Some 70-plus people attended this year’s Bogachiel Garden Club Annual Tea held at the Congregational Church. attendees enjoyed finger sandwiches, delicious cookies, and of course tea. (Pinky extended while drinking wasn’t required.)

Kathrine “Katie” Cassell, educated in Georgia and traveled from Florida, presented a wonderful program on bugs, both healthy and destructive, and the activities that are beneficial to creating healthy soil.

Soil health is important and contains microbes, mites, soil arthropods, and much more. Without them, you just have dirt.

Many of the bugs eat bacteria in the soil with their feces beneficial to plant growth.

While most never think about bugs until they bug you, Katie had beautiful, colorful photos of bugs that form necessary actions for cleaning the soil.

From soil, the program moved to those nasty termites with the queen able to live 25 years and lay 2,000 eggs per day. Without termites, we would have so much fallen wood in our forests. Termites work to break down the wood to create healthy soil.

Ants, like other beneficial bugs, are plant litter transformers and increase soil drainage due to their tunneling. Problem? Ants colonize and can infest your home. All in all, ants are far less desirable than other bugs around the home.

Thanks to all who worked to set up the tea and to those who attended.