decaying wood were pocked with the traces of wood-boring insects. Brilliant daylight shone through a hole in the trunk. And yet the catalpa tree was very much alive. 

Nave of the catalpa tree

The bumblebee: a friendly sort

A bumblebee posed on one of the broad leaves, while a tick-like arachnid held tight to another. Lifting a leaf or two revealed that much of the action was hidden from view. I settled in to plumb the mysteries of the giant cavity, infected with a reverence befitting the Stations of the Cross.

Suddenly (and I’m not making this up) harp music began to play in the distance. And then, the voice of an angel began to sing:

“It must have been cold there in my shadow,
to never have sunlight on your face.”

Beetle's eye view!

I don’t know anything about the soul that was being memorialized, but hearing “Wind Beneath My Wings” sung in the quiet of the wildlife sanctuary made my beneficent aging catalpa, a haven for creatures of all kinds, seem even more venerable. 

Daddy longlegs lurks beneath

Someday it will fall, and yet another renewal of life will occur. The decayed heartwood will break into chunks, and roots will find their way into the cracks. Invertebrates, from mites to centipedes to slugs and snails, will find passage along these openings. Salamanders and shrews will hide beneath the sloughed bark and rotten wood, and dig tunnels into the crumbly substrate. Fungi will abound.

Before I knew it an hour had passed. Again, a walk in the woods had worked its magic.

Just one hour, in a life filled with hours.  

Tiny spider. Hanging out on a beautiful day.

 

Woolly aphids make honeydew. Honeydew supports fungi, i.e. sooty mold.

Ref: Maser, C. and others. 1984. The Unseen World of the Fallen Tree. http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/164part2.pdf

The Social Perils of Gardening

If you are smart, and sensitive to social ramifications of putting your obsessions on display for all the “normal” world to see, you will say “No, but thank you!” to social invitations that come your way during spring, when the natural world is full of exuberance and your gardening spirit has not yet been beaten down by explosions of bugs and infestations of holey foliage. 

“Why” you ask? 

Why??

Fava bean in flower!

Realize that you are all too likely to speak your mind. And your mind is, shall we say, differently attuned, than most? Without thinking you may say something like, 

“I’m so excited about my favas!”

Yes, I know, vegetable gardening has become the new “in” thing to do. Still, in the real world, your listener will more than likely reply, 

“…Favas? What’s that?”

“Favas are big beans. Some people call them broad beans!”

“So what do you plan to do with these beans?”

“I’m not really sure … this is the first time I’ve grown them. And they’re absolutely beautiful! Big, sturdy plants standing in handsome rows! Ants have been crawling all over them. You see, the plants have extra-floral nectaries tucked beneath their leaves, which draw the ants, which then keep away other leaf-eating insects … theoretically. It’s like watching a science project!”

Ants and favas. Perfect together?

“Extra what?”

“Extra-floral nectaries. Plant parts that are not flowers that produce nectar!”

“For the ants.”

Ladybugs to the rescue!

“Yes! I don’t think the ants have much to do with the black aphids that congregate on the tops of a lot of the plants, but they might. There’s a lot of research on that but I haven’t found any conclusions. I’m starting to see ladybugs on some plants, which is an exciting development! They’ll help control the aphids. I’ve found that spraying aphids never works. You need the ladybugs.”

At about this time you may notice (or you may not) your listener’s attention straying, and his or her eyes looking around the room for a reason to make a polite escape.

“Aphids, huh.”

“Black aphids. They’re different from the aphids on lettuce, which are usually green, or on tomatoes, which are sometimes pink. Isn’t that absolutely fascinating, how the color of aphids sometimes matches the plant they feed on?”

“Umm, yeah. Hey, I think I see my friend over there …”

“Now the fava flowers are beginning to turn black—that’s what’s supposed to happen—and I’m just starting to see the beans form. I’m wondering if they’ll get as big as they’re supposed to get. The thing about favas is … my son the farmer told me this … it doesn’t even matter that much if you get a big harvest. They’re worth the trouble just for their value as a cover crop! … oh … ok … we’ll catch up later.”

