heebiejeebieheebiejeebieheebiejeebieheebiejeebieheebiejeebieheebiejeebieheebiejeebie
ICK.
Yes, they do!
One of my elderly neighbors has several plants and they’ve really done well this spring. Her trick for getting the bugs off the artichokes before cooking is to cover the artichokes with hot water in a big pot, pour in lots of salt and let them soak for a while. I tried this and it works pretty well but I still check them very thoroughly before cooking.
When hubby brought the first two artichokes in a couple of weeks ago, DOZENS of those fuckers poured out of them. DOZENS. Fuckers! Gaaaaaaaaahhhhh.
Now, I have two pet snakes that I regularly feed rats and mice to. I caught a tarantula in my parents’ back yard and kept it for a few days before turning it loose. When a small scorpion climbed up a bathroom sink pipe and hung out in the basin, I was fascinated and caught it. I can bait my own hooks and release any fish I catch all on my own.
But pincher bugs pouring out of an artichoke??
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
I did manage to pretend the two more that hubby brought in today weren’t bug contaminated, as he shook all but one of them out. I then cut off the eaten, pincher-bug-poop sprinkled leaves and boiled the fuck out of those artichokes. We ate them with lemon butter dipping sauce, and though they weren’t too tender (I think we waited too long to harvest them because of the heebie jeebie factor), they were edible.
Any way to keep those little black crawling fuckers from getting in the plants in the first place?
Are you talking about earwigs? Ugh, yes - anything with crevices in it can attract them, and there is something disgustingly squirmy and creepy-crawly about an earwig. I once dropped a natural-bristle broom and hundreds of them sprang out from between the roots of the bristles. <shudder>
But did you know that they’re one of only a few insects where the female actively cares for the young? (I appreciate that probably doesn’t make them any more welcome on your artichokes)
People eat artichokes?
Ew. I was thinking of planting several in the garden, but I’ll use that space for more tomatoes. Tomatoes, your friendly free-of-nests-of-wriggly-segmented-insect-horrors fruit.
You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?
Tomato Hornworms.
They’re eating my clematis plants, too, which are apparently delicious, and it makes me irritable.
You can make a pretty good earwig trap with an old plastic sour cream container. Cut a small (quarter-sized) hole in the top and put maybe half an inch of balsamic vinegar in the bottom. That won’t keep them out of the garden entirely, but if you do this reliably, you may make a dent in their numbers.