The War of the Worms
You might think, when you picture a vegetable garden, a perfectly tended plot. The plants hanging heavily with fruit, just waiting to be picked. A garden that practically weeds itself. A garden with an invisible fence to keep out insect pests. In the early spring, the battle between good verses evil began in my garden. It didn’t start out as a war, though. I started little plants in my greenhouse in early March, caring for them and giving them everything they needed. For two long months I gave them my undivided attention, until it was time to set them in the garden. In mid May I set out my tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower transplants. They formed many nice, wide rows of healthy green plants, blowing ever so gently in the breeze. I gently watered my transplants, taking care to shake the mud tenderly from their fragile leaves. With one last caring look at the neat rows in my garden, I headed into the house for bed. The air was warm, and the sun was just falling behind the trees. The next morning, I eagerly went outside to see how my babies had faired through the night. What I found shocked me. My precious babies, lying flat on the ground. Chewed off at ground level. Their once healthy green leaves withered and, in places, simply gone. In shock, I kneeled beside the now graveyard, gently taking a shriveled leaf in my work worn hands. What had happened? Why were my once wonderfully healthy seedlings suddenly dead? Overnight? I had to find some answers. First, however, I needed to replant other seedlings in the place of the dead ones. I retrieved my tools, and my replacement plants, thankful that I had had the foresight to plant extra three months earlier. I knelt in the soft dirt. After taking a pepper plant gently from its cell pack, I began to dig my hole. I laid the first scoop of dirt to the side, and dug another scoop. As I set it down, something caught my eye. In the dirt I had just dug, a large grayish-brownish worm lay. I poked it with my shovel, and it curled into a ball. In that instant, I knew I had found my assassin. The seemingly innocent little worm that lay at my feet was responsible for the dead pepper plant lying beside me. I killed the disgusting worm instantly. Before I knew it, the war had begun. I had identified my enemy, and now I needed to take drastic measures to save what was left of my ‘men.’ As the days went on, the battle continued. The causalities seemed to be even on both sides. I began my defense by pushing a nail into the soil alongside the stem of the plants, but the cutworms won that battle by chewing off the other side of the plant. Nonetheless, I persevered. Next I tried pushing a paper towel tube down in the soil around the plant. Somehow, the worms got through that, too. The seedlings were down flat on the ground by morning. The worms continued to grow, no matter what I tried. The worms were getting big and fat on my precious seedlings!
One day in late May, I was walking in my garden, again surveying the
damage done to my precious seedlings the night before (did you ever notice how
the cowardly cutworms wait until the cover of night to do their dastardly
deeds?). I decided it was time to
pull out the big guns. I turned off
the electric fence and opened the gate, inviting our chickens in to eat their
fill. The chickens, the ‘tanks’ of my war, my knights in shining armor, scratched and ate, and scratched and ate some more during the whole afternoon. I could only chuckle evilly as I watched the massacre from inside the house. The next day I walked out into my garden and was relieved, and a bit surprised, to see that I hadn’t lost one transplant the night before! I had won the war! My precious babies could now grow untouched by the evils of the garden world. Late in the summer, during harvest time, I picked bushels and bushels of tomatoes from my plants, which were now nearly as tall as me, bushy and with thick stems. I picked pecks of peppers, thick and blocky. My cabbages were ready for kraut, and the broccoli ready for freezing. The air was warm as I reminisced about the early days of my spring garden. I reached down to pluck the last juicy red tomato from the plant when something caught my eye. I knelt, causally peeking under the full foliage of the tomato plant. Lying on the ground next to the stem of my beautiful tomato plant lay a large grayish-brownish worm. I could almost see him grinning up at me as he leisurely dug under the soil, oblivious to my shocked face. Oh, no! I cried as I raced to open the gate to let the chickens in. A counter-attack! The worms were back!
© 2003 by Terra A. Mandrell ~ Please do not reprint or duplicate without permission.
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