But, no.

The “bore” label has attached itself to you. Like a black aphid on a fava bean plant. Maybe staying home, gardening until dark, and after dark delving into the mysteries that have thrust themselves into your psyche, would have been a better choice.

But there must be a way that we can convert the masses into seeing the fascination, locking in to the mystery.

We need to get them outside.

It’s impossible to describe, in an inside conversation, the thrill of discovering connections, the excitement of getting a glimpse into how it all works. The kick lies in seeing for yourself the adaptations plants make for reasons we are only beginning to understand; becoming conscious of the complex interactions that go on outside the door every minute of every day. They set the mind spinning and exploring and looking for answers that only lead to more questions.

On second thought, say yes.

Because, you just never know.

I just have to tell you about the tiniest little grasshoppers I spotted on my tomato leaves today—they were smaller than my little fingernail. They must have been first instar. Did you know that grasshoppers molt five times before reaching full size? Oh, you have to go? Ok, we’ll talk later …won't we?

Aphid Math

Ahhh Spring. It’s that time of year when the greenhouse gardener’s thoughts and dreams turn to … aphids. 

Specifically, to how to make them go away. 

Based on my research, the spring aphids that are congregating on my radish leaves and broccoli seedlings are probably green peach aphids, even though they are not green. Whitney Cranshaw states in Garden Insects of North America that this aphid is “one of the most commonly damaging aphids of greenhouse crops.” I have questions about Cranshaw’s syntax (What do you think? Should “commonly” modify “damaging,” or should “common” modify “damaging insects”) but none at all regarding his entomological prowess. I will accept that my brown aphids are really green. If Whitney C. says so.

Note the ghosts of aphids past.

I got very excited seeing ghostly, leggy forms scattered among the plump marauders. The lacewing eggs I scattered two months ago must be hatching (!), I thought, and tiny lacewings are sucking the sweet life out of the plant suckers. But no. Between birth and adulthood, which takes all of 8 days, the aphids molt four times. The white forms are the skins they’ve shed along the way.

The thing about aphids is, if you miss them early on, your crop is doomed, your ship has sunk. Embryos start forming in their grandmother, making it possible for an adult female to give birth to as many as a dozen live nymphs a day. (1) Count it up: that’s 84 a week. From a single aphid. Meanwhile all those babies are shedding and maturing and, by the end of the week, having live babies of their own. I will leave it to the mathematician to calculate a sum total after a month of unchecked reproduction, should you miss that initial batch of a dozen or so aphids. 

Trust me: It is a big, big number.

And this is why, when the box of 4500 Asian ladybugs (Hippodamia convergens) arrived at my door late Friday afternoon, I rushed right over to the greenhouses to release them. No, these are not the same Asian ladybugs that enter your house in winter and crawl around on your windows and walls, in case you were wondering. Those are Harmonia axyridis. They look very similar, but they’re not the same. According to Whitney C. 

Prey is multitudinous. And conveniently slow!

I watered the greenhouses well, and tenderly situated my new allies in protected places. I nestled them among the carrot foliage and gave them shelter beneath broad leaves of chard, I gently shook a few out of the bag to populate the weeds along the greenhouse edges and rested others in the dried remains of last fall’s nasturtium vines. The next day, Easter Sunday, was cloudy and rainy—perfect for rest and recuperation after a 2-day journey from Arizona, cramped 281 (give or take a few) per cubic inch. 

 

On Monday (I am making an assumption here) they reveled in the bounty. What ladybug would not be thrilled to come upon a batch of tender, newly hatched, sap-sucking insects. What ladybug would not get right to work consuming their quota of about 22 aphids a day. After all—and this is a fact—unless she eats aphids, she will not lay sticky bunches of yellow eggs that, in a little over a month, will become hungry larvae. A built-in mechanism causes the developing eggs to be reabsorbed into her body unless there is a proper food supply about.(1) How civilized. 

