If this effort were just a hobby garden, I would wholly agree with the assertion that the deaths of several squirrels presents a waste unbalanced by the return of a handful of veggies, but this has never been about a few summer tomatoes, half cared for in a pot on the porch.  It is not an idyll or lark to mark the time while the weather’s warm.

For me, this is about the future of food, or at least what agriculture must look like, in part, if we want any squirrels left and anyone to appreciate them.  We each have to achieve some level of food independence from industrial farming if we really want any say in how the entities that control what we eat produce those goods.  And we have to distribute the responsibility for feeding billions of people among billions of people, because concentrating that food production concentrates waste and encourages environmental, human, and economic degradation.

I find a few critiques interesting and emblematic of the food debate.  First, I have been talking about killing insects for months, in a variety of ways, such as luring them into bowls of sugary beer so they will drown, crushing them, and releasing predators in the yard that will catch them and eat them alive — yet no one has spoken out on behalf of the bugs, which are no less alive than the squirrels.  They’re just not mammals, and so harder to relate to because we cannot see ourselves in them, or don’t find them as aesthetically pleasing as, say, a cuddly squirrel on whom we can project human qualities.  Secondly, there is a presumption that just because someone elects not to eat animals, somehow their food choices are clean and guiltless, with no impact on the environment.  Yet, industrial agriculture results in massive environmental impacts that kill thousands of animals of all kinds — insect, amphibian, fish, and mammals like squirrels and things even cuter and more kin to us than that.  Lastly, there is the suggestion that if I had eaten the squirrels, their deaths would somehow have not been wasted, and instead would have had purpose as their meat and organs made their way through my gut.  No less dead, but somehow more justified than killing that same squirrel so that I can choose to eat a squash or a tomato.  This is a self-serving rationalization that allows us to eat meat without feeling bad but not kill so we can eat something else.  And it is argued in surprising disregard of the wants of the squirrel, which would probably find neither option satisfying.  The squirrels I killed will nourish the soil, and the environment, but not me directly, and this, for some, is not okay.  Don’t kill it unless you’re going to eat it.  Well, why not have the same policy for grasshoppers and pill bugs and flies?

These critiques come in part because there is the presumption that I don’t have to eat from my yard because I can just go to the store and buy what I’m trying to grow, thus making my effort invalid or odd and the deaths of a few squirrels completely unjustified because going to the market doesn’t result in the deaths of those same squirrels.  But it definitely results in the deaths of other squirrels and other animals by supporting the large-scale, commercial agriculture that devastates the world to stock those shelves with food so that I don’t have to grow my own, so that I don’t have to kill those few squirrels.  It is only an illusion that a head of lettuce or an apple or a beet is a vegetarian dish considering the amount of dead animals that likely went into its successful raising and harvesting.

Generations past have so degraded the ecology in the neighborhood I call home that the squirrels flourish in numbers that can’t be supported by the local environment, and so they have become dependent on humans.  In other words, they’ve become unbalanced, they’ve become pests, and because they exist in such a way they make any effort to be self-sustaining near impossible.  Does this mean that each year I’ll start the season by killing squirrels?  I sure hope not, because for me, I recognize and live with the conflict it poses to my ideals, my aspirations.  I don’t even want to kill the grasshoppers.  I have always liked grasshoppers and found them interesting.  But until the ecology sings a little bit better here, killing a few squirrels might be a last-ditch option a time or two again.  Or maybe I’ll find another way, for which I’m intently searching.  Or maybe next year I’ll eat them, instead, as well as the bunnies that gnaw my carrots, and we’ll see what kind of heat I take then.

I hate that the squirrels died, but I want to eat food I know, with a history I recognize.  I want unquestionable food, squash I don’t have to wonder about where it’s been as I use it for a base in baby food for my daughter.  She’ll take her first bites in a few months, and I’ll damn sure know where at least that first meal comes from.  Last year, I stuffed my pregnant wife with strawberries for nine months only to hear on NPR shortly after she delivered that those same California strawberries were covered in toxic pesticide residue that increases the risk of miscarriage — a situation I refuse to repeat.  Yeah, the squirrels died, but I can own that impact and grow from it like I can’t do with items bought at a market, whether its super or farmer’s.

This yard’s hardly hubris-worthy, for now, and if my current losing battle with a lone grasshopper isn’t enough to rein in a bought of unproductive pride, then the time I spent today tearing up and tossing out those triumphant tomatoes should be.

And it’s not like they burst onto the spring scene as paragons of this South American native.  They were just doing better than the season before, which is a pretty low bar.  Last year I grew them from seed, planted them in the yard, then watched as they were successively mowed down by varmints every time they sprouted above a few inches.  The fact that they rebounded while the pests slept off their summer bender and had become bushy and a few feet tall had me talking of perennial tomatoes that produce year-round.

Well, mild weather overwinters more than plants.  The first indications that these tomatoes were ill-fated was present almost from moment the cold weather lifted.  Many of the leaves developed what looked like a yellow rash, and the plants lost their healthy deep green.  Growth ceased.  Flowers wouldn’t set fruit.  Inputs of fresh compost from our pile and iron-rich mulch failed to counter what looked like a nutrient deficiency.  The soil was neither too wet nor too dry.

A local nursery identified a sample I provided as having spider mites, an incredibly tiny (less than 1 mm) insect that spins silk webbing on the undersides of leaves.  The mite punctures and feeds on individual plant cells, and when the weather is warm and dry (i.e., no frost), eggs can hatch in three days and the young can be sexually mature in five.  Like aphids, this is a reproductive cycle that can be hard to keep pace with — especially in a chemical-free yard.

