Naively, when I first began to teach myself about gardening I thought that it would be a nurturing, pastoral and sensual occupation, mostly about flowers, lawns, fruits and trees. I soon learned the pests were part of my job, too. I had to deal with moles, slugs, greenfly, wasps, rats, weeds and many other things that were just getting on with living. For some people much of gardening is about killing things.
