Bug city

A few months ago I decided to plant some flowers throughout my food garden for a few reasons. Firstly, because they're pretty and I can cut them and bring them inside. Second, because I was frustrated at the nematodes and thought if I can't grow vegetables, what can I grow? And most importantly because they attract insects into the garden. Bees for pollination and everyone should be doing all they can to keep bee populations healthy while insecticide sprays on crops are wiping them out and they are vitally important to food production. (rant over) Also all the other bugs we have keep a neat ecosystem going so that no one type of bug will take over and destroy crops.

Here's some of the bugs visiting my garden over the past week;

I have a couple of spiders that I like to leave in the garden. I threw a slater into his web. The spider didn't seem too interested in it, sadly.

And this mantis was about 5cm long and was trying to hitch a ride around on my arm the other day. I haven't seen one of these so big since I was a kid. I hope he eats slaters.

Crack Plant

Crack plants amuse me.

 

I have vincas in my garden that get watered over summer and get some manure and slow release fertiliser. They don't look half as happy as this crack plant growing by my front door:

 

    

 

This plant gets swept over, the dogs walk over it and catch their leads around it. The neighbours son pulled all the flowers off it for fun once. It certainly doesn't get watered and yet, all summer it has thrived in a crack. Maybe I should pay less attention to my plants in the garden.