Insects have ceased to be a serious threat, including the grasshoppers that proved such trouble in early spring.  A lot of hands contributed to this success.  For my part, I noticed where new grasshoppers tended to emerge and returned there daily to crush the nymphs.  The praying mantises I released are rapidly maturing based on the few I’ve encountered, and I can only assume they’re doing their share of the pest control since other insects are all they eat.  And we’ve begun letting our four chickens range and eat what bugs they will, turning problems into eggs.  I also distributed 50 feet of floating row cover around sensitive areas of the yard, which seems to have given the seedlings in those plots time to mature unimpeded and uneaten.  However, the heat the covers trap tends to wilt the plants during these hot days of July, so I’ve begun phasing them out.  But they did their part and will be key to next season’s success in the cooler months of early spring.

Nature has finally begun to work with us, or the other way around.  Several pairs of birds are nesting in our yard, including a set of Orioles, and I have watched on several occasions as a bird has swooped in and plucked a caterpillar off a broad squash leaf.  And I haven’t seen the gnawing, strawberry devouring rabbits in weeks.  They used to make daily forays into our yard, but no more — prey to something, I assume.

I have also been fortunate in keeping the powdery mildew that plagued seasons past at bay by treating outbreaks immediately with a spray of one part milk, 10 parts water.

That just leaves the squirrels.

Right outside our property line a colony of California Ground Squirrels took up residence, and the eight or so animals seemed to feed only on our edibles, chewing the growing tips off of every vine, eating new sprouts into the ground, pulling down wheat and rye stalks, biting into immature squash, melons, and almonds, and generally ravaging plots in our lower, upper, and front yards — including those planted right up against the house.  The row covers seemed to provide a bit of a temporary obstacle, but the fencing that kept the rabbits out sure didn’t.  Marigolds and other defensive plantings proved ineffectual.  I put out packs of pelleted fox urine in an attempt to make them fear fear itself, and this worked, except on windy days, of which we have many.  The scent deterrent was most effective on days when it could just hang in the air.  But the squirrels only needed one breezy afternoon to devour weeks of progress.

While planting a last effort at a late-start warm season crop in June, I felt I had little choice but to get rid of the squirrels.  Trap and release is no good.  In California it is only legal to trap them, not release them, because they carry diseases and are classified as agricultural pests.  Shooting them with a .22 is only recommended in rural areas, and would likely be ineffective and time consuming.  They won’t scare easy with a scarecrow or other predator mimic.  Natural predators and domestic pets can’t control their populations, typically.

I decided to poison them, which infringes a bit on the permacultural ideals I’d hoped to establish here.  And it’s hard to say how it’s much different than the poisoning practices of industrial agriculture.  I find arguments of scale and magnitude self serving and unconvincing.  It’s clearly an industrial move.  But, at the same time, I found the prospect of harvesting no warm season edibles for a second year unacceptable.  Resources are wasted on an organic, super-local effort that yields nothing.

Poisoning is not a friendly, humane enterprise.  I chose an anticoagulant bait, which is housed in a feed station only squirrels and similar animals can access, rather than a pelleted poison broadcast on the ground.  This minimizes the collateral damage like a smart bomb does.  It’s also a low-dose poison that must be eaten regularly over several days to kill — again to reduce the likelihood of a non-target animal dying.

But, in the end, something does die.  Horribly.

An anticoagulant prevents blood from clotting, so a bruise or a bump turns into an internal (or external) hemorrhage that never stops.  I have no fantasies of squirrels curling up in warm dens and drifting off to a peaceful sleep from which they will not awake, none the wiser, because I have found them immobile, panting, and scared, the ants already upon them.  And I should find them and see it, and own the decision, so that next season it doesn’t come to such a false dichotomy: food or squirrels.

I haven’t seen a squirrel in weeks.  The garden flourishes.  Next year we’ll do better.

R.I.P. Waltham Butternut, Pink Banana, and Table Queen Acorn Squash.

Powdery Mildew infects a variety of plants, but the cucurbits — the family of edibles that includes squash — are particularly susceptible.  The infection reduces yields, deforms fruit that does manage to ripen, affects flavor, and predisposes the host plant to other diseases.  Powdery Mildew is caused by any number of fungi in the order Erysiphales, but the most common for the cucurbits are S. fuliginea and E. cichoracearum.

The fungus is an aggressive sexual and a-sexual reproducer that is wind dispersed, hopping from leaf to leaf and plant to plant in the breeze.  Dry weather, as we have here in San Diego in abundance, helps the mildew get established.  It starts with the oldest plants first, working down from the crown leaves until the plant, stem and all, is dusted snow white with spores.  Infected leaves die, and the plant senesces prematurely.

Wetting plant leaves when watering can make them prime breeding grounds for this type of fungus — something that was nearly impossible to avoid with the raised beds I built.  Crowded plants make the transmission easier, and that is another quality of my garden: I packed the plants in and didn’t thin nearly enough for the space available, partially because I was so keyed up on producing something in the aftermath of my summer losses.  Also, raising my beds put my squash at the perfect height to catch the hot, dry winds that race off the canyon behind our property — the likely vehicle of the original spores.

Apparently the fungus can be wiped off, but this seems a dubious suggestion since the reproductive structures of this fungus are smaller than the eye can see, and my eyes don’t see that well anyway.  Most recommendations for treatment quickly turn to chemicals — at the same time that they note chemical treatment breeds resistant strains of fungus, in addition to secondary pollution of groundwater and humans.  When I originally researched Powdery Mildew, my plants had a mild infection and my reading led me to believe that established plants might not be adversely affected.  Further reading and my own experience has proven this to be … wishful thinking, at best.

My winter squash hang languidly from the planters, their leaves largely withered, browned and yellowed by a parasitic relationship with this fungus that is not mutually beneficial, as some pairings in nature tend to be.  The four butternut fruits stopped growing sometime ago, and the promising pink bananas have begun to wrinkle and wilt into themselves.

I think it’s quits for the winter squash I was so cocky about at the start of the fall planting.  This weekend I’ll cut them out and make room for the true cold season crops — the broccoli and the beets and the carrots — to get fat in roomier digs.