Throop Learning Garden has exploded with an infestation of roly-polies! You know the critters: small, dark grey, trilobite looking crustaceans with many legs: pillbugs or armadillidae, have a voracious appetite. They consume many times their body weight in detritus and greens. They are capable of making lace from the most robust cucumber or lettuce leaves. Usually they are most welcome detritus removers, munching on fallen leaves. They are kept in check by predators like birds, beetles, and skunks. But when they have a population surge – watch out!
When it comes to garden pests, I am torn between a live-and-let-live stance and saving my harvest. When the environment cannot be balanced, eradication often means killing the pests. Therein lies the paradox of all gardens.
Balance is fleeting, as nature is never static. Harmony lies in an endless round of eating and being eaten – killing at its most primal. The reality is that all creatures kill to live: earthworms eat bacteria, aphids eat leaves, ants farm aphids, spiders eat ants, and so on up the food chain to us.
When it comes to garden pests, I am torn between a live-and-let-live stance and saving my harvest. When the environment cannot be balanced, eradication often means killing the pests. Therein lies the paradox of all gardens.
Balance is fleeting, as nature is never static. Harmony lies in an endless round of eating and being eaten – killing at its most primal. The reality is that all creatures kill to live: earthworms eat bacteria, aphids eat leaves, ants farm aphids, spiders eat ants, and so on up the food chain to us.
