Thanks for the Grub(s)

Miss Kitty cook'n up some grub for supper.

Rhiannon, Grandma and I spent an inordinate amount of time sweating & sifting through my new'ish raised bed.  I started this bed in the spring of 2012 as a "Lasagna" type garden and then just threw organic stuff in it as I remembered.  It sat unused for over a year.  Then this summer it was finally ready for planting so I shoved some horseradish roots in there hoping they would take off in the oh-so-wonderful rock-free and nutrient-rich soil.

So exactly what were we sifting?  Maybe harvesting those horseradish roots?

Nope.  We were harvesting grubs.  Big, plump, thicker-than-my-pinky-finger grubs.  I was wondering why my horseradish plants were so pathetic looking so I dug them up to see what was going on under the surface.  And I pulled out like six grubs just pulling the two tiny plants.

I put the pathetic horseradish into a planter with some good soil, watered it and put it aside.  Then went to digging through the rest of the bed.  I found grubs with every single scoop of the shovel.  My plan was to put garlic in that bed this Fall and since I didn't really want to encourage any more Japanese Beetles from reaching maturity, I figured I really needed to purge the entire bed of the root-munching pests.

This is why you saw the kitty picture first, because I didn't want to gross anybody out with a grub picture as the first thing you saw when you went onto Blogger:

Feel free to click on this to enlarge it.
But if you gag, don't blame me.

A writhing, wriggling mass of grubs.  Enough to fill an entire quart jar and all from a 2 1/2 x 5' bed.  I thought Mom was going to hurl when she saw the pile of grubs.  Both Rhiannon & Mom refused to pluck them from the soil with their bare hands, so Rhiannon was carefully scooping them up with a little garden trowel and dumping them in the grub-tub.  Which I'm glad they did because at one point one of the buggers actually grabbed my finger with his jaws, and while it didn't hurt at all, it was freaky feeling and I ended up flinging him halfway across the yard without thinking.  I hope he fried to a crisp in the 95 degree heat.

Although my chickens refuse to even peck at a hornworm, they absolutely love grubs.  Go to town gals!

I did notice a strange thing while digging through the bed; I only saw one earthworm.  All that wonderful dirt and only one stinking worm.  I wonder if the grubs "chased" the worms away.

I'm going to dig through the bed once more before I plant the garlic because I'm sure that I missed some grubs.  And I know the chickens will appreciate my efforts.