But, assuming that aphids abound (which they do, in an April greenhouse that has been kept above freezing all winter), what happens next is a thrilling thought to one who wakes up to dreams of hoards of hungry sucking beasts destroying crops of baby bok choy: When the ladybug larva emerges from the yellow egg and encounters an aphid, it bites a hole in the body and sucks out the contents. Then it pumps the liquid back into the body and sucks it out several times to effectively mix the innards of their victim with digestive juices.(2) The mere thought makes my sleep more restful. 

Grey cabbage aphids like the cool weather of fall.

As a gardener, it’s difficult not to think in terms of the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s easy to presume that one is winning the game, that ladybugs will solve the problem (and my, aren’t we clever). The truth, however, is far more intricate. The grey cabbage aphids of fall are still hanging about in small clumps here and there, waiting. Waiting for the tides to turn, waiting for the savoy cabbage to make an appearance, so that they can take instant advantage of its protective crinkles and give almost immediate birth to practically countless young who will keep the cycle alive. I will refrain from planting brassicas in certain problem areas in spring. I will put distance between the consumer and its favorite food. It may work. It may not.

As savvy as I think I am with my ladybugs and my strategic planting plan, my means are primitive in comparison to those of the tiny aphid, whose hollow stylus, thinner than a human hair, both pierces and sucks; who comes equipped with exudation tubes that drip sweet honeydew so rich in sugars that ants will protect the exuders so as to keep the tap flowing; whose generation time can be a mere 10 days, which allows them to adapt and evolve as circumstances change. Who does not give birth unless there is an adequate food supply. Who (unlike us, who must eat carrots and yams) can produce its own carotenoids! (3)

"Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled," said poet, writer, and moralist  Samuel Johnson. I disagree. The mighty aphid is deserving of respect. 

Awe, even.

(1) http://online.sfsu.edu/bholzman/courses/Fall99Projects/ladybug.htm

(2) http://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/identify/ladybird.htm

(3) http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116842 

The Value of a Hoe

A funny thing happened on facebook recently. Generally, my online personality is reticent; I rarely make a peep. But I was so proud of myself for repairing my washing machine that I wanted to shout it to the world. My exact phrasing was: 

“Guess what I did today? Replaced the drainage pump on my 25-year-old Maytag (all by myself, with a little phone coaching from Jeff Schultz of Schultz Electric on Rt100/29). Go Maytag!” 

Thirty-five (that’s 20%!) of my “friends” had something to say about the comment.

This blew my mind.

To what do I owe the ability and fortitude that allowed me to pull off this amazing feat? Well … (blush) at this time I’d like to thank my father, who made me stick with a task until I got it done, and my partner, who gives me unending and outrageously extravagant emotional support, and the ladies of my book club, who offer me the very best of bragging arenas. And Maytag and Jeff Schultz and my internet provider and god and my country and the angels above. And my agent … wait, I don’t have an agent.

Oh, and my garden. Most of all, my garden. Why my garden, you ask?

Grasshoppers jumped from Cowpea cover crop to tomatoes. How convenient!

If you are a gardener, you probably don’t need to ask. 

Cabbage aphids require cunning. Strategy.

It is my garden that challenges me with problem after problem, day after day. My garden has taught me that the answers are never simple, and they are never the same as they were last time. It has taught me perseverance, creativity, confidence. What do you do when grasshoppers take little bites out of all of your beautiful tomatoes? You try your hardest to think like a grasshopper, and make the situation a little less pleasant for the hopping marauding tribe. You cut down the immediate weeds where they like to perch. What about when dense colonies of cabbage aphids cover the stalks of your kale? You blast them with a sharp spray of water. You squish them with your fingers. You bring in the ladybugs. 

Ladybugs in the greenhouse. Yes!

You make a plan for next year’s garden, and site the kale in a distant plot of land. You do all of the above. 

