Sunday 5 October 2008

To Garden or Not to Garden?

That is the question I am asking myself at this very moment. My aunt loves gardening and I think she gets it from my grandfather who is also an avid gardener. He has a pretty little vegetable garden and a small part is being overrun by the notorious peppermint plant! I'll have to take pictures the next time I go back to Malaysia.

Anyway, it was a beautiful, balmy spring day today and I was looking out into the back garden. Both the front and back garden are badly neglected because my aunt doesn't have time to look after them anymore. She used to devote her weekends to tending them but now she spends her weekends at the farm. So, the poor gardens are literally choked with weeds.

I saw a plant in the corner with pretty purple and pink flowers which I couldn't see properly at first due to all the weeds. They had grown so tall it was like pushing through foliage in a jungle. I started about weeding it and I used to love pulling up weeds as a child in my grandfather's garden. Anyway, I must have forgotten what it was like because I wasn't prepared for this...

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and this

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and this

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and one small unidentified grayish white insect which sort of looked like that small insect next to the spider in the previous picture though I'm not sure if they're the same thing.

I think I now have four new phobias. Four different creepy crawlies in one pot, what are the odds?!? Okay, maybe the odds are good and someone should have told me that before I went outside! The millipede was the worse! I poked it with a dry leaf and it started scuttling out. It's like a worm that can scuttle!!! The worm-like appearance, the amount of tiny legs and that curling up thingy that they do eeewwwww!!

Ugh, so to garden or not to garden? Can I man up to the task?

I don't know.

Right now, I'm cowering indoors like a little girl in my millipede-free world with my millipede-free cup of tea typing on my millipede-free laptop.

I still get shivers looking at that picture.

On another note, ph paper is not so readily accessible and I will have to order them online from a supplier. Sigh, can you say too much hassle?? I was bored waiting for the delivery of the paper so I made some soap. Unveiling tomorrow or the day after!

Have a nice millipede-free day people! Unless, of course, millipedes are your thing then you're welcome to mine. Bye!

P.S. As I went to type center in HTML I typed centipede LOL!

5 comments:

Suds to Love said...

Those things would send me running inside also... I do not like creepy crawly things!

egassner said...

Ewwww is right! I HATE millipedes! I'm glad we don't have any around here....or none that I know of! Lol, but I do love gardening

Sherrie said...

I always forget that you're opposite to here season-wise, but you're also opposite spider-wise! What is that crunchy looking spider? Is that what your regulars look like? I love gardening, and it's definitely worth it. Lettuce is the easiest and most delicious thing to start with! :)

Heidi said...

One word...GLOVES! I am not a fan of snakes, worms or anything the resembles either. I have multiple pairs of gloves which makes the task much more enjoyable = )

Michelle said...

Trisha: Speaking of which, I thought I had a dry leaf on my shirt so I picked it off. Then, I stared stupidly at it for a few seconds my brain refusing to register that I was holding a live moth in my hand.

Elizabeth: I thought they were tropical creatures! We have them in Malaysia but they're here in Australia too.....They're following me...

Sherrie: I don't know what the one in the picture is but it looked alot like the one that was running around the garden! I think it's an ordinary black spider but I can't be sure.

Heidi: Sound advice! I will do that next time as I wouldn't want to be bitten by redbacks or black widows or whitetails :(