Despite the array of barriers I have defensively erected around my young warm-season crop, my experiences from a year ago have left me in an distrusting frame of mind that has eroded my relationship with the animals with whom we share this property.
There’s not a lot of love there.
Even though we had a fair return on our cold-season crop, and the between-season learning’s been good, the failure from the time before has festered and, quite frankly, left me a little twitchy. When my wife says, “The garden’s looking good!” and I say, “Yeah!” — I do honestly think it’s going well. But in the back of my mind I can’t help but grumble out a dour, mopish little, We’ll see.
To combat this unwarranted near-pessimism and as a hedge against any real catastrophe, I have planted replacements — for almost everything.
A month or so ago when my first round of beans succumbed to woodlice (see “A roly-poly problem” posted Mar. 24), a friend and former student of mine recommended that I grow beans in pots until they are sturdy enough to withstand the bugs, then transplant. This was an astute suggestion since once the plants pass a certain stage (when their stems start to darken and thicken), the pill bugs lose interest.
I followed Mike’s advice and immediately began potting bean seeds. In the process it became clear that this idea could be a way to work with nature, generally, in addition to thwarting this particular pest and saving this particular plant: Why not have a variety seedlings at the ready to replace those in the ground that are bound to get destroyed? With this strategy, it seems like I can have my acceptable crop loss … and eat it, too.
Only small-scale farming could allow for such a strategy. As I have watched a few plants here and there lose out to this or that pest, I have often thought with some chagrin that a larger operation could absorb the occasional lost plant without losing out at harvest. But for me, that plant might represent 25 percent of my Burgess Buttercup Squash or 50 percent of my Jack O’Lanterns. I can’t plant 30 — or even 10 — of a particular variety on less than a fifth of an acre. What I can do is plant a seemingly unlimited number of little seeds in little containers.
So, I’ve potted a few backups for each of my key warm-season edibles, and I still have seed left over to pass along (see “Spread your seed” posted on Oct. 22, 2009). If the spring goes so well that the replacements aren’t needed, I can always surprise someone with a shovel-ready garden.
We’ll see if this is practical or fanciful when I dig in the first few in the coming days.
Well Jason, I have taken the plunge and started a small business making and installing beyond organic, super high quality home farming systems. FSC wood, integrated irrigation, and consulting about what to plant and what effect it will have on your garden. A great book I found in the process of educating myself on the subject of plant synergies is called Great Garden Companions. The name of the Author escapes me but her last name is Cunningham. Check it out it has tons of ideas for plants that will protect your garden, boost its fecundity, and create flavor enhancements between plants. Best 17 bucks you can spend.
Sounds like a good “hedge” against animal incursions. Keep going…you’re learning and experimenting. There are bound to be some losses along the way.
I too have a pill bug program (and I am in San Diego, as well — east county). I can’t bear to DE them, so I protect my sprouting beans by making piles of “other” material for them to eat (old lettuce, bolted chard, etc). It seems to be working. I, like you, am willing to give up SOME of my seedlings, but the pillbugs got ALL of the first round.
The “diversion” piles seem to be working….with the added bonus that I can gross my friends out by lifting up the piles and displaying the roiling mass of roly polies beneath.
Best of luck,
Jessica
Jessica,
I like your diversion strategy; however, the beds I first planted my beans in were full of leafy remnants for the pill bugs to eat — yet they chose to eat the bean sprouts.
I hope you continue to have better luck.
Mike,
Excellent news! I’d like to hear more about your new business.
Feel free to shamelessly promote yourself here.
[...] disrupting them once with a cage cleaning. I planted all the replacements I’d grown (see “The replacements” posted on April 25), putting them to good use where their predecessors had been chewed beyond [...]