Vegetable Weevils and Other Assorted Creatures

I was taking the last of the rubbish to the bin at the curb when my neighbour across the road walked out of his house.

‘Ryan!’ I exclaimed.

‘Something’s eating the potato plants.’ He said, although I hadn’t heard him at first.

‘What’s that?’ I asked and put the rubbish in the bin.

‘The potato plants are being eaten!’ Ryan chuckled as he circled to the front of his house where a little garden bed rests behind his picket fence - literally, a picket fence. Both my neighbours across the road have a picket fence and by the heavens, they are lovely.

‘I didn’t know you had potato plants.’ I said, as I proceeded to cross the road on this cold but clear, winter night. Stars sparkled down.

The street was empty, bar the shouts from the soccer oval down the way which made me remember how I would like to kick the ball again. Although, that is on pause, due to an impulsive and silly, seven-kilometer run I dragged myself through which has aggravated my already niggling calf issues.

‘I can’t seem to catch the little buggers.’ I had arrived side by side to my good and tall neighbour Ryan - who’s mid-sixties and got a buggered knee from an accident twenty years ago - as he leaned over the picket fence with his torch to inspect the leaves.

They sure looked eaten.

‘They sure look eaten.’ I said to him,

‘They’ve gone through the lot.’

‘They have gone through the lot.’ I said and now inspected the plants with my own torch from my phone.

‘I just can’t seem to see what’s getting them.’

A few incy-wincy spiders, that may have rathered a water spout, were the only sign of life (bar Ryan and I) that I could see.

‘That’s crazy.’ I added. ‘There’s nothing here at all.’

‘Nothing!’ Ryan blurted, frustrated, but also amazed. Ryan had an affiliation with the amazing. Cue the next part of our conversation:

‘We have a hawk in the area.’

‘A hawk?’ I asked.

‘Just today, I was out here petting Tom, and then it came zooming by about yay-high with a pigeon in its mouth.’

Tom was Ryan’s fat-cat that fancied my cat, Socks, who was small and petite and only liked Tom at a distance of a meter or two. Often they would lay in the sun together on warmer days. He sometimes would come to our front door, calling for her. Like a young gentleman.

I told Ryan that I’ve heard that Hawks will go for smaller animals like cats, but added that Tom was fat enough that I didn’t think that he should worry, which made him laugh but made me worry because my cat, as mentioned, was small and petite and perhaps a Hawk might fancy her for a meal.

‘A bit too cold for me, I’ll have to head inside.’

‘I’ll have a google and see what I can find.’ I said to Ryan, regarding the potato plants. He thanked me and off we went.

The Google provided a few options, but the culprit seems to be a common pest known as a Vegetable Weevil.

Case solved. I plan to inform Ryan in due course, and hopefully with some tips on how to defend his potato plants against them.