Sunday, May 1, 2011

sweet strawberries

This year, I decided to plant some strawberry plants in my flower bed. I bought a few plants from Home Depot with my mom and came home to place them in the ground. I was sooo excited when the little white blooms opened up, and before too long, a teeny tiny strawberry!!!! Me and the hubz split the baby berry, it was soooo good :)

So, since the first berry, I've been painstakingly watering and weeding the strawberry plants. A few days ago, we had this HUGE storm....thunder, lightening, hail...the works. After which, I went to go check on my strawberries........

A mob of ants have taken up habitation in my garden.....when did this happen??? I leave the berry patch alone for TWO days and a whole CITY of ants moved in.....Not like a little ant bed.....the whole ground around the berries is black and moving!!!!! Now what???

I call the husband out...he says he'll call his father when he gets home from church. I'm FRANTIC!!! My little berries may not make it until FIL gets home from church!!

We pull out the ant poison....yep...there's the label that says 'do not consume'.....but maybe that's one of those over-protective labels???

I call my mom....not over-protective....apparently ant poison is also human poison....which is very inconvenient for my current situation. Mom suggests that we hose the bed down and make the ants want to move. What are we???? Ant landlords???? The only solution is to make the home unlivable so they'll move out on their own??? Ok....

We pull the hose out...which we haven't used since last year (there's a sprinkler system in the front and I use a watering can for the porch)....so, of course, something doesn't work...

The husband fixes the faucet and we're ready to cause some serious water damage to the patch...we water until I'm scared the plants are going to wash away....I go up to the bed to get a closer look at all the floating black dots....

Nope, that's not what I see....

I see a lot of swimming black dots....great....we apparently have aqua-friendly ants....

Today, I pull the plants out of the ground and re-plant them in big pots....I'm bitten all over my hands, arms, and feet....but my baby berries are safe!!

AND...now we can poison the little monsters :-D
PitaPata Dog tickers
PitaPata Dog tickers