La Belle's Hobby Farm: O What a Web We Weave!

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing.
I wove my webs for you because I liked you.
After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die.
A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies.
By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle.
Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.

~ E.B. White, Charlotte's Web

W

 hen you are committed to gardening organically, without pesticides or chemical fertilizers, people often ask how you deal with bugs.

Why, more bugs of course!

Ever here the old adage, fight fire with fire?  This advice is very true in the sustainable, organic garden.  Hmmm, sounds like a topic for this week’s Top Five Friday post.  However, since today is my defacto garden post day, I’d like to introduce you to Tia, (pronounced tsee-uh) short for Argiope aurantia.    

A little bigger than our old friend, Charlotte.

Much more poetic than Common Garden Spider, or Black and Yellow Garden Spider.  I was very excited to look her up.  She's textbook perfect, down to the zig-zag line in the middle of her web.  She's actually hanging upside down, the picture isn't saving properly for some reason.

Tia is perfectly harmless ~ to you and me.  And she is great help in keeping down the fly, mosquito, and aphid populations.  Although the mosquito colonies seem to have grown especially huge this year, so maybe Tia needs some friends to help out. 

A list of which I’ll save for Friday.

In the meantime, enjoy her beauty and be not afraid!

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Got spiders in your garden?  I’d love to see them!  Digitally, of course.  I like what they do, but they still give me goosebumps!