Any gardener should always be pleased to find centipedes. Since they are hunters, they cannot do any harm to the plants or their roots.
It was blisteringly cold on Sunday, and the water butts were frozen over, but it was not a deep frost. So repairing and replacing the raised beds up at the allotment was relatively easy. The old scaffold planks we put in four or five years ago have served their purpose (neatness, rather than anything else), but the subterranean portions have started rotting away to mulch. Armed with some heftier-than-normal pallet planks donated by a neighbour, I started digging.
As usual, there were plenty of woodlice, and a pleasing variety of worms, but the most numerous invertebrates were centipedes. These were the long thin, many- and short-legged Haplophilus (or similar) species. They have lots of short legs for pushing through the soil, a bit like millipedes. But, just like the longer-legged species, they are predators of other small invertebrates.
There were hundreds of them. The rotting timber was obviously the ideal site to shelter in. When they set off, they have a lovely fluid motion, and seem to glide effortlessly along. But if you pick them up they tie themselves in knots. Literally. They curl into a rough ball, looping their curls together into a living clove hitch.
Any gardener should always be pleased to find centipedes. Since they are hunters, they cannot do any harm to the plants or their roots. I once came across an allotmenteer who was completely flummoxed when I showed him a picture of one of these centipedes. He admitted that he thought they were wireworms, and had been chopping them in half with his spade for 35 years. Ooops.
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