Vermin? Follow the trails of their destruction to the holes from whence they emerge. Drop in a few mothballs. Or you get a dog. Or a very secure fence set 8 inches into the soil. Or you acquire a trap, and prop it open for a couple of days until the groundhog is deceived into comfortably waddling in and out of the metal mesh cage, and then … GOTCHA! Then you come up with a plan to transport it 10 miles in your car and release it (surreptitiously, sneakily, when no one’s watching) where you think, you hope, it won’t eat someone else’s garden. And if it does, well, it’s not your garden. You gotta be tough. 

You gotta be smart.

Groundhog trails lead to groundhog holes.

Tomatoes come with a complicated collection of conundrums. How do you keep them upright late in the season when the vines are weighed down with fruits and green? How can you spot a tomato hornworm before it strips half the plant? Is there a way to keep last year’s fungal spores from splashing up onto this year’s foliage? And what do you do about the stinkbugs that stipple your perfect fruits with sunken lesions that look bad and taste awful? Each problem calls for diagnostic skills and intricate solutions far more elaborate than those required in taking a pump out and put a new one in.

The pump. Not so hard to replace. Really.

Even so, it felt great to be discussing the ins and outs of soapy water with Jeff Schultz—talkin’ pumps and hoses and belts. I’ve never felt the power of having a gun in my hand (and never plan to) but I wonder: might my feeling of triumphant power on fixing my machine (which, by the way, is still functioning) be similar? Might the feat of a successful vegetable garden make us less likely to seek power in one of the destructive means that are all too common in our society? 

These are things I will never know. One thing I do know is this: we thrive on feelings of power. Our emotional health depends on sensing that we are in control. The garden helps us to achieve this status. In fact, there is empirical evidence that this is true. Dr. Jill Litt of the University of Colorado has determined that “community gardeners (and in some instances home gardeners) had statistically higher ratings of all psychological, social and health measures, after adjusting for age, educational attainment and neighborhood socioeconomic status.” (1)

So there you go. I have no illusions that I’ll convince others that, based on studies, and life experience, gardening is one of the pursuits that makes life worth living. 

Still, it’s true. 

I know, and my Maytag knows.

(1) http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu/magazine/2011/08/gardens-improve-personal-and-neighborhood-health-team-finds/

What I Love About Dahlias

Here it is, almost November. Among the various tawny shades of ochre and russet is a sprightly tone of pinkish red. Though beautiful in any season the perfect petals of the October dahlia seem especially so now, when the rest of the garden is marching steadily toward senescence, that is to say, death and dying. 

 But what I love most about dahlias is not their conspicuous spring-like colors—it is that their centers are almost always alive. 

Literally, alive. 

Oblivious to cold winds and camera lenses, a bumblebee will bed down in the soft golden heart, staking his claim. You may see an occasional slight movement of his hairy legs, and if you could catch sight of his tongue (also hairy), it might also be in motion. But from a casual observer’s point of view he looks content, sleepy, drugged even. There is no hurry at all to get back home; it is not his job to bring back supplies. In fact, he might very well spend the night clinging to the center of a dahlia blossom. Oh, he may be mildly concerned with dabbing a bit of his scent here and there, but that is early morning work. Afternoons and evenings are for hanging out with friends. 

Like a grasshopper with a taste for pink petals. 

The two seem at peace with the fact that their interests are separate and non-conflicting. I’ll take the petals, you take the pollen. If one or the other gets too close for comfort, each simply adjusts his position. 

And carries on.

October bumblebees are so much more laid back than August bumblebees. This has mostly to do with sex. Males are born only after the colony dwindles, late in the season. Most of the busy female workers are dead by this time, and the point of the activities (or lack thereof) is less about the survival of the hive and more about the survival of the species. All the Johnny-come-latelies need to do is eat, and mate. 

