Organic farming
Garden pests mayroughly classsified as squashable (invertebrates or "bugs") or unsquashable (vertebrates
such as mice, deer, birds). Pest control methods come under three main headlings: Keep 'em out, Gross 'em out, Wipe
'em out.
Ideally, pest management starts long before the moment the farmer first realizes that a non-human
is helping itself to the garden. Plant and soil health, drainage, weather, season, all are factors to consider in a
protection plan. Strong healthy plants seem less susceptible to insect damage; tender seedlings are favoured by hungry
flea beetles. Knowing the life cycles of crop plants and the creatures living in and near the garden is important.
Sometimes delaying planting can reduce pest pressure on a new crop.
When confronted by an apparent pest problem, the first thing to do is to take slow, deep breaths.
Next carefully assess the damage. It may be that it is not severe enough to warrant drastic action. A survey of
members of La Ferme du Fort Senneville's CSA project revealed that most would prefer some insect damage to their produce than
having cosmetically superior produce that has been sprayed. One must weigh tradeoffs. It is probably better to
tolerate a ground hog that eats a few lettuces than to waste time trying to outsmart or eliminate it; besides, groundhogs
are territorial and a well-installed groundhog may keep others away. On the other hand, it is best to protect tender
little cabbages against flea beetles, before they show up. The latter can transmit virus diseases that or more serious
than a little nibbling.
To keep the little creeps off cucumbers and melons, I use a fairly heavy agricultural
fleece row covers made of a non-woven fabric(like giant kleenex) that comes in a humongous roll. /the covers are stretched
over the plants and held in place by pins or shovelsful of earth. A bonus is that they keep the plants
warm at night; on the other hand they keep out polinating insects too, and make it possible to weed. I have to
remove them when I start to see flower buds on the plants. Of course, the cucumber beatles notice that their host
plants are now exposed. I usually spray the plants with rotenone, a plant-derived powder whose toxicity for vegetables
(except fish, which rarely visit my garden) is very low. Rotetone has low persistance (it decomposes rapidly).
The difficulties with rotetone are that it is complicated to get it, and it is non-specific; it will kill any insect, "good"
or "bad". It is important to spray early in the moring before the pollinators get busy visiting the flowers.
Since cabbages and their like (also called Brassica's or cole crops) grow better if they're not too
hot, I can't use heavy row covers. I have used very thin fleece covers, but they tear easily, and then pests can sneak
in through the holes. It is difficult to spray stuff on Brassicca's because liquids pearl and roll off their waxy leaves.
Many producers use bacillus thurigensis as a spray to kill imported cabbage worms, the worst pests. The product
contains a naturally occuring bacteria, which ruins the caterpillar's digestive system . Unfortunatley it is another
hard-to-get product. I have had some some succes with companion planting, a method of interspersing plant
varieties in order to confuse or repel insects which locate their edibles by sent. An opposite approach to repelling
is to use a lure crop. Stokes' Seeds sells a furry tomato variety "Allure" that potato beetles are crazy about.
One plants the furry tomatoes, the beetles all go onto them instead of onto potatoes and eggplants, and you spray or
collect and squash them.
An ingenious way to do away with corn earworms (little brown wormy creatures you may have seen wriggling
from a kernel at the tip of an ear of sweet corn) involves setting out little cardboard envelopes containing the eggs of trichogramma.
These eggs hatch into miniscule wasps which parasitize the corn earworms but don't bother humans. It works.
In an attempt to exclude mammals such as raccons from corn, I have used electric fences unsuccessfully.
I've never figured out how they got over, under or through double-strand electric fence. This year i will try a method
recommended by Real Samson (another organic farmer); surround the corn with melons, cucumbers, and squash. Supposedly
the masked bandits have a great aversion to picking their way through the prickly vines.
Deer are a serious garden pest. Stretching a strand of electrified wire over a row of crops
and hanging bits of tinfoil thickly smeared with peanut butter seems to give them a discouraging jolt in the tongue.
Planting datura, a strong smelling plant with magnificent white flowers, is supposed to repel deer; it has to be planted strategically
in oreder to persuade them to keep out, because once they-re in, it probably won't keep them from eating anything.
This concludes a brief review of pest control methods I have used at La Ferme du Fort Senneville.
As you can see, protecting crops for human consuption requires much ingenuity!
