A rushed spring produced record amounts of pollen. The birch and beech and oak all showered down together with dandelion, leaving a bright yellow slick of dust on everything for weeks. There has been a little rain and some has washed away leaving golden runnels on the pavements, visible proof of the pulsing life of spring.
The wild strawberries are out and the slugs are carefully sawing their way through the stalks of each iris flower. The box tree hedge is alive with China moth caterpillars and I have filled a bucket with the wriggling horrors. I rashly vowed never to use pesticides in my garden again, so now each fat black and yellow wretch must be picked off by hand. It feels loathsomely virtuous and tomorrow I am going to turn the high pressure hose on them and see how they like that blast of clean bio warfare!
New season resolutions for Earth Day.
Cathy's real country garden 
I’ve used ash from the fire on pear slugs to kill them. I wonder if it would work on your caterpillars? They’d have to be damp for the ash to stick, but it might be worth a try.
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Its an interesting idea, but there are so many of them i woukd have to plaster the whole hedge in ash. I will work on it!
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It sometimes seems that gardens and plots are little more than combat zones! xx
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so true. I felt bad about the caterpillars, as I love most moths, but if I leave them they will kill the box hedge, so they have to die!! xx
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Bravo to your resolutions and bravo to your hosing efforts. I’m sure you’ve considered chickens as bio-weapons but if not, I’ve heard they love caterpillars, slugs etc. Please keep up updated from the trenches. 🙂
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Thank you for your support in my murderous endevours!
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