A short time after male bumblebees make their appearance the new queens emerge—the progenitors, the rulers of the hives of the future, the heroes of orchard owners everywhere. A queen will fly to where a male has left his scent, and wait. Presumably, she’s an early riser. 

Because by mid-morning, at least in my garden, the men show no interest in doing anything but luxuriating in dahlia pollen.

The Pigeon and the Giant

This story begins early on October 28, 2011, when a mass of cold air moving across the mid-Atlantic states met up with a low-pressure area originating from the Carolina coast. The fury of the collision brought wild winds and, the next day, a momentous October snow. The silver maple trees on Cherokee street, still bearing a full load of green and yellow leaves, became heavily laden with nearly 7 inches of heavy white wetness.

Or, maybe it can be traced much further back to the historical causes of the extreme weather events that are more commonplace than in years past, whatever they might be.

Or, maybe it has nothing to do with the freak October storm, but simply springs from the natural decline of living things. After all, the silver maples on Cherokee Street are “of a certain age.”

We can speculate all day long, but that does not change one fact: branches snapped and fell with the sound of gunshots all afternoon and evening of October 29^th. On Sunday morning the ground around the houses on Cherokee Street was liberally layered with large limbs.

It just so happens that the Pigeon Tremex, a non-stinging wasp known as a horntail, is particularly fond of weakened or recently deceased limbs of certain trees, including the silver maple. It is likely that they saw, or smelled, or sensed, bounty in this disaster.

Or, possibly the horntail wasps were a contributing factor of the wreckage, exacerbating the weakness of the limbs that ended up littering the ground on that Sunday morning. Because their cream colored grubs live buried out of my sight within the wood, and because I did not inspect the trees for carcasses of female horntail wasps (which have been known to die midway through the act of depositing their eggs into the trunk), or look for the telltale small round holes through which the adults exit, I cannot say for certain that the strange-looking wasps with spines pointing out of their hind ends were present at all. But, as you will soon see, I have reason to suspect that they were.

Yes, I will get to the point. On Sunday, 11 months almost to the day following the rare October snowstorm that may (or may not) have factored in to the decline of the silver maples on Cherokee Street and the subsequent assumed presence of pigeon tremex horntails, I felt the slightest brush, like from a feather, as I was preparing my houseplants for the indoors. Clinging to the side of a pot was a fearsome insect. Actually it was more curious than ferocious, with its dainty waist, and a 3-inch needle projecting from its posterior. Being the savvy researcher that I am, I did a google search for “wasp with long tail.” Wasp was my best guess at the insect’s identity—based not so much on its form as on its hornet-like, “get-one-inch-closer-and-I-will-cause-you-pain” stance. I was right. It was a Giant Ichneumon wasp.

You’re probably wondering how the pieces of this story tie together: an October snow; weak-limbed silver maple trees; a specialized wasp that is drawn only to certain trees that can host a certain white rot fungus, and only when the trees are in a certain state of decline; and a wasp with a 3-inch needle-like “tail.”

As specialized as the pigeon tremex horntail is, the giant ichneumon is even more so. In order to survive, its larvae must eat the horntail grubs that are eating the decaying wood. Amazingly, the adult female giant ichneumon can sense what’s happening under the bark of the tree. She walks along the dead or dying limbs, antennae outstretched like divining rods, until she detects the location of a horntail grub beneath the bark. Then she puts her “tail,” which is actually an ovipositor sheathed by two filaments, to work. Bracing her abdomen with the protective sheaths, she drills through the bark into the tunnel of the horntail larva with her threadlike ovipositor, paralyzes the grub with a sting, and deposits her eggs into it. After a time, the horntail is no more. The following summer, the giant ichneumon emerges in its place. A female ichneumon is greeted by a crowd of eager males—they are able to somehow sense where and when she will make her debut. In no time at all she is out roaming the logs, instinctively, magically (or so it seems to us) finding just what she needs to find.  

