Squishings

And what, pray tell, have I been doing for two days? Squishing grubs.

Here are a few of the almost hundred brassica seedlings in the potting shed. Almost all have been potted on into bigger plastic pots.

They ought to be able to stay in those all autumn. And some can go out into the potager when I find some spare time to do some planting out.

But I couldn’t plant them without thorougly inspecting each and every leaf for signs of grubs. And boy did I find some infestations.  The windows are all wide open so it’s not a surprise that cabbage moth butterflies fly in and lay their eggs.

I hope I have caught the lot But there is bound to be a teensy grub or two lurking.  For some strange reason the grubs are not on the bak choi plants. Nor on the swiss chard.

And I did yelp with shock when I found a huge (fatter than my thumb and twice as long) leopard slug.curled up around the base of rosemary cutting. Yech. I will spare you the photograph.

My yelp woke up Artur who has taken a close position to my work this afternoon.  He was Not Amused.

We both were very busy earlier cutting flowers for friends and the house. I have the last of my lilies in the chestnut foliage at the front door.

And the sunflowers are going to be the star of the show in Manu and Madame Mauricette’s bunches.

They look fetching combined with the orange tithonia flowers and the fronds of stipa gigantea.

I didn’t take a brilliant picture and the flowers flopped a bit in the vase, but they will be fine by tomorrow morning, once they survive getting transported in the car.