I thought my troubles were over with disappearing plants now that the slug traps are operational. I was wrong! My newly sown little pots of special sweetcorn were stolen in the night, pot by pot ransacked, by greedy mice. Now I know why I only had about 10 plants last year!
Unscathed seeds are safely inside busy germinating. I’ve bought some more seeds but forgot to buy a mouse trap!
Each year I sow seeds then wonder why they don’t appear quite often. Very slowly it has dawned on me…the veg garden is bordered by a wall on one side and a slugtastic lawn edge on the other. Slugs beat me too the seedlings before I have chance to set eyes on them!
Seed sowing continues in earnest. In the greenhouse, whilst sowing some seeds I spotted what looked like a small red spider.
Initial research suggested that it was a red spider mite, threatening to infest the greenhouse and ruin my plants. I hadn’t killed it of course so was that the case?
Yet close up images didn’t quite match up and a bit more digging around on the web found this
So it isn’t a foe, it’s a friend! http://www.cirrusimage.com/Arachnid_velvet_mite.htm
from this site it appears that they serve as an important link in the ecosystem web.
Next up on my greenhouse guest list was a millipede
I thought a millipede was a millipede but on research it seems that there is a whole family of differing types
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millipede
Final conclusion: The sieved soil from the base of the cleared compost heap is teeming with useful wildlife 🙂
Gardening in a Jungle 