View From The Tunnel





I see there are too many ants. 
In themselves of no harm, but a propensity to farm aphids which leach sap. I worry for my basil harvest.
I see hedge sparrows hop in, peck up ants. 
They bend a tomato branch, knock a lime fruit to the ground - but they are organic pest control. Homegrown too, born in our own hedges.

Ants don’t like peppermint or bay leaves, so there’s some of that scattered also.
They pull back in haste - I picture their faces contorted in revulsion.
If you could see the big picture, ants, I say… but then - I’m sat looking down the polytunnel.
Maybe it’s a microcosm, maybe it’s just artificial.
Either way, I cut back the rocket and nasturtiums, uncrowd cucumbers.
(I made a raw ketchup from this: Mr not keen: me, green teeth.)

Grapes are pouring from the vine this year. A bee skirts them, busy in a thick coat, in this heat!
He ignores the bee drink station, too busy. I fear he will spark fur with kinetic frenzy, burn up, sparkly at first, fizzle out, reduced to crunch.
Will he?
The trick is, bee, I say, to stop at sparkle. I will be saying this to the grapes too no doubt.

Up push pepper plants, may they flower with equal vigour. We are late in season but the bees are keen to help. Tomatoes darken: if I darkened green it would not make red.
Everyday, rainbow miraculous!
One pink radish has one bite from it - whatever was here got a mouthful of radish fire and retreated.

Bee does his nasturtium round. 
White buds on lime branches. 

Bold yellow on melon vines.
Up comes basil, ant-free, purple and green.

The weeding never stops, why would it?
Sit for a coffee dear, I say, before you exceed the sparkle.
I sit.
I look.
I note.





Comments

Geo. said…
I am such a fan of bees, Lisa, and of little tree frogs and millipedes, sowbugs (and detritivores of all types), that I both enjoyed and envisioned your polytunnel tale with great enthusiasm. The world, our world, our garden grows around a star. It's amazing, like you are.
6 August 2017 at 06:21
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