Where’d All The Bugs Go?
By Loren on Feb 4, 2009 in Uncategorized
A few years ago my entomologist friend Janet Taylor and I began writing books on organic gardening and lifestyle. Our first book, “Dead Snails Leave No Trails” is a handy guide on how to eliminate garden pests using far less toxic methods than spraying them with poison. The book has done very well worldwide. If I had my druthers it would continue to sell for many years, but something nice has happened in my garden in recent years. The damaging insects are pretty much gone. I don’t need my own pest advice any longer.
Blame it on compost. If you read my blog regularly or have listened to my garden advice on TV and radio, you know I’m a huge proponent of composting, or turning carbon-rich materials such as leaves and twigs and stable bedding and nitrogen-rich material like horse, rabbit and chicken manure and grass clippings, weeds etc. into dark, rich, sweet-smelling compost which is then returned to the gardens to feed the soil, which nourishes my plants.
After many years of adding compost to the garden beds around my home, the plants are so healthy and happy, insects leave them alone. My experience is borne out in USDA experiments in apple orchards. After a program of adding compost to the orchards, there was noticeably fewer problems with weeds, fungal problems and insect pests. There was a greater number of predator insects which may account for fewer herbivore or plant-eating pest insects. Healthier plants are just less attractive to insect pests.
Composting diverts material from landfills and improves the soil’s ability to hold water and now fewer insects too. You gotta love it!
So let’s hear your composting story.
Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.
I bet John Coleman doesn’t believe in compost… just kidding!
I don’t have any animals on site, so while I compost all of our kitchen scrap along with whatever yard clippings and leaves we can find, I also get some good compost from City Farmer’s Nursery to help amend our soil in our raised beds. I am also (slowly) working on amending the ground soil so that it will drain better, and be more suitable for plants than for Bermuda grass.
I will certainly look for your book!
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Mike | Feb 4, 2009
Loren,
Why don’t you have your own garden show?
I have a friend who brings over his chipper/shredder and grinds my garden stuff so it heats up and turns into garden gold really fast. Sometimes I cold compost; I just throw it all into one of my 3 bins and eventually it rots and becomes my garden’s favorite addition.
How will most of us who grow our own fruits and vegetables cope with water rationing????
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Laurie Cohen | Feb 4, 2009
Hi Laurie,
I did have a nationally broadcast gardening show on another network and there is at least some talk of bringing it back. I also used to have a garden show on radio, but I hated getting up at 5 AM after working until midnight soooo.
We will have to use water sparingly but soaker hoses and gathered rain water keep our water use low. Everyone should be capturing rainwater for the garden.
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loren nancarrow | Feb 4, 2009
Composting seems like such a simple thing, I’m amazed more people don’t do it. There doesn’t seem to be a downside. Can you just put anything in there? How do you know what items can harm your garden?
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In response, on February 10, 2009, loren nancarrow said:
Great question Gary. There are some things which should not go in a compost heap. Meat should be avoided and pet waste is also to be avoided.
The idea is simple. Add carbon rich things like twigs and leaves, and nitrogen rich things like grass clippings and manure (cow, horse, rabbit, chicken) Kichen scraps, like veggie trimmings, egg shells, coffee grounds etc are great. Make a pile at least a cubic yard in size and make sure it is evenly wet (about as wet as a wrung out sponge) and wait a couple weeks. It will heat up to well over 100F. Turn it every couple weeks and keep it moist. in a few months it will transform into a rich dark sweet smelling compost which will improve soil, feed plants, deter insect pests and divert waste from the landfills and sewage plants. Here is a good link to learn more about making and using compost. http://www.tryorganicgardening.....mpost.html
In response, on February 14, 2009, Bill Heffner said:
Composting is not actually all that simple. It requires the proper amount of moisture and turning at correct intervals to permit air to reach all parts of the material. One also has to take a bit of case as to what materials go into the composting process, as some materials will not compost and will merely rot.
