One of the benefits of living in suburbia is having a back yard, however comparable the size of that yard is to a postage stamp (I live in Southern California, where even a million bucks doesn't buy much more than that). So in theory, due to the great weather, I'm supposed to be able to enjoy this small slice of paradise — in my case, year round.
Instead, this reverie has been marred by one pest jihad after another — I spent most of last year trying to kill my then-mortal enemy, the snail — which ate pretty much my entire herb garden and about half of my landscape plants. This year — the mealybug. If you don't know what they are, click here for a photo, imagine them ALL OVER an entire wall of vines, and proceed to puke. I hate them!!! They've pretty much destroyed all my passion fruit vines, and I spend about 10% of my time after I get back from work squirting them with an organic pesticide. To no avail. My vines are so diseased that I had to amputate huge sections today, and I have had enough! Enough of this organic crap, I'm pulling out the big guns. In a few minutes I am going to purchase a poisonous, systemic insecticide that I hope will melt those friggin' mealybugs on contact. Ha! Take that, mealybugs! And, I'll have 10% extra time to spend with my family to boot.