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[I wrote this last Fri­day night in my hos­tel room in Los Angeles]

With all this focus on get­ting rid of bugs, I’ve been feel­ing a lit­tle depressed.

‘How can I teach peo­ple how to con­trol the bugs in their gar­dens?’ I‘ve been think­ing over and over again.

Tomor­row is my hot­seat with Marie For­leo, and while I knew I wasn’t going to ask her about how to get rid of bugs, I also knew I had to stop think­ing about them, so I took a walk down to Santa Mon­ica beach.

Nes­tled beside the famous pier, I saw what appeared to be a cir­cus tent. As it turned out, it was my lucky day. The cir­cus had come to town… And it wasn’t just any cir­cus, it was the only one I’m inter­ested in see­ing, Cirque Du Soleil.

I went.

Iron­i­cally, the per­for­mance called ‘Ovo’, is all about bugs.

I couldn’t get away from them. Grass-hoppers, fire-flies, lady-bugs, creepy crawly, spotty, squishy and hun­gry bugs. There were bugs buzzing and hop­ping all over the stage and wrig­gling through the audience.

While they were doing their mind-bending acro­bat­ics, I kept think­ing about the insects at my place.

“I’m just as, if not more inter­ested in and fas­ci­nated by real bugs at home,” I thought.

Then I real­ized. I don’t hate the bugs in my gar­den. They add rich­ness and inter­est to my experience.

Now, I under­stand not every­one is going to be with me on this one. But I’m going to share a recent expe­ri­ence I had, and I’m not sug­gest­ing you need to fol­low my crazy artis­tic mind to start shar­ing your home with bugs, but stick with me [I give you a prac­ti­cal solu­tion at the end!].

My mum kindly house-sat for me while I was away over Christmas.

When I came home, she was beam­ing with pride, because she’d cleaned my house. Of course I wanted to thank her for all her work and efforts, and I did, but you know what? I couldn’t really see much dif­fer­ence. I just couldn’t tell.

But what I did notice, was the wasps who had made their home in my home, were gone.

Mum said it was a mir­a­cle, one morn­ing she woke up and they were all caught in the spi­ders’ webs in the ceil­ing. So she got the vac­uum cleaner out and sucked them all up, spi­ders and all.

I didn’t know how to tell her I liked hav­ing the wasps in the house. They didn’t bother me at all. Meekly, I men­tioned it.

“Haven’t you ever been stuck by a wasp?” she gasped.

“Well, yes. I have. I know, it hurts.” And log­i­cally, I know I shouldn’t want them shar­ing space with me. But I’ve lived with them for months, and they don’t sting me.

Instead they amaze me.

With their tal­ented maneu­ver­ing and acro­bat­ics. I find them just as fas­ci­nat­ing as the acro­bats in the cir­cus tonight.

You see, I think we live in san­i­tized, fear-mongered, germ-phobic, insu­lated cocoons of insan­ity. Think­ing we can remove our­selves from nature, con­trol nature, over­come nature, dom­i­nate nature. We end up dom­i­nat­ing our­selves. We become too afraid of any lit­tle bite, sting, scratch or calamity that might, just might, recon­nect us to feel­ing alive and thereby, give us a good healthy dose of humility.

Nature is hum­bling. And we need to be hum­ble to move for­ward as a species so we don’t dec­i­mate the earth with our pes­ti­cides, insec­ti­cides, her­bi­cides, and genocides.

Sure, I’m cer­tain a wasp sting would hurt like crazy, but I think liv­ing in a bub­ble of fear would ulti­mately hurt more.

 

So, while watch­ing those incred­i­bly flex­i­ble, tal­ented peo­ple behav­ing like bugs on the stage, a weight lifted. I felt rec­on­ciled with the bugs in my gar­den and ready to shed the illu­sion that I wanted to get rid of them.

Killing bugs is as inter­est­ing to me as going to war.

No thanks.

Watch­ing insects and cel­e­brat­ing the diver­sity of life, being thank­ful for the cycles of nature and rev­el­ing in the chem­i­cal free zone of my house and gar­den, is some­thing that brings me even more joy than watch­ing one of the best cir­cuses in the world.

And those bug-people? They were good. They were very, very good.

Here’s a sneak peak of their act…

 

And do you know what? When I came home the gar­den pro­vided my din­ner. I didn’t have to go to the shop to restock the fridge, it was all there, wait­ing and ready right out­side the back door. There were more than enough salad greens, toma­toes, cap­sicums and herbs. A com­plete eco-system; bugs, frogs, lady­birds, skinks and all.

Now, if you are in Aus­tralia or New Zealand, please be encour­aged… Feb­ru­ary is noto­ri­ously one of the most chal­leng­ing months for grasshop­pers and cater­pil­lars. The good news is their num­bers will nat­u­rally decline as the weather cools down!

Now here’s your prac­ti­cal tip to save your favourite plants.

In the mean time, you may like to con­sider giv­ing your vul­ner­a­ble seedlings and leafy greens a lit­tle ‘pro­tec­tive shield’ by erect­ing a sim­ple shade house. You can do this is a mat­ter of min­utes by drap­ing shade cloth or sim­i­lar fine mate­r­ial (that still allows sun­light through) over four poles, sticks or wooden stakes and putting some bricks around the edges to hold it down.

It could be the extra line of defense needed to get your greens through these last sum­mer months and onto your plate.

It’s lovely to be back home, and I’m excited to share with you new, excit­ing ideas I have in store for Sprouters this year! Stay tuned for details.

If you got a bug out of your sys­tem or sim­ply had a joy­ful ride read­ing this post, please click the ‘like’ but­ton to share it with your friends.

Have fun get­ting out into the gar­den and check­ing out nature’s bounty.
Now you’re grow­ing, naturally!

With love,

Nicola

xx