Eggs
The days are getting longer, it starts to become more noticeable this time of year. I’m not the only one that notices, the chickens do too.
Every week they seem to add another egg to my daily collection. During the darkest days of winter I would find one egg, then there were two daily eggs, then three. Now I’m getting at least four eggs a day and sometimes as many as six.
What are some other things you notice changing as the days get longer?
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Are You Up for a Challenge?
I get a lot of questions and comments from new gardeners. Growing your own food is becoming more and more popular and more people I know are taking the plunge and putting in a garden. After much thought, I decided it would be easiest to have a separate small garden and to start a series chronicling each step of the process, what to plant, when to plant, how to weed; everything a beginner needs to know for a successful edible garden throughout the year.
I’ll be putting in a small garden in my yard somewhere off by itself. This spring, it will be started in the sod just like a new gardener would. A few vegetables will be grown, nothing too exotic, things that will be chosen for ease of growth and delicious eating. Each week or two (let me know how often you want to see an update) I’ll post an update to the blog with chores you need to be doing in the garden, things to look for, how things are growing, etc.
This is where you come in. If you are a new or an experienced gardener please answer the following questions:
Would you be interested in a series like this?
Would you join in by planting a garden?
Would you be willing to participate as mentor if you’re an experienced gardener?
What size garden do you think is a good manageable size for starting out? I’m thinking 5 foot by 5 foot
How many different kinds of vegetables should be planted? I’m thinking 5
What kinds of vegetables do you think are best for beginners? tomatoes, zucchini, lettuce, and peas are among my top choices so far.
Do you think it would be easiest to choose a seed collection from a seed company (like the EZ to Grow Rainbow Kitchen Collection from Renee’s Garden?)
Do you think any herbs and flowers should be included? I was thinking basil & marigolds for companion planting
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Empty Shelves
What would happen if you went to your local grocery store the shelves were empty? How long would you continue to go back looking for food? Once, twice, three times or would you go back at all? The same things holds true in the garden, if you’re constantly ridding your garden of “bad” insects, the good insects will never show up because the grocery store shelves will be empty. There will is no food to sustain them and they will move on to greener pastures.
I refuse to classify insects as good, bad, pest, beneficial, etc. In my mind, they’re all beneficial because each one plays an important role in the garden. Even the insects most people classify as “pests” provide valuable food for birds as the insects we typically classify as “beneficial”. Sure some insects are a great annoyance (mosquitoes) and sometimes they decimate our crops leaving our plates bare. If we want to build a balanced ecosystem in gardens, we must learn to sit back and let nature work.
Here at Chiot’s Run, I have noticed the benefits of not stepping in. Each year there is a greater variety of insects in the garden. Those labeled as pests are starting to become less pestiferous because the predatory insect population is growing. The less I step in, the more nature can balance itself out.
Here’s a great example. Last Summer I noticed asparagus beetles on my asparagus. I could easily have picked them off, put them in soapy water and “dealt” with the problem myself “organically”. Or I could let nature run it’s course and hopefully attract the parasitic insects that feed on these “baddies”. I left nature to it’s own devices and closely monitoring the asparagus to see what happened. In a few weeks, the population of beetles exploded, they seemed to be everywhere. “Infestation” would have been the correct description for my asparagus patch.
Not longer after the sudden increase in beetle population, I noticed a wide variety of other insects hovering about the patch: flies, yellow jackets, shield bugs, thread wasted wasps, tiny green wasps, ladybugs and a few others. I even spotted a bird or two flitting about.
After doing some research, I found a great article detailing the life cycle of the asparagus beetle at the University of Minnesota University and it stated:
A tiny (less than 1/8-inch) metallic green wasp, Tetrastichus asparagi, parasitizes asparagus beetle eggs (Fig. 6). You may notice these wasps when working in your garden. They can sometimes provide very effective control, parasitizing up to 70% of the eggs. Lady beetle larvae and other predators may also be active, and will consume both eggs and larvae. Most insecticides, however, will also kill beneficial predators and parasites.
I was happy to see the warning about insecticide killing both beneficial and pestiferous insects!
When you notice insects you don’t want in the garden, instead of hand-picking or spraying, add a few plants that will attract the insects you need to control them. Herbs are especially beneficial for this. Oregano, dill, fennel, catmint and most herbs will attract a wide variety of those insects we like to classify as “beneficial” to our gardens. What can we do to increase the population of those insects we really want?
In nature there is always an ebb and flow. The population of one species will boom while their predators slowly increase in numbers. Patience is really the best pest control in the garden. The only time you should step in is if the natural predators will not control the problem. Generally that is not the case for insects but more more for rodents, deer, groundhogs and other pesky large garden creatures.
I love these two definitions of ORGANIC:
a : forming an integral element of a whole : fundamental
b : having systematic coordination of parts : organized
Too often in our current system, organic is not much different than conventional except they use different methods of controlling weeds and insects. What we really need to do is to become real organic or beyond organic. To see our gardens as a complex system and each thing as an integral part of a whole. You can’t remove one thing without affecting the system as a whole. The more we shift our minds toward enabling diversity and natural order and away from controlling our garden, the more beautiful and diverse our gardens will become. We can shift the time we used to spend dealing with insect to watching the intricacies of the natural web.
When I talk about this, people always ask “have you ever lost any crops entirely to pest?”. The answer is yes, but in subsequent years I noticed fewer and fewer of those insects and a higher population of those that prey on them. A year or two without a certain vegetable or fruit is worth having it on my plate for years to come. We need to realize that we are not gods in our garden, we are not in control, the more we try to control it the less power we have; we are simply there to nurture and learn.
What’s your biggest insect “pest” in the garden? What’s your favorite “beneficial” insect?
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Always a Hoot
Mr Chiots and I laugh, A LOT! We’re both by nature kind of silly people, put us together and it’s pretty much a constant joke around here. Nothing is done with seriousness, everything is done in fun. The best part of that is, it makes chores fun instead of drudgery.
Take for example Mr Chiots heading out to knock the icicles off the back of the house, he can’t just knock them off, it has to be done with flair and fun. Naturally, I had to take photos to document the fun.
How would I caption this photo? “Now that I have the shard, what am I going to do with it?” Some of you will know exactly what that’s from!
How would you caption this photo of Mr Chiots?
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Hello Snow
The night before last snow started falling from the sky. There was an inch or two on the ground when we went to sleep and we woke up to four. It continued snowing throughout the day until we had about 6 inches of the lovely white stuff. Lucky for us, with our LONG driveway, we got this old red truck with the property. Mr Chiots went out in the morning to plow the drive. I’m thinking this truck should be featured in our Christmas card next year!
I must admit, Mr Chiots and I LOVE the snow. We enjoy hiking in it and being outdoors in wintry weather. For Christmas this year, we got each other snowshoes and now it looks as if we’ll be able to put them to good use!
Any snow in your garden yet (that is if you’re in the snow areas)?
