Hello, again, Enota Friends!
Continuing our discussion on pest control,
today we
will discuss
organic measures…
There is no joy like walking out to your garden, picking some big green leaves of Romaine or Butter crunch, or some of the lower leaves of the head lettuce and knowing that they only need a little bit of rinsing to get some soil off the bottom of the stems and then you can munch away on them. No need to worry if you’re ingesting some sort of dangerous chemical into your body. Such is the way of organic gardening.
Sometimes chemicals are necessary. But, indiscriminate use of chemicals is wrong. Wisdom involves knowing what, when, and how to use things properly.
Not long ago, a single cut worm (that’s all we could find) destroyed five out of six of our Swiss Chard plants. (We found him and fed hin to the chickens!) Cut worms can really make you angry because they don’t eat the whole plant; they cruise along just below the surface of the soil, and when they get to a juicy vegetable plant, they eat just the part that’s convenient. The next day you come out to find that the plant that was standing in beauty is now lying dead.
The plants could still be in danger from all sorts of other pests, but we’ve learned a wonderful thing… except for a Biblical- scale, wiping-everything-out plague, most infestations are minor and can be dealt with without panicking. Nature often solves its own problems… The following are some of the problem-solving creatures we are aware of:
Praying Mantis:
Praying mantids are indiscriminate predators. They will kill and eat any and all other insects, including their own species if they are hungry and the opportunity is there. This might sound bad, but the praying mantis is generally the gardener’s friend, killing and eating MANY of the insects that can destroy the organic garden.
Ladybugs
Ladybugs ( Coccinella septempunctata) eat only the bad bugs, such as aphids. The North Georgia Mountains must be the “Mecca” of the ladybug world… when they first come out, you can see thousands of them in a square yard. Ladybugs have a penchant for crawling into warm homes in order to winter over and then come out in a vengeance when the weather starts to warm up a little bit. It is an interesting, if bizarre, thing to see. Even in the larval stage, when they don’t look anything like adult ladybugs, they are eating crop-destroyer bugs.
Green Lacewing Flies:
Green lacewing larvae are great predators of plant- harming insects. The adult lacewing flies are harmless to plants, only eating pollen and nectar. Since they are so small, they probably pollinate plants that bees are too big to get into.
Ground Beetle:
Ground beetles will kill the darned cutworms that we mentioned at the beginning of this post!
Hummingbirds:
hummingbirds get all their protein from eating small insects, such as mosquitoes and other pests. They don’t just suck nectar from flowers or the sugar water from feeders.
Dragonflies:
The other great mosquito controllers are dragonflies, which can eat up to fifty times their weight in mosquitoes a day. You primarily see dragonflies where there are bodies of standing water, since that’s what’s required for mosquitoes to breed.
Other Ways to Control Garden Pests:
Once the harvest is done, pull all annual crops out of the garden. Insect pests are just as happy cozying up under your spent squash vines as they are sheltering in the weeds. Any plant material that is diseased or pest-infested has got to go, and the sooner.
Give garden beds a good tilling. Some of the nastiest insect pests burrow into the garden soil in the fall, and stay buried beneath the surface until spring. Get out the rototiller and give your garden a nice, deep tilling. Your goal is to push those pests so deep into the ground they can’t make their way to the surface next year. You’ll also bring some to the surface, where it’s too cold for them to survive. And as an added bonus, you’ll turn any remaining plant material under, adding organic matter to the soil.
Healthy soil means healthy plants, and healthy plants are far less susceptible to pest problems. If you haven’t done one in a while, take a soil sample and have it tested at your local extension service. Adjust the pH as recommended, and add any amendments required. Consider planting a nitrogen-rich cover crop that can be turned under in the spring.
In some cases, rotating crops may be helpful to combat pest problems. Did one crop in particular succumb to insects this year? Find a new place to plant that vegetable next year. Pull out the seed catalogs and look for pest-resistant varieties of your favorite veggies. Read up on the life cycles of your worst garden pests so you’re prepared for them next season. Sometimes just knowing how early to monitor for an insect pest makes all the difference in your ability to win the war.
For an awesome hands-on organic gardening experience, book your reservation today for a cabin or camping site here at Enota Mountain Retreat/Campground/Eco-Village. We look forward to seeing you!
Enota Mountain Retreat
1000 Hwy 180, Hiawassee, GA 30546
(706)896-9966
email: enota@enota.com
official website: www.enota.com
Straw Bale Gardening Part Three
April 3, 2011
Greetings, Enota friends!
Today’s post is the third – and last – post on straw bale gardening. As we have mentioned in parts one and two, we at Enota do not use this method. Our organic gardens are well-established, flat, of excellent soil… all the things that are lacking for those who are proponents of straw bale gardening. But, we do endorse this method, because it is organic, and it works!
Once you have arranged your bales, wet them for a week, and planted your seeds or transplants, your garden maintenance will be less than with a conventional garden. Your primary concerns will be watering, feeding, and protecting from pests. Watering was covered in part two of this series, so we will begin with
Feeding:
Feeding is something that commercial growers do regularly when they use straw bale gardening; they do it by injecting the fertilizer into the water lines. But for the home gardener, let me suggest a weekly feeding with compost tea.
