Gardening

I love to garden. I love playing in the dirt, planting seeds, watching them grow. I even like weeding. What I don't like is bugs!
Bugs give me the hebie-geebies. While I am oft fascinated with hem I don't like them. They creep and crawl and skitter away! Spiders and millipedes are the worst! Especially spiders with egg sacks. Eek! Earwigs are icky too.
Tonight I was gardening, well weeding more like, and I disturbed a bunch of creatures; a couple earwigs, some ants, unidentified little red bugs (like mini fireflies), there are a hoard of Japanese beetles munching away in my giant zinnias, getting ready to jump to my hydrangea I'm sure. It was the spiders that really creeped me out.
There was the long bodied brown girl, egg sack attached to her abdomen, that scurried across the ground trying her best to stay away from my be-gloved weeding hands. Then there was that creepy triangle butt that sent me to the other side of the flower bed, till I felt it was gone. Some little red spiders were sprinkled about, but I kept close watch on Mom...brrrch. I eventually shooed her to the side where I had finished so she could find a safe place to hatch the next generation of creepies...
Once I finished the weeding, I went to look up the control of the Japanese beetles...Jerry Baker recommends a tonic of equal parts baby shampoo, antiseptic mouthwash and tobacco tea...(yes, you steep chewing tobacco in water till dark brown). Guess I have to find the chewing tobacco. I'll just add that to the growing list of things to do. (Wash & wax Aggie, fix the screen door, find and steep chewing tobacco...)
I've used JB's tonics before and they work wonderful! They are organic, made from ingredients found around the house; shampoos, ammonia, tea granules, beer. I add my own secret ingredient: frog sauce.(For those who don't know, I own an African Clawed frog, and he creates 15 gallons of 'frog sauce' a month.) My plants love it, but so it seems do the bugs...Did I mention, I really dislike bugs?!
So I guess it's off to the Walmart tomorrow to find the cheapest, probably nastiest, chewing tobacco I can find to make some anti-creepy crawlie tonic so I don't have to hand pick those bugs off my plants. Did I mention I really don't like bugs...
D~