I have a rapacious killer in my garden. I'm calling him Rory; Mr Rory R Killer. I love him dearly. He is a devourer of bugs - nasty white bugs that produce a sweet dew which attracts ants who lap it up and then go stomping off back to their nest. My rosebuds have been saved thanks to Rory. I was contemplating dashing off to Botanic to buy some poison to kill the evil little buglets who were starting to munch into my tender young shoots, when lo and behold, the very next day, my saviour arrived and started to clean up.
Who is he? Well, he's a kind of fly maggot - not the housefly nasty white one you see crawling out of decaying skulls on tele, or undulating en masse in a dish of old catfood, no, this is a nice clean, greenish, smooth caterpillar-type fly larvae. He's growing at a rate of knots too. I had many bugs on my bush, but Rory's size is a tribute to his appetite and my bug-less bush. Hurrah for biological control!
I am inspecting, daily, my latest pottings: mixed herbs, chives, tomatoes. The parsley planted a couple of weeks ago is coming along well already and has, for the moment, not attracted the attention of slugs. Both my raspberry and gooseberry bushes have sprouted nicely so I'm hopeful for raspberries and cream, and gooseberry fool this summer. I might just buy some strawberry plants too to avoid paying through the nose for strawbs with taste.
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