It is now summertime, and the gardening is easy. There has been enough rain, the alfalfa fertilizer is quietly working, I’ve given the yard a shot of beneficial microorganisms in the form of compost tea, and the worst of the weeds have been pulled –they’ll return to the soil transformed as healthy compost in a few months. So for now I wander the yard in search of something to do. I’m amazed at the growth that has happened in such a short time.
There are things to do, of course. The lawn gets mowed, with the clippings left on. In addition to spreading alfalfa fertilizer at the start of June, I sprayed the lawn with EM (Effective Microorganisms). EM is a microbial innoculant, a special combination of various species of beneficial bacteria. I mix it with de-chlorinated water and sprinkle it on the lawn and vegetable garden using a watering can. It is very similar to compost tea, but easier to use. I highly recommend it. You can’t make your own, however, like you can compost tea. You have to buy the stuff that’s been combined in the lab. Gardenerspantry.ca sells it online – one litre of activated EM costs $14. That much will do my large garden for the season. I’ve yet to see it on a shelf in Regina, but it is available in garden centres elsewhere throughout North America. It has been used in Asia for 4 decades. EM is a probiotic for plants. It is an unsung hero of the garden, like mycorrhizal fungi. Studies and experience show both EM and mycorrhizal fungi significantly improve plant growth and disease/pest resistance.
I will give the entire yard another shot of compost tea and EM (combined) in early July, and again in early August. If your yard is just beginning the transition to organic, or it has poor soil and signs of disease, you can spray it with the tea/EM combination more frequently - probably once per week this summer would be enough. Also at about the same times, I will spread alfalfa pellets over the lawn and vegetable garden. The tea and EM adds beneficial microbes (bacteria and fungi) to the soil and plant leaves. The microbes eat the alfalfa, converting it into plant food. They also control bacterial and fungal pests on leaves and in the soil.
I did some pruning on the weekend, to make headroom under trees and bring some sprawling shrubs back into shape. I cut the prunings small and returned them as mulch under the shrubs and trees. Nothing went into the garbage.
Now that the garden plants are bigger, I have added leaf mulch over any bare soil. This will suppress weed growth, help retain moisture, and feed the microbes which then feed the plants.
We’ve had enough rain that I’ve seldom had to resort to irrigation. The rain barrels are full, ready for hand-watering of pots and new bedding plants.
Pest watch is underway. This is not the obsessive fetish in my yard that it is in the conventional (i.e. chemical) garden. There were a few tent caterpillars, but they did no damage. Those on the lower branches were hand-dropped into a pail of water. They swim poorly. When they massed on a branch for the night, I pruned the branch and put the branch and its guests into a garbage bag. Those caterpillars clustered out of reach at the top of the tree (a mature Schubert Chokecherry) got to live on - temporarily though as many became food for birds and for parasitic wasps and flies. (Few would recognize the parasitic wasps as wasps – they look nothing like the Yellow Jacket and do not pester humans at all).
Since balance is so important in any ecosystem, it is crucial that a few pests remain in order to encourage our friends the predators. The predator birds, flies, and wasps, for example, stick around because there is food available. They eat enough of the pests to prevent outbreaks. The key to pest control is balance and diversity. If you fall prey to the marketer’s cry and use a chemical (or “natural” or “organic” pesticide) to kill the pests, you will also kill the beneficial predators, whether through direct contact with the pesticide, or because you have destroyed their food source. Your intervention will have created a vacuum quickly filled by the rapidly rejuvenated pests, which multiply far faster than do their predators, and another major outbreak becomes inevitable.
Any other insect pests are similarly hand-picked and squashed in my garden. This method will never get rid of them all, and, as explained above, this is a good thing.
The worst pest I find in the garden is the flea beetle. They ate a few leaves this spring. They like radish leaves a lot. I knock them off with my fingers, knowing this is no real solution. Patience is the solution – their seasons are short. Some pepper/garlic spray will drive them off. I made sure the ravaged plants got some compost and alfalfa, and the plants soon bounced back. Aphids enjoy honeysuckle and the dogwood in my yard. They get a blast of water from the hose to knock them off the leaves. It is a long crawl back, during which many of them will become food for Ladybugs.
Any bacterial of fungal problems in my garden are dealt with by compost tea and EM. Keep in mind that healthy plants will not be attacked by disease (or insects). My efforts are directed at keeping the plants healthy, through rich, fertile soil, and a diverse microbial community. If a plant does get sick or infested, I look for what made the plant susceptible – usually stress due to drought, lack of soil fertility/nutrition, or injury – and set to work fixing that problem. Disease and pest infestation are the symptoms, not the cause. In organic management, we fix the actual cause rather than go hard against the symptoms.
I should add that harvest has begun, and will continue all summer and into the fall. These days, we are enjoying lettuce, kale, chives, nasturtiums, basil and parsley.