Grasshopper in the organic mint

One of the problems with organic gardening is that you can't just give a blast of insecticide or herbicide from time to time to reduce pests. So far, we haven't had any major problem, so touch wood that continues.

Often in the morning I cut some organic mint to make some lovely tea - mint tea is very nice for an unsettled stomach, so it's good when you have a hangover too :)

When I was picking off the wilted leaves and such, it suddenly turned out that this guy had come in with the mint


Grasshoppers are officially of the suborder Caelifera, but apart from that I dunno what it was. It was about 4-5 cm long, and you can see how it blends in with the green of the leaves. Its main defence strategy seemed to be to freeze and hope nobody sees it, which was useful for taking photos of it!