There is a fine line between not feeding and not getting too much of a harvest and overfeeding and knowing your bales won’t last two years because they’ll turn into compost. If you only want to use the bales for one year, then feed weekly to really promote plant growth. We buy new bales each year and use the old, decomposed ones as excellent compost. There is absolutely no waste with this gardening method!
Basic Recipe for Compost Tea:
In a 5 gallon bucket, use 2 pounds of bacterial dominate compost such as worm compost, 2 ounces of blackstrap molasses. and 1 ounce of soluble kelp or fish emulsion with kelp in it. Add dechlorinated water to fill. Allow to “brew” for 24 hours. This is a simple tea that will produce a good bacterial dominated ocmpost tea suitable for applying to annuals, vegetables and perennials.
Pests:
Baskets placed over tender plants will keep deer away. Place them over the plants each evening, and remove them again in the morning. Another method -which we found to work great – is to place open containers of human urine here and there throughout the garden. Wildlife will stay away! Obviously, you will need to empty and replenish the urine if it rains and dilutes it… Fortunately, we have a never-ending supply!!! Rabbits and moles will not bother your straw bale garden because the plants sit up high off the ground. Companion gardening is an excellent method of preventing insects infestations; see our blog archives for the lessons on companion planting.
A Pretty Touch for Straw Bales:
Moss milk can be made and painted on the sides of bales to created a more decorative effect for straw bale flowerbeds, for example. You will need to find about a cup of living moss. In your moss-hunting, make sure you don’t strip all the moss off of one rock or branch… to protect the environment, leave a little of whatever you harvest naturally behind.
Place the moss and a quart of buttermilk into a blender and mix them together. You will want the mixture to be runny enough to paint on with a brush. Paint the moss-buttermilk mixture on the outside of the straw. Paint it on fairly heavily; you want enough moss to add color to the side of the bale. Moss takes a few weeks to grow, so brush it on, plant your flowers, and wait - the moss will appear in a month or less.
We at Enota Mountain Retreat hope that you have enjoyed this series on straw bale gardening. We are always endeavoring to educate others on sustainability, organic gardening, and “going green”. For a hands-on experience with organic farming and gardening, come stay with us at Enota and experience firsthand our Eco-Village .
Enota Mountain Retreat, 1000 Hwy 180, Hiawassee GA 30546
(706) 896-9966 email: enota@enota.com
official website: www.enota.com
Garden Solutions
March 15, 2011
Hello, Enota friends!
Yes, it is already time to think about garden pests… and their solutions – literally! There are many natural solutions that we mix in the blender and use for the garden plants.
Today we will cover a few of them.
Sugar Spray:
If the bees and butterflies aren’t showing up to pollinate your garden, spray with this solution: 2 cups water with 1/2 cup sugar; pour the sugar into the water and boil, stir until dissolved; cool this mixture; then dilute it with a gallon of water; pour into hand spray mister, and spritz the plants. Obviously, this needs to be repeated after it rains.
Japanese Beetle spray:
Mix 2 teaspoons baking soda and 1 teaspoon “Dawn” dish-washing detergent in 1 quart water. Spray plants with this solution; no need to pick off beetles – they will fall off! They are attracted to the solution, but it is deadly to them, yet won’t harm plants, flowers, or veggies. This spray is excellent for rose bushes.
Orange You Glad You Sprayed With This!
This garden solution kills armyworms, corn borers, corn earworms, and tomato hornworms. Put 1 cup chopped orange peels and 1/4 cup boiling water in the blender; liquefy; then, let mixture set overnight – do not refrigerate. Next morning, strain through cheesecloth into a hand-held sprayer. Add water to fill the sprayer and spray your plants – be sure to spray the entire plant… not just the top.
(You can make the same solution with any citrus peels – lemon, lime, grapefruit – or a combination of them.)
Deer Deterrent:
One sure way to keep various wild critters away from the garden is human urine! Yes, we know it sounds disgusting, but, do you want to keep the wild animals away, or not? This solution works on deer, rabbits, moles, etc. Fill tin cans or glass containers about halfway full with urine; place the containers here and there throughout the garden patch – especially around its’ perimeter. This is one solution that costs absolutely nothing, since every farmer has an unending supply of this magic ingredient!
Slug ‘Em:
Mix solution of 50% vinegar and 50% water; spray on slugs. This needs to be done at dusk which is when the slugs seem to think your garden is an open buffet! You will need to repeat this solution for thee or four days to really get rid of slugs.
Another solution for slugs is to directly sprinkle them with salt. However, if you overdo it, the salt can harm the plants.
Cabbageworm Cocktail:
Mix 1 cup flour with 2 Tablespoons cayenne pepper; sprinkle on young plants. The flour swells up inside the cabbageworms/cabbage loopers and they burst; the cayenne pepper keeps other pests away.
Cabbageworms and cabbage loopers are pale green caterpillars; the cabbageworms eat only plants of the cabbage family; the cabbage loopers also eat beans, peas, potatoes, and tomatoes.
So, there you have it! A good start on saving your veggies – and flowers, too- without using chemical pesticides. Happy organic gardening! For hands-on organic gardening experience, come visit us at Enota Mountain Retreat. Our purpose is to educate our visitors on organic gardening, living green, healthy living.
