More on bugs - beneficial and otherwise, the pesticide treadmill, transplants and a new transplanter, coming up

On Saturday Rob and I went to the second Bug Basics class put on by Sharon Collman and Dave Pehling at the Snohomish Extension. Sharon has a goal of compiling an identification guide specific to the Pacific Northwest. For some reason, all the information for our area remains fragmented over many sources. I have a book that covers California, but that’s the closest I can find, so I’m hoping she succeeds.

In the class we are getting a better feel for recognizing and identifying different bugs. One key to dealing with pests is to watch constantly so you can catch problems before they cause major damage and demand intensive intervention. Another strategy is to encourage the natural enemies of the bugs you see as pests. Recognizing and identifying the pests and the beneficial insects is the first step in working with and managing the bug population rather than just killing them all off and hoping you don’t make things worse.

The term pesticide treadmill was coined to describe the consequences of indiscriminate pesticide use. Non-specific pesticides kill the pests’ natural enemies as well as the pests. Since the population of predators is always lower than that of the prey, and since you seldom or never kill 100% of the pest population, you often see a rebound to an even greater pest population. This then elicits another pesticide application to control the increased pest population. The cycle continues. Under the assumption that the crops will fail if pesticides are not applied, many crops are sprayed on a strict schedule without even checking for the presence of pests. A further consequence is that since the most highly pesticide resistant pests survive, you are in effect selectively breeding for pesticide resistance in your pest population. All this is dependent on the life cycle of the pest and a host of other factors specific to the climate and location. If chemically unrelated pesticides are available, you can attempt to avoid the increase in pesticide resistance by alternating between the two different pesticides. Pesticide regulations serve to limit indiscriminate use of pesticides and encourage more species-specific pesticides. However, as for antibiotic use in human medicine, researchers have come to recognize that there will always be a need to develop new formulations as the current ones become less effective. This does serve to provide secure employment for the pesticide developers, producers, and marketers.

There are pests that are very difficult or impossible to control with organic methods and our current understanding of the pest biology. Some of these problems are being addressed by farmers and researchers. There are also “organic pesticides” allowed under the organic certification. These can be used when the pest population has exploded. I have used a dilute soap solution to control aphids on hoophouse-grown strawberries. This worked fairly well. The better long-term solution I see is to grow strawberries outside until I figure out what set of conditions in the hoophouse-grown strawberries leads to the aphid problem.

Farming or gardening without the use of pesticides is in many ways more difficult and definitely requires more knowledge, understanding, management, time, expense, and care than does spraying to a schedule. We think the resulting improvements in the quality of the food and the health of the farmer and the environment far outweigh the investments required.

The use of the term beneficial insects in this context is definitely determined by the point of view of the farmer and gardener and not that of the caterpillar that has wasp larvae chewing away inside. You can purchase a wide variety of beneficial insects. Most gardeners will have seen ladybugs for sale. Ladybugs and their larvae are general predators, but you can also purchase insects that are very specialized for specific pest species. Another useful strategy is to create habitat for beneficial insects in and around the crops. I’ll get into more detail on this topic in a later entry. Some beneficials are a mixed blessing. Yellow jackets and hornets are voracious insect predators and so are very beneficial in the garden or on the farm. That is, right up until you get stung yourself. Unfortunately they like to build their nests in the hoophouses and in the eaves of the sheds where we are often working and where our visitors come to pick.

We have been waiting for a tire sale so we could replace the 4 rear tires for the flatbed truck. The wear on the tires has been getting alarming. It’s now $580 later, but we have new tires and didn’t have to spend the $750 we were quoted earlier..

I hired John York to work part time in the greenhouse starting all our transplants. John is a student in the Environmental Horticulture program at Lake Washington Technical College. He will start on Thursday. We’ll start parsley and sweet marjarom. Next week we’ll start lettuce, Swiss chard, Napa cabbage, pac choi, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. The following week we’ll start eggplant, sweet & hot peppers, and tomatoes.

Plant’s-eye view of the starts greenhouse. Most of plants you see in this photo are pumpkins.

Enrique spread compost in the little field where I plan to plant the peas this year. We’ll be growing two varieties each of shelling, snow, and snap peas. Fresh-picked peas just can’t be beat. I’ve been watching the rain forecasts and the soil moisture. I’m hoping to get the first tilling done this week and the pea planting the first week of April. I’m also aiming to get the leek starts planted out by the same week. It all depends on the weather. If the soil is holding too much water the work will compact it rather than creating a good tilth. Wet clods of soil dry hard and are difficult to break up. Over time as we add back more humus to the soil that tendency will be reduced. All that compost we’ve been adding changes the physical soil character as well as the chemical and biological character.

Jaime and Juan have started weeding in the raspberries. I hope to get some compost spread along the raspberry rows as soon as they get the weeding done. We have never used any fertilizer on the raspberries other than the annual compost addition.

Next week we’ll continue to spread compost and start the tilling so we can plant peas and leeks. We’ll aim to finish weeding the raspberries and maybe apply mulch. We’ll prepare the hayride wagon for painting. We’ll have a couple of tables full of seedling flats going in the starts greenhouse. Rob should have all the equipment maintenance and repairs completed. I expect I’ll finish the field calendar with all the fieldwork, transplant, harvest, and other target dates so we can start deviating from the schedule immediately. Spring is always a race to get everything done on time in spite of uncooperative weather, unscheduled equipment breakdowns, new employees, new projects to figure out, and lots of spending but little income. Hang on tight! Here we go!

What’s playing today in the Jeep CD player? Ravi Shankar – Inside the Kremlin