My Little Journey with Centipedes
So, you know, I never really gave much thought to centipedes. If anything, I used to see one and, well, my first instinct was probably to get it out of my sight, fast. They just looked… intense, with all those legs. But then, I had this situation in my little back garden a while back. I was trying to grow some veggies, nothing fancy, just a few tomato plants and some lettuce. And boy, did the slugs and other tiny munchers love my setup. It was a real battle, and I was losing.
I remember complaining to my neighbor, old Mrs. Gable, about it. She’s one of those folks who seems to know everything about gardens without ever reading a book on it. She just sort of chuckled and said something like, “Nature’s got its own janitors, dearie, if you let ’em work.” Didn’t make much sense to me at the time. Janitors? In my garden?
Then the “practice” started, sort of by accident. I got busy with some other stuff, life happens, you know? And I kind of neglected a corner of the garden. Didn’t clear out the fallen leaves as much, left a few old stones and bits of wood lying around. I wasn’t trying to do anything special. I was just… slacking, honestly.
And then I started noticing them. The centipedes. More than usual. Darting around under the leaves, zipping across the soil when I disturbed something. At first, I was like, “Oh great, more creepy crawlies.” But then, I started to actually watch them. When I was out there, puttering around, I’d just observe. What were they doing? They weren’t eating my plants, that was for sure. They seemed to be on a mission, always hunting for something.
- I saw one tackle a small slug. Actually saw it! Took me by surprise.
- I noticed fewer of those little whitefly-looking things on the undersides of my tomato leaves in that “neglected” corner.
- It wasn’t like a scientific study, mind you. Just me, my garden, and these little critters.
Slowly, it dawned on me. These fellas, the ones I used to be a bit freaked out by, they were the “janitors” Mrs. Gable was talking about! It wasn’t an overnight fix, my slug problem didn’t vanish completely. But it definitely got better in the areas where these centipedes seemed to be thriving. They were going after the pests, the stuff that was actually damaging my plants.
So, what did I learn from all this? Well, their efficacy, for me, was pretty clear. They were like a tiny, free pest control service. And their function? They were busy keeping the balance, cleaning up the smaller, unwanted guests in my garden. It’s funny, I went from wanting to squish them to kind of respecting them. I even started to deliberately leave a few more “wild” spots in the garden, a few more stones and leaf piles, just to give them a decent place to live and work. Turns out, sometimes the best way to “practice” something is just to step back, observe, and let nature do its thing. It’s a simple record, I know, but it really changed how I look at those many-legged creatures.
