By John, on August 27th, 2011 |
 I have always had a soft spot in my heart for chipmunks. Sure, they are rodents, but so are squirrels and rabbits, and with their brown and white fur and dorsal racing stripes, they are, in a word, cute. At least, they WERE cute before they started terrorizing my garden. At mediaOrganic, 2011 will forever be remembered as the year of the chipmunk.
We have lived on our property since 1997 and have see the chipmunk population wax and wane. Some years they were so sparse that only one or two sightings occurred all year. This year I have them chasing each other around my garden, oblivious to the fact that I am standing five feet away watching them. …continue reading
By John, on June 9th, 2011 |
 This is an update of an article originally posted on June 3rd, 2010.
Just like last year, my garden is once again being overrun with tiny grasshoppers! So far they haven’t decimated my crops nearly as badly as during the 2010 season when I planted 45 beans only to see not a single one survive long enough to get it’s first set of leaves. I even tried row covers before all seeds had emerged but I fear that I merely trapped the little buggers in there with a feast. This year we are once again experimenting with a combination of pyrethrin, insecticidal soap and garlic oil spray. The only challenge will be the weather, since the spray can damage plants if the temperatures and humidity are too high. Naturally, we are now in the midst of an oppressive heat wave. …continue reading
By John, on August 1st, 2010 |
 Went out to do my daily morning inventory of the garden and found that a deer had made a meal of the trailing cucumber vines and several of the ripening tomatoes. Normally, we don’t have much of a problem with deer, just a few nibbles here and there but no wide scale pillaging. But we’ve had a pretty serious drought this month in the northeast and I suspect the deer are having a hard time foraging. There’s no practical way …continue reading
By John, on June 25th, 2010 |
 So we went to pick our sole surviving cauliflower today and the damn thing is infested with earwigs. I mean an entire nest of the suckers. I pulled up the entire plant, started shaking it and it started raining earwigs. We then dunked the cauliflower in a bucket of water and more creatures floated to the surface. By this time we’d pretty much lost our appetite for this particular cauