Chris and I inherited a landscape that was in the throes of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Yes, everything was green, but there was no life in the soil, and the weeds loved being overwatered with the automatic sprinkler system.
Enter Katie & Chris, August 2006
We use organic gardening methods and are constantly looking for ways to close the loop with raw materials here on our property - brush, leaves, and spent foliage becomes mulch, and water from our sinks and showers helps water those plants in need of a little more TLC. Our food becomes compost and food for other creatures, and even our paper and cardboard becomes soil during the sheet mulching process.
We usually let bugs live because I've heard beneficial insects usually show up at the height of an infestation to take care of the problem, and the harmful insects have something like a population that's 10x that of the beneficials - it's easy to get freaked out and apply something before letting nature take her course.
Take ants for instance. They have their role in the garden as detriment cleaner-uppers, and we leave them be. Unless they show up in my house, I consider them a beneficial insect. You can tell if you're not watering something enough just by the presence of ants in the soil (or you can tell if your compost is too dry just by the presence of ants). Recently I found a dead lizard carcass on one of our paths swarmed by ants, and I let it be. Jake The Dog didn't have access to that area of the yard, and 24 hours later the carcass was gone. The ants had recycled the lizard back into our ecosystem.
It's been fun to see the natural relationship among the creatures here on our suburban lot. We have a whole brood of lizards, tons of bees, hummingbirds, bumble bees, birds, rolie polies, worms, hover flies, wasps, and ants (and an occasional turkey). There's a ton more creatures we never see that work tirelessly doing their job here too.
Our backyard is in full bloom right now, and vegetable production is in full swing. The backyard is always buzzing. Whenever I go out to pick produce or take pictures, there is buzzing all around me, yet I am not scared. All of these creatures are doing their jobs, helping me grow the food we eat on a daily basis.
I've never felt so connected in my entire life.
It amazes me what organic gardening methods can do. My backyard is teeming with life after only 2 years with us at the helm. The soil is coming to life, and all creatures are benefiting. I would have never guessed that organic gardening makes all the difference, but our backyard is living proof.
Has anyone noticed a change like we have when switching to organic gardening?
Jul 11, 2008
Buzzing
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The other thing about the damaging insects is how they can alert you to when there is a problem wit ha plant. When we first moved in, we planted a honeysuckle in the front. It never did well, and was constantly covered in aphids. Turns out we had a leaking sprinkler valve right near it, and it was WAAAY over watered.
We fixed the valve over the winter, and the honeysuckle has been aphid-free ever since.
I don't think I could ever water my lawn (or my front walk) enough to get rid of those nasty red ants. I weeding in the lawn right after a rain & I still got attacked when I hit a nest. They sometimes swarm all over the front brick walk & onto the driveway. I'm so fed up that sight of a swarm sends me inside to boil up some water. Hot bath, anties?
Gosh, we bump into each other on Twitter. You are in Folsom we are 100 Miles North in Glenn County.
Yes we are having an investation of red ants this year also. But things are settling down. used a little chemcial to to the balance, and letting the naturals do theri job.
Been using benficials since we started the company in 1960. Going to have "home Garden" site up soon.
Always fun to meet kindred spirits.
We raised our family truck farming and I have re-entered the arena of gardening.
Join us on our Video voyage regarding gardening
The Green garden behind the Barn
and
Growing Tomatoes for Health and Wealth
We actually are supplementing income and of course enjoying the benefits of exercise and the produce
Thank you
Chuck
So, what about things that pets DO have access to? Yesterday and today I have found 3 little birds that the cats probably caught both in the front yard and in the back yard. The ones that I have picked up in the back yard had ants all over them, I've been trained by society to get rid of things like that, I just can't see myself leaving dead animals where they are just because ants are eating them. It's fun to watch but yeah, I don't think we should be feeding the ants. Ants are always too great in number because they eat everything that we don't. lol. I don't know, what do you think I should do about birds from now on, Katie? Do you think I should just leave them there and pick up the bones later? lol.
We seem to have dead birds more often now thanks to the cats, all kinds of birds. Even chickens...haha. Not so much chickens anymore since our neighbors with chickens have moved. I wonder why...
I like a yard/garden to be buzzing with life too but if it gets in my way, harms me, or I accidentally start ingesting it when I walk into it and inhale, it needs to go...I don't mind if it whatever it is kills my plants anymore because that's they're domain, but if they start entering mine, bye bye, tough, thats nature! We're part of nature too, we should be able to kill stuff now and then also...haha.
Garrett - You need to teach your cats to finish the job. If they're going to kill them they may as well get some food out of it!
And we are definitely glad we don't have red ants here.
Garrett, I've seen cats kill a lot of things but never chickens. If you're talking about full-sized and full-grown chickens (not bantams or chicks) turning up dead I would tend to suspect that you have something bigger than a cat hunting there.
I've had trouble with something eating the leaves on one of my hardy roses, but the ants seem to have moved in and are cleaning up the guilty party, so I leave them alone. We have noticed an increase in wildlife in our yard since we started adding more plants and shrubs with a focus on species that are beneficial to birds, bees and butterflies.
I kill destructive ants (carpenter ants, bull ants), and fire ants simply because it hurts like he!! when they bite you! Otherwise, I leave them be. But with the fire ants, if you don't keep them out of your garden, you simply cannot work it.
My lawn went from chemical ridden and perfect to weedy and chemical free after I got here. I intend to dig it all up anyway, so it's not a problem for me. I just tell people that I have a native flower meadow. ;)
Maybe I should have prefaced my post with the ants that we have are the small pharoah ants, which don't bite or sting. Knowing that, perhaps it would have come across differently.
chris - Excellent tag on. Thanks.
mr. mcgregor's daughter - Red ants = bad, small black ants = good. Sorry I didn't clarify.
chuck - Thanks for the links, I will check them out when I have a chance!
Garrett - the only thing my dog didn't have access to until about a week ago was the raised beds, because he would cut through them. Now that they are all grown up, he doesn't do that, so we took down the gate. And our cats are indoor only.
sliz - I think a chicken would give even my 120# dog a run for his $! Ha!
Amy - Careful, ants do "milk" aphids for their honeydew, so I'd recommend spraying the roses with a strong blast of water. It really works wonders. I'm glad to hear that you're adding diversity to your yard, it's seemed to make a huge difference in ours! Cheers.
Frugal Wench - Native flower meadow! I love it.
My garden is 99.9% organic. For me, feeding the soil with shredded leaves has been the most noticeable change. I also let most bugs be. We only have infestations when the weather is totally wacky.
Good post.~~Dee
I have had good luck using liquid molasses as an organic control for fire ants. It apparently helps a fungus along that the ants don't like, but don't suffer from. Ants will move away as long as a molasses free area is nearby, so you can't cover the back 40 all at once; small yards, no problem doing blanket sprays as the ants won't have far to move.
Should have added that I have not seen molasses affect the small native varieties. In fact, natives thrive without the fire ant threat.
And you can use solid molasses animal feed too. Just use the entire bag fast or keep it away from moisture.
My garden is always buzzing with insect life.My moto in what bugs are concerned is live an let live. I've never been stung by a bee or wasp and most of the times when we have bug infestations in the garden nature tends to take care of it (well...maybe not in the case of my cabbage harlequin bugs )
One of my least favorite pests are 'bag worms', those furry caterpillars that create big cobweb-like nests in trees and pretty much defoliate everything in site. They can take down pretty large trees if you are not careful. Does anyone have any organic tricks of disposing of them?
Tragedy of the Commons
Dee - I think we're in the same boat as you with the 99.9%, or at least trying to be as close to 100% as possible.
Eric - Thanks for the info about using molasses to combat fire ants. Thankfully, we don't have them here on my property, but I bet your info helped at least one person in this comment string!
gintoino - Let it be, yes that seems to be our motto as well (at least most of the time!). The only thing the harlequin bugs have destroyed is greens that have gone to seed anyway, we pulled out our cabbage long ago. I think we will use floating row covers through next spring for that sort of help.
Chief - thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. Bag worms are so nasty - I think we had the start of some in our cherry tree which we took care promptly (with sticks + squashing!!)
Yeah, that seemed to be one way to do it, but this year we had thousands of them. Hopefully we squished enough to make a dent in their population next year.
I've really enjoyed perusing through your posts. You have quite a nice site.
Tragedy of the Commons
After some research, I would like to correct myself. I am actually besieged by webworms, not bagworms. They still stink.
The source I found suggests pheromone traps, manually removing the caterpillars and Bt. We will see.
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