Coexist

Volumes have been written about ways to grow food without using the chemicals that do so much harm to the ecosystem and create a dependency on themselves by damaging the soil and disrupting the balance of predators and prey in the insect world. Think of yourself as creating a miniature ecosystem in your yard. It will take several years for it to come into balance. But if you have a wide diversity of native plants and have discontinued the use of chemicals, gradually you will be joined by a thriving community of critters that keep your garden healthy. 

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Here are some of the basic principles for managing pests in the annual vegetable garden.

• Plant diversity - The more different types of crops and flowers you can grow, the healthier your local ecosystem will be. Monocultures make it easy for pests to find and ravage your whole crop at once. Make it harder for them by interplanting vegetables from different families. This also helps prevent the spread of diseases. Consult a chart to know which vegetables are compatible with each other..

• Choose resistant varieties - varieties are available that resist lacebugs, scale, sawfly, Mexician bean beetle, squash bugs. 

• Healthy plants - Healthy plants resist disease and insects. Give them the growing conditions they need and plenty of organic matter. Use your sunniest location, but if you can’t provide at least six hours of direct sunlight, grow crops that tolerate part shade.

• Crop rotation - at least a 3 year rotation helps control leaf miners, potato beetles and the squash vine borer. 

• Timing - planting later in the season avoids the damaging period of some insects’ life cycles (Beets - - wait until after the lilacs bloom to foil the leaf miners. Squash/pumpkins  - wait until July 4 to avoid squash vine borers.). Planting early-maturing bean varieties avoids the Mexican bean beetle.

• Don’t over fertilize - new growth attracts aphids.

• Avoid ornamental plants that attract pests (such as roses and hibiscus which attract Japanese beetles.)

• Keep the soil covered - A cover crop is ideal in the winter or when you are leaving a bed fallow. A winter rye/vetch seed blend is a good choice and can be ordered mail order, for instance from High Mowing Organic Seeds out of Vermont. To cover the soil between rows during the growing season, straw is the first choice. If using straw in the winter, you can swap it out in late winter to remove any weed seeds and insect eggs that have accumulated in it.

• Floating row covers - keep moths from laying their eggs. Remove the covers when the plants are flowering so they can get pollinated, if needed. Low tunnels (wire hoops and clear plastic sheeting together) provide season extension for fall seedings of spinach, mustards, claytonia over winter.  Polyester row covers protect newly planted seedlings from the harsh sun 

• Harvest more: When vegetables are ready to be harvested they send signals to pests "come eat me" so keep plants healthy by harvesting crops that need harvesting.  

• Be vigilant - vegetable gardens are not like native plant gardens, which need little care except occasional weeding. Inspect your food crops daily, if you can.

  • Look for frass (insect poop) to alert you to tomato hornworms and squash vine borers. 

  • Dislodge aphids, mealybugs and lace bug nymphs with a sharp stream of water.

  • Hand pick caterpillars and slugs

  • Welcome the invertebrate world! Just because something is an insect, doesn’t mean it will damage your crops. Take a photo and upload it to iNaturalist to identify it. Ladybug larvae, for example (pictured) are quite scary looking, but they eat the aphids that may damage your vegetables. And aphids themselves can coexist happily with your native milkweeds - there is no need to pester them in that location, where they provide food for beneficial insects. 

• Add a pond to attract frogs, toads, salamanders and dragonflies to eat the slugs and insects. Or just put a plate of water and some shelter out to attract toads.

• Clear out the debris  (unlike in your native plant garden, where leaf litter and plant stalks are necessary for the critters we are protecting to make their homes and overwinter.)

• Water early in the day to allow the foliage to dry before night and avoid fungus and slugs which like wet foliage.

• Trellis cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and squash to deter squash bugs by keeping the plants off the ground.

• Harvest more: When vegetables are ready to be harvested they send signals to pests "come eat me." Keep plants healthy by harvesting crops that need harvesting.  

• Compost tea sprayed on foliage is thought by some to help prevent diseases.

• Low tunnels (wire hoops and clear plastic sheeting together) provide season extension for fall seedings of spinach, mustards, claytonia over winter. Also polyester row covers protect newly planted seedlings from the harsh sun. 

• Plant successionally: increase the number of plantings and decrease the number of plants per seeding. Example: seed half a bed with lettuce, wait two weeks and seed the other half.