What I'm Willing to Sacrifice

Sunday was the first time in a long time that I felt hopeful about my garden. It seems that with one really warm week, everything is doubled in size and doing marvelous. I have one zucchini, one crookneck squash, one bell pepper and several green beans. None of which are ready to harvest but it’s still encouraging.

I gave a good soaking of fish emulsion solution again, pulled all the weeds and thinned out some of the seedlings that I didn’t expect to all come up. Things are looking good!

I have one problem however. All of my eggplant leaves are getting chewed down to look like Swiss cheese. I haven’t seen any culprits yet but I’ve searched online to find that it may be the work flea beetles. Apparently, flea beetles are the arch nemesis of eggplants.

I’m really dedicated to be as organic as I possibly can and if it means that I lose a crop, so be it. I don’t want to but it’s what I find to be important in my garden. I’ve spent a lot of time in the garden pulling weeds by hand and while I’ve sat their pulling weeds, I’ve observed a lot. And what I've realized, is I don't want to kill something unnecessarily just to save a couple of plants. I've planted enough and I have enough to share with these free-loader insects. Small tree frogs hop about and munch on various bugs and I would hate to sacrifice one for an eggplant. I’ve seen lots and lots of ladybugs. I have to put my trust in them to eat the aphids and to be honest, I haven’t seen any aphids on my plants but I have seen some on the weeds. I’ve seen various predatory wasps that I’m trusting to eat the eggs and larva of “bad bugs” and I’ve been overjoyed to see my bees in the garden. So far, they’ve been visiting my herb garden (which I put in specifically to attract them to the garden) and I’ve noticed some have decided to imprint on the soaker hoses. Imprinting means that the bees have chosen it as their water source.

I was a bit troubled and saddened when I went to OrganicGardening.com (which I’m very fond of) and saw that they were suggesting two organic solutions for flea beetles that are harmful to some beneficials, particularly honeybees. Two of the three are not OK by me and they are: Beauveria bassiana and spinosad. Beauveria bassiana is a fungus that kills the insect by not allowing nutrition absorption and then the fungus takes over the body and kills it. It is cautioned to not be applied where bees may forage and it is toxic to fish. Spinosad is interesting enough but it is a bacterium that attacks the insects’ nervous system – this one is highly toxic to bees and is moderately toxic to amphibians and birds.

However, to their credit, they suggested a kaolin clay dusting as a first resort. This is something that I’m totally fine with. I’m setting off to purchase it right now from Mountain Rose Herbs. For 1 lb. of it they are only charging $4.95 and it is something that can be used in my beauty case as well. They are a beauty and health site but I’m happy to find my garden solution from them!

I hope that I have leaves left to dust by the time the clay gets here. If you know of a retailer that has a physical storefront that sells it, please let me know.


Daphne