the usual suspects

My three remaining pumpkin plants appear to have overcome the monster that threatened to devour them earlier in the season.   The creature that consumed the majority of their comrades.  That promised to eradicate every last pumpkin plant in my front yard.  While it's still too early to tell if any pumpkins will survive, with such tough survivors around them, I remain cautiously optimistic.  But I am disappointed that  I was never able to positively identify the culprit.

I've had my suspicions.

At first, I thought it might have been the ubiquitous ants, which seem to crawl over every inch of the soil in my garden.

There is indeed  "No menace like it".  But while the ants are clearly in control of my yard, and while I can testify to the fact that killing one  means that two take its place, they have not posed a problem to my garden plants in the past.  No, a more likely suspect might be  . . . the slugs.  Having undoubtedly enjoyed my hostas, they may have been looking to add variety to their diet.

But while slugs are stealthy creatures, their numbers have been few this season.  From outer space or not, they would have needed to pick up the pace to wreak the havoc that had been bestowed upon my young plants in the spring.  The slugs were cleared.

Then, visiting my struggling pumpkin plants one day, I was startled by a grey fluttering amongst the leaves.  Leading me to suspect . . . moths.  Until now, they've been primarily concerned with destroying my front yard grass in a larval form (that's another story) but they may have moved on in search of new adventure.

 

Whether motivated by love or by the desire for pumpkin leaves and stems, the moths were a real possibility.  My prime suspects.  Until I was ambushed by . . . grasshoppers.  Everywhere.  Jumping with wild abandon throughout my front garden.  But in particular, amongst the pumpkins . . .   One was even resting comfortably within a pumpkin leaf.

Yes, it could have been the grasshoppers.  In Horrorscope.  The beginning of the end indeed for most of my plants.  But I can only speculate about their guilt. 

And I still have my suspicions about my neighbours' cats.