pests

Ugh! I found these creepy-crawlies in one of my indoor houseplants, the dracaena that I used to think of as the "dragon plant". Saw them swarming all over the top of the soil, after I watered. Picked off as many as I could, over thirty! They roll into little balls when touched. I think they're millipedes, but not sure how to get rid of them (or if they harm my plant).

Slug damage outside is still pretty much a minimum. It rained a lot the past week, so I couldn't put out beer traps (which only get washed out in rain) but the moisture was heaven for slugs! Last night I set beer out in the Strawberries, Rhubarb, Beets, Chard and Cauliflower plots. (Still no slugs in the Lettuce, cheers!)

 I got quite a few from among the Strawberries, which are getting big a healthy! and since I pulled the mulch off them, it appears fewer bugs are eating them up- not as many places for them to hide.

The Rhubarb (leaves twice as long as my entire hand, now) gets only a little chewed on, most leaves have no damage. I got about a dozen mid-sized slugs off them. I'm wondering about my Rhubarb, why aren't the stems red? does it not get enough sun?

The Beets don't seem to be touched anymore, no slugs there.

Same with the Cauliflower (whose leaves in center of plant are growing in tighter clusters now- will they make heads soon?)

I was disappointed to not catch any slugs from the Chard row, which looks great from a distance

but up close the leaves all riddles with holes.

 I was pretty sure it was slugs, but didn't get a single one, and when looking closely through the plants, could not find any critters at all- only one teeny slug hiding in a crevice. I'm going to go out with a flashlight tonight, and take a closer look.
~
Later, same day. I've found the hideout of the big slugs. One part of my yard that's still grass has a heap of black plastic bags full of leaves on it, to kill the grass so I can plant sunflowers and pumpkins there (and also to cook the leaves towards compost-making). I was tossing them over today, to mix the leaves, and check on the progress of grass-killing. Found some fat slug monsters under there.

These guys are all at least two inches or more when they stretch out to crawl. Dark and spotted. Three times or more bigger than the usual cream-colored slugs I find on the veggies (there's one on the right, there). Those are the size I'm used to seeing.

Well, I got a good dozen of them cleared out of the yard. There were pretty close to the rhubarb patch, and I didn't want to think of how many thousands of eggs they would have laid.

There was another inhabitant under the bag pile, besides the spiders, centipedes, pill bugs, worms and beetles. I found a small pile of little dark-brown droppings, and then nearby, the hole of a tunnel. Something living down there! I kept my eye on it as I was shifting bags around, and pretty soon the animal bolted away- a reddish-brown rodent with a short little tail. He bounced up across the rhubarb patch, through the chain-link fence and vanished under a pile of leaves in the neighbor's yard. Probably a meadow vole, but larger than the ones I've seen the cat leave on the porch.