A few years ago Ken took a workshop where he heard a sentence he has often repeated. "Weeds are the soil's engineers, and insects are the cleanup crew." When a crop has a problem, Ken looks to the soil for the answers, not "rescue chemistry." If the soil is deficient in some way, or there is a farming practice that isn't effective, and the crop is under stress, the insects that devour that crop appear. Over the years, Ken has found solutions to several insects. We really are down to two ongoing pest problems: the flea beetle and the Colorado potato beetle.
Flea Beetles are tiny dark beetles that hop like a flea. They live in organic matter and during warm dry periods they begin to punch holes in members of the brassica (cabbage) family. All of a sudden your Chinese cabbage has lacy looking leaves! Here is some mustard that flea beetles have found. Ken just started trying a plant he read about last winter to repel the flea beetles. So far it looks promising!
As for the Colorado potato beetle, ken has been doing research, and found that lower mineral content in the soil may be part of the problem. We are surprised at this as we did trace mineral tests and added the recommended minerals in 2008 at a cost of $600. But now we plan to do another test and add as necessary and see if that helps. Stay tuned for the results.
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