Swiss chard leaf eater
I've
been known to tell people that swiss
chard is the easiest vegetable to grow since nothing seems to eat
it. I won't be saying that anymore.
You see, an absolutely
adorable, striped insect showed up around the swiss chard this summer,
and I left the critter alone because it was so cute. Only weeks
later did I catch the chomper in action and figure out why it was so
plump.
The disillusionment made
me so mad at my buddies that I smashed every single one, so I don't
have a photo to show you (nor can I figure out what the bad bug 
was.)
Even though it set me
way behind my frozen greens allotment for the summer, my swiss chard
insect taught me a good lesson --- identify, identify, identify!
Now, whenever a new insect shows up in my life, I pull out the books
and figure out what it is right away.
During my weekly bug
picking and smashing expedition Monday, I came across these fascinating
grey scales shingling a dead asparagus twig. Ten minutes later, I
knew that they were mostly harmless --- just katydid eggs to serenade
me to sleep next year. Thank goodness!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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