We are all integrated in the natural cycles of life and death, decay and regeneration, and the lives of pigeons and giants might intersect from time to time with ours. Their bizarre and somewhat threatening appearances make them stand out from the crowd. We might label the giants “beneficial” parasitic wasps, and the pigeons “pests.” Doing so suggests that we believe it is all about us. Or it could just be that words are not up to the job of characterizing tangential, or parallel, relationships.

Trees age. Limbs crash to the ground. Seen and unseen creatures fulfill their specialized functions. The story continues … indefinitely. There are no happy endings. Or happy endings abound. Take your pick.    

Syrphid flies on Sweet Alyssum

Where's Waldo?

I’ve been spending a little quality time with ‘Blushing Princess’ and ‘Silver Stream’ recently. Just to see for myself. Does Sweet Alyssum (Lobularia maritima) really attract more syrphid flies than other flowers, as researchers have written?

You’ve seen them, those miniature yellow jacket lookalikes that are always hovering about your flowers. Some call them sweat bees, but the fact is, there is an actual bee (family Halictidae) that claims that name. Hoverfly is a more apt nickname for the tiny fly (family Syrphidae). Beating its wings at a furious pace it hangs in the air above favored flowers and, alighting on a blossom, sucks nectar, tail bobbing slowly up and down. The hover fly is not interested in your sweat.

All that hovering about serves the female well when it comes to providing for her unborn offspring. She scouts the landscape for plants that host promising colonies of aphids, and deposits her eggs, one by one, nearby. And this is the good part: a single syrphid fly larva will eat hundreds of aphids.

And yet, as intimate as I am with aphids (we have similar tastes in lettuce) I have never seen a syrphid fly larva. At about 1 cm long they’re certainly visible. And they are undoubtedly populous, judging by the number of adults hovering around. So I have to conclude that I am not terribly observant. This is a good reminder that, no matter how much we might think we know and how observant we think we are, most of the action goes on unseen, under our noses. 

One thing I know is true: the answer is yes. A few syrphid flies visit catmint in passing, and one or two seek out arugula flowers. Coreopsis holds minor appeal and spiraea is fairly popular. But the winner, hands down, is Lobularia maritima ‘Silver Stream.’ 

Go syrphid fly larvae, Go!

Eating Bugs

Equipped with thousands of tiny teeth the furtive slug rasps through bok choy, leaving a trail of slime behind. The mollusks even find their way inside heads of lettuce, munching undetected until harvest time. I dunk the heads in a sink full of frigid water, swishing to unloose slugs of all sizes and smiling in satisfaction as they swirl down the drain. The juicy morsel is on the dining list of insects and vertebrates alike, but I have no appetite for the thought, let alone the reality of eating a slug. And yet the escargot, a snail purged of its stomach contents and fattened on cornmeal, has achieved gourmet status. Once or twice a season, a garden slug manages to hold on tight and survive the water bath I subject it to, as well as the subsequent preparation process. It rides out to a table on a nine-dollar salad. There is no amount of skilled finessing that can turn such a situation from a dining disaster into a positive realization. “This is authentic farm-to-table dining,” is the rational conclusion to be drawn from the moment. But we are not rational when it comes to bugs on salads. 

Nutritionally speaking, there are good reasons to eat bugs. A cup of cooked caterpillar provides 100% of the daily requirement of iron, copper, zinc, and thiamin. Tanzanians eat honeybee larvae along with the honey, and benefit from the higher protein content. West Africans feast on termites, grasshoppers, beetle larvae, and caterpillars. In Bali, dragonflies are charcoal grilled. It is only westerners that recoil in horror. Vincent Holt, author of a bug-focused Victorian Cookery Book, suggests stripping locusts of heads, legs, and wings, and sprinkling them with salt, pepper, and parsley. Fried in butter and finished with a splash of vinegar they make an excellent dish, he writes. 