For instance, if the pile is left sufficiently moist and undisturbed for long enough, the composting bacteria do something called “going anaerobic” which is really bad. In the absence of oxygen they cease breaking down the organic material and simply cause it to rot, with an accompanying smell worse than a landfill. With insufficient moisture nothing happens at all.
It’s not rocket science, but one does need to know what one is doing.
Gary | Feb 10, 2009
I live in a condo complex, where you have to ask permission to have a chair on your patio. I believe in composting, but try explaining that to people that would rather have cement everywhere, then beautiful plants. They even wanted to cut down a 50 year old tree that is in front of our place. Thankfully they were told if they did that they would have to pay a huge fine.
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Gina | Feb 11, 2009
Dear Loren…
Love all the info on “green”. I live in Fletcher Hills (El Cajon), and while I have a small yard, I am currently testing vermicomposting and aerobic composting (small endeavors). I try to use nothing but recycled yard waste, and good old bovine manure. I also am a managing partner of a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business located in Roswell, NM (yes, Roswell…the alien capital of the world…). Am currently scheduled to meet with their Economic Development Council the first week of March 2009, to discuss the possibility of leasing some acreage at the BRAC closed Walker AFB, located just outside of Roswell. The purpose of the visit is to determine the feasibility of starting up a recycling business on a much larger scale, now that I know what worm castings and aerobic composting can accomplish for the environment. Reading your blogs has only convinced me even more that we must move in this direction…we seem to be the only members of the mamilian world that fouls its own nest…and I absolutely love the feeling of returning green waste to rich soils.
Thanks for the super encouragement.
BTW some years ago my wife and I started using banana skins in our rose gardens…we have no aphids, and haven’t for years. Again, hats off to you…even our mail person asked me just the other day how we managed to avoid the little bugs…deservedly, I gave you the credit. Thanks again.
Paul (619-261-1142).
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In response, on February 12, 2009, loren nancarrow said:
Thanks for the post Paul. Your kind words are much appreciated. It sounds like you are doing some cool and productive stuff. A few years ago
I co-wrote a book on vermicomposting which is a best seller in the gardening world. I’m not sure if I have any copies on hand, but I’ll check and if I do, I’m happy to send you one to help with your projects. Here’s a link to check out my books http://www.tenspeed.com/authors/view.html?id=310
Now as for Roswell. I graduated from Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, about 90 miles east of Roswell. My first TV job was in Roswell and I lived in a house on the closed Walker Air Force base. At that time 1975, the base was used Lufthansa Airlines to train its pilots.
Again thanks for your post and treading gently.
Paul Wells | Feb 12, 2009
Not entirely on topic, but interesting… It was discovered some time ago that Palo verde trees in Arizone sent out a pherome when they began dying that attracted beetles. The beetles accelerated the death of the tree, but did not cause the death as had long been thought. Nearby healthy trees were unaffected and botanists finally tipped to the fact that the dying process not only preceeded the beetle invasion, it actually triggered it
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Bill Heffner | Feb 14, 2009
I agree Loren, I hardly even think about harmful bugs in the yard. Mulch is everywhere, hardly any bugs except two kinds of small flies, fruit flies (I have fruit drop that I allow to stand) and those small flies that hover in open space, however, we have humming birds and other small birds by the dozen and they all eat those as a primary protein source. Rather have the birds than lose the flies, so I look at them as bird food.
One of the things people thing wrongly about is the overall interrelatedness of all the different items in a garden. Yes the birds would come to eat the bird food I put out, but much less protein there.
We installed a stackable garden brick wall a few years ago which brings crickets, which sound wonderful at night, and also, to my delight but the wife’s chagrin, lots of lizards racing around. I keep trying to tell her they eat the bugs she doesn’t like, but alas, she isn’t getting used to them.
Being a city dweller but loving the country, I brought a little piece here by good gardening practices.
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Ronald A. Newcomb | May 18, 2009
Loren, what do you know about snakes?
My wife found one in the yard today. Looks brown and yellow. Essentially, yellow with wide brown stripes down the back.
I have pictures, if you have somewhere I can send them.
Thanks.
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