It’s time for a Tanglefoot tune-up, a seasonal refresher on how and why to use Tanglefoot as a component of holistic orcharding, an essay on my personal experience answering the question, “Does Tanglefoot work?” The short answer: yes! A more comprehensive response coming soon. Until then, check out my previous posts on using Tanglefoot for organic orchard pest protection.
If my title, Tanglefoot Tango, piqued your puzzlement, I’ll prologue my more substantive look at why this sticky solution should be part of your healthy fruit growing practice with a more lyrical look.
I present to you this as yet still premature poem that it may mature and blossom with warming sunlight.
Tanglefoot Tango
Tiny toes toward
a tree trunk tiptoe.
Gypsy moths and ants
step-step staccato
skyward, visions of
tender leaves, blossoms,
tent caterpillars
leaning legato,
long, languid longing
for home, for homing,
for nurturing a
new generation.
Intoxicated,
love’s lusty liquor,
guitaring siren,
all existence yearns
up, upward, sky high.
Gliding to the ground
a man tree-ward leans
his broad shoulders squared,
fingertips feeling
folds in fissured bark,
topographical
touch, mapping mental.
Cutting cardboard crepe
he bands the bark, pauses,
tightens twine, a knot.
Coaxing concoction —
gummy, oily wax,
sticky with sunlight —
from tub to tree trunk
dabbing, buttering
bug barrier on
crepe cuff, twine, and knot,
the man embraces
the tree he protects.
Bugs barricaded with super-sticky gum to prevent them from crawling up our fruit trees, an earnest custodian of the trees (and the fruit they will bear), and the curious chemistry of tango… Unlikely companions in a poem. But I’m not quite ready to abandon this attempt yet!
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