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So, now that it is over with, and I am still reeling from the annoyance, I thought I would share with you the literal translation of the Eddie Izzard routine that has the tag, "It's full of BEEEEEEEZZZZ!"
I got a text message while at an event I was running out of town, that was only two words long: WASP CONTROL!!!!!!!! (OK. Two words and a lot of exclamation points) Naturally, I called, and, after verifiying that the people who had been watering my garden were OK (only one or two stings and no allergic reactions), found out that my gardens in the back of the house apparently had a small cloud of wasps near them. This is not such a good thing, as I am very allergic to stings and one can send me into shock. There is a very good reason that I have my stabby stick.
So, I go home after the event (and after telling my friends a singularly redundant thing - don't go back there) and sneak into the back yard to see that they were, if anything, being somewhat conservative in their estimate of how many wasps were in the back yard. After bolting back into the house, screaming at the top of my lungs and slamming the door behind me so that any wasps that may have noticed me will slam into the door instead of my backside, with a metal image of something that might be found in a Warner Brother's cartoon, I tried to figure out what to do. My options are limited, and while my husband loves me, he does not need to risk having his skin punctured a million times by insects. Unfortunately, this definitely needs help.
Basically, for the last week, when I was at home, I was trapped inside the house, or had to sneak out the front. This was not particularly conducive to improving my sociability, but when there is a choice between my life and my back yard, the life wins every time. While being trapped, I tried to find someone that could do organic something to get rid of the pests, but unfortunately, there was no such a thing. Finally, I called Terminex, knowing that I was killing my organics, but I still say that in a fight between my life and anything else, my life wins.
I finally got someone to come out, and he went in the back yard to investigate. After seeing the bugs, he came inside (rather quickly, I thought, but that might have been me standing near the door ready to slam it in the face of the 10 foot long wasp that I could see in my mind's eye), and verified that I did indeed have what appeared to be a COUPLE of wasps nests, inside the gardens. Inside the beds. Inside.
Now, I have a theory that you should learn about your enemy, and so have a vaguely passing education in wasps. Last I checked, even the ones that dig in the ground (mud daubers), don't nest on the ground or in bales of hay. They usually prefer to have nests up high where they will not be disturbed - you know, like under the eaves of the house, or in the attic. A tree will do in a pinch, if they are not particularly intent on making the humans miserable.
Now, being the lover of organic and homegrown stuff that I am, my beds were all started with hay bales. Hay is lovely stuff, and makes for a wonderful organic bedding. I used approximately 45 bales of it in the back yard to make some seriously good production beds for my foodstuffs. It's all been natural, organic, and - well until the bloody wasps came in, so tasty it would make a gourmet chef cry with joy. One of the other nice things about hay is that it prevents most pests from getting into your garden - pests like tomato worms, slugs and... WASPS. Seriously, wasps don't like hay. That's the rule.
So, as I looked outside this weekend, I wondered why I had this nice man out there, with his giant spray hose, pinging the air with this funky powder, and actually shooting wasps out of the sky. Seriously, there was a time where I was whistling the universal "Here come the bad guys" theme from every western you have ever seen. I half wanted to put a big old ten gallon hat on the guys head and ask him to say things like "Pohd-nah", "Howdy ma'am" and "You need some killin' boy."
Twenty minutes later, there was what looked like a fine coating of ash on everything, and nary a wasp in sight.
He finished and I went out to find about 30 little crunchy corpses in the grass (note to self - do NOT go outside barefoot), some very sad vegetables, and him pointing to the beds that he had especially sprayed.
See, this spray is anything but organic. It's a nasty thing. It kills everything in the bug world, wasps, roaches, earwigs, you name it. It also kills people if they ingest it.
So, this weekend, I will have someone with a truck, that is willing to load up a bunch of bales of hay and take them somewhere else so that they can be burned or otherwise disposed of. All my lovely gardens are now poison to me unless I start over. The cukes that were turning into kudzu on my fence - gone. The tomato jungle that six little plants had become - gone. The beans that had restarted themselves over the week I was in Dallas - gone. The cabbage that was maturing into something the size of a basketball - gone. All of it.
Now that you all have read my tale of woe (and I hope you got at least an occasional chuckle out of the telling), here is the question:
What can put into the garden to make sure that this NEVER EVER EVER happens again. Ever! Never! Not in ten million years, even if my garden is the last place on earth where there is anything edible. Not even in the event of a zombie attack!
I have had it suggested that I can probably reduce the number of wasps that come into the area by using the pitcher thingies to trap and drown them. But I'm not sure if this is enough. So, I bring the question to you guys: In Houston, in summer, how to keep the wasps away? I've already resigned myself to starting over on the beds, but I really don't want to have to restart again after this round.
Oh, and if anyone has any theories of why they decided to nest inside my hay, I would love that too.
This message was edited Jun 9, 2009 9:58 PM
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