The tiniest ecology..

I was in the midst of a small cleaning tirade after my latest disaster attempting to be an urban gardener. I had given up on the basil plant on my kitchen window sill (which I had assumed I had overwatered), and began to notice several tiny black flying insects, smaller than fruit flies beginning to dominate the kitchen. I started to panic a few days when the number of insects did not decrease and the adjacent rosemary plant started to brown and wither. I'm still not sure if the insects were a type of aphid, or some other plant eating pest, but for once I'm fairly certain it's not entirely my fault that the two plants are refusing to thrive.

Anyways this evening I moved the rosemary from the sill and gave the plant a gentle washing (since I'm not yet convinced that this one is gone for good). I returned to the sill to clean up the accumulated spilled dirt and mercifully put to rest the brown crunchy leaves that used to be basil. As I was sponging down the sill, I saw one very small spider scurry to a corner and there discovered the tiniest spider web in the corner by the window frame. The web was maybe an inch and a half at its longest dimension, but held trapped a few of my unidentified pests, along with another insect probably 10 times the size of the spider. Despite not typically being a fan of spiders, it was a welcome sight to see that I wasn't entirely alone in trying to rid the sill of pests, so I took great care not to disturb him or his tiny web. I hope the one or two remaining flying pests in the kitchen will now find their way into the web rather than back to the newly located, ailing rosemary!