The overwintered tomatoes were inundated.  Nearly every leaf had the sallow look of infestation.

A strong blast of water can dislodge the mites, which once knocked to the ground are unlikely to find their way back to a leaf.  However, the density was such that even regular, repeated washings failed to impact the population.  I combined the spraying with a light, weekly application of an organic pesticide called End All (a sterling non sequitur).  The fact that the packaging included several prominent references to the product’s organic merits, and that the company went by the name “Safer”, made me skeptical.  However, it came highly recommended, so I gave it a try.  It, too, failed to significantly reduce the number of mites after several weeks.  In a desperate move, I trimmed off every branch with a hint of discoloration, denuding the plants, but this also failed.

The final blow came when the tomatoes began to develop powdery mildew, perhaps as a result of the frequent dousing the leaves received in my attempt to wash away the spider mites.  Fearing that the mites and the mildew would spread to this season’s Brandywine, Yellow Pear, Gardener’s Delight Cherry, Ace, and Cherokee Purple — I pulled those tomatoes that overwintered out, not even giving them the dignity of the compost pile to avoid risking contamination and encouraging future outbreaks.

So the brilliantly overwintered tomatoes now sit in the trash, annuals after all.

Must read.

1. The Ominivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
2. In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan
3. The End of the Wild, by Stephen M. Meyer

Should read.

1. When the Rivers Run Dry, by Fred Pearce
2. Citizenship Papers, by Wendell Berry

Could read.

1. Field Notes From a Catastrophe, by Elizabeth Kolbert
2. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver

Skip it.

1. The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman
2. Coming Home to Eat, by Gary Paul Nabhan

This last book I’m working my way through now, and it’s a bit wandering and self congratulatory without imparting any real knowledge or sense of experience.  At best.  Which is disappointing because I had high hopes: It recounts a guy’s attempt to consume only what he can get from within 220 miles from his Arizona home (a bit far for “local”, but a great goal).

I have a “to read” stack on my desk that includes The End of Food, by Paul Roberts; Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas L. Friedman; Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser; and Second Nature, by Michael Pollan.  That’s where I’ll be heading next, trying to read as many as I can before the spring semester starts and my reading turns back to student work.

If there’s anything else I should read, or any of the above that I’ve misread — drop me a note.

For about $8 you can buy 1,500 ladybugs.  Since August, I have released 7,500 in my yard.

Despite all of the troubles I’ve had getting things rolling in the garden this year, I have avoided dousing my edibles in chemicals to ward off or kill the pests.  It’s felt like a Pyrrhic victory, at times.  Sure, maybe a little chemical deterrent would have boosted my harvest and put more food on the table, but if I want fruits and vegetables that have been repeatedly sprayed with deadly herbicides and pesticides, I can always go to the supermarket.  The chemicals individuals apply to their household pest problems wash into the soil with watering, and wash into the water table, rivers, and ocean with the rains just as easily as those used by industrial farming operations.

An alternative to the chemical route is bio-control — applying the checks and balances that exist in nature to agriculture.  The plants, animals, and fungi commonly referred to as “pests” are often essential components of local ecology that have simply gotten out of balance.  They become pests when there are more of them than there should be.  Nature always balances, but not always on our schedule and not always in time to save the crop (one way of balancing is the over-sized population eats all of the crop, then starves or disperses).

I have a heavy infestation of aphids on half of my remaining squash.  I haven’t mentioned this last bunch of out-of-season squash because I didn’t want to jinx it (as if jinxing could explain all of my issues), but I have hope for my Delicata.  The failed Butternut, Pink Banana, and Acorn varieties suffered from similar infestations of aphids, and I had some success with the four packages of ladybugs I released then, though they didn’t stick around as well as they have this time.

The aphid population went from a few hundred to a few hundreds of thousands in a week’s time.  Typically they’re kept in check by a variety of predators and diseases, and if left alone their numbers will eventually attract the things that feed on them.  A few ladybugs and lacewings had already arrived when I took my $8 to market.  But seeing as how aphids reproduce asexually, skip the egg-laying stage, and go right to live birth at the rate of 12 offspring per aphid per day, I thought a massive influx of predators couldn’t hurt.

A natural enemy of the aphid is the ladybug.  Despite its unassuming North American name (in Iran it is called the Shoe Cobbler, and in Finland, the Blood Gertrud), the ladybug is a voracious insectivore that devours as many as 50 aphids a day.  These beneficial beetles reproduce quickly, though not as efficiently or as voluminously as their prey (to be expected).  Yet, even in its several larval stages the ladybug feasts.  In some ways the immature ladybug benefits the eradication effort more than the adult in that it is flightless and less apt to wander off.  Introduced predators are under no obligation to accomplish anything on your behalf, much like Congress or bailed-out financial institutions.

And you can hardly tether the little bugs in place.  But, if there’s plenty of prey and somewhere for them to hide when things get tough, then they tend to hang around for longer.

Of the 450 species of ladybugs in North America, the most common commercially available type is the Convergent Lady Beetle.  The natural habitat for this beetle ranges from Canada to South America, so it’s native, but large infusions of this particular species can disrupt local populations of unique regional ladybugs.  When buying ladybugs for bio-control, be sure they are pre-fed.  Since they are often collected while hibernating in massive colonies, if they haven’t eaten, they cannot ignore their instinct to disperse, and they will fly — even from aphid-infested plants — before feeding.

I deployed my recent surge of bugs five days ago.  By day two at least half had deserted.  Today there are still a few hundred willing to eat and mate with abandon.  They’re doing a heck of a job, but something tells me there are 1,500 more ladybugs with my name on them at the nursery.

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.