I am intrigued, but not quite ready for fried grasshopper. On coming upon a small colony sucking the juices from a tender spinach shoot I place a single aphid on my tongue and savor the nothingness. Tasteless, soft, almost imperceptible … it is not an experience that inspires recipes, but not one that provokes repulsion either. If the aphid population is kept in moderation—no easy trick—I have no qualms about harvesting the spinach. There is the danger that, despite double-washing, an aphid or two may end up on someone’s salad plate, but, I now know, this will not affect taste. Aphids suck sap and exude sugars; what is the downside to eating them? The FDA agrees. The food defect action level for aphids, that is, the point at which frozen broccoli is deemed defective, is 60+ aphids per 100 grams. In other words, when one eats about a cup of broccoli, one might also be eating 59 aphids. 

This would surprise most consumers; in this modern age food is expected to be unsullied. At the same time, we favor products vaguely labeled “all natural.” How many consumers realize, as they sit down to dinner, that growing food naturally means accepting that insects that naturally favor the foods we grow are very much a part of the process? Some will be part of the product. 

In the greenhouse, aphids appear sporadically in great numbers. When the succulent center leaves of romaine become specked with tender green bugs it is my cue to plant a non-host crop, such as carrots. With two greenhouses, I switch susceptible crops back and forth, attempting to stay only one step behind. Wendell Berry likens farming to a conversation with nature. “If I try to starve you will you go away?” I ask my aphids. Some tomato aphids are red; some are green. These I squirt with a stiff spray of water, allowing a few to remain to attract ladybugs, which may, if I’m lucky, migrate to other plants. It’s possible that aphids will migrate as well. Pest management is a game of wits; pest “control” an impossibility. 

When scientists developed technologies for transferring genes from a soil bacterium to corn so that plants could protect themselves against insects, the Prince of Wales accused them of playing God. A bullying maneuver on multiple levels, genetic engineering certainly changes the tone of the conversation. But consumers’ desires for flawless corn and potatoes are what drive researchers to employ the same technologies that produced human insulin in their quest to fulfill impossible expectations. When health care is at stake, playing God is fair game, but when it comes to what’s for dinner, the rules change. If a consumer were forced to choose one or the other—100% insect-free food, or food grown using traditional seeds and processes—which would he pick? The problem is, we want it all. 

Someday a star in the culinary world may take on gourmet insect preparation and transform it from freaky to fashionable. If grasshopper canapes are what it takes to bring sanity to the subject then bring them on. Personally, I don't have much faith that caterpillars will ever find their way, intentionally that is, to America's dinner plates, and would settle for a less hysterical response to the occasional "unavoidable defect." If eaters, that is, human beings, were to spend more time with their hands in the soil, they may begin to feel a kinship with the miraculous system that begins with the sun and the soil and ends at the dinner table.

As plant eaters, we are in plentiful company. Aphids and caterpillars are part of the deal--we compete with them and occasionally, wittingly or un-, we eat a few. If we continue to strive for the complete elimination of all competitors we will stray further and further from "natural." Awareness of the staggering complexities involved in growing food "naturally" may or may not entice diners to sample a slug, but it will introduce the language of living systems to those who have no tolerance for imperfections. 

Step by step, we will draw them into the conversation.  

Ants at War

This summer, more than usual, my sidewalk has been blackened by big masses of ants. When it happened again this evening I looked the phenomenon up. I learned from this fascinating article that the little black ants that often make their way into our kitchens are called, aptly, sidewalk ants … and when they pile up on the sidewalk they are at war! Knowing this piece of information, I got out my magnifier and looked closer. Sure enough, there were mandibles thrashing and little ant bodies locked in layers of combat, often two or three against one. They fight over food, or territory, the ant article continued. Familiar story?

Oblivious to my peeping, they battled in a big squirming mass for the next twenty minutes. Then something happened. The center of the melee thinned, forces were quickly withdrawn, and within a minute or two the whole horde had dispersed. Just like that the battle was over.

The mystery of why they blacken the pavement is solved, but another inscrutable question remains unanswered. Who won??