Bit by bit we're getting round to digging over my long-neglected lottie, and black hessian's been down over half for the best part of the last year. We seem to have a chronic problem with ants, and each time we peel back another couple of metres of hessian to reclaim the land for our veggies, we find yet another bloomin ants' nest.
Yesterday, on peeling the hessian back, I noticed that as well as the ants scurrying about on the surface, and the eggs they had brought up, there were - please don't laugh - what I can only describe as sesame seeds with legs. They were exactly the same shape, size and colour as raw sesame seeds, with the head at the pointy end, legs just behind the head, and a huge behind.
I've heard that ants 'farm' aphids - could these be young aphids they're nurturing until they find a nice juicy bud they can plonk them on, or have I just got two nightmares coexisting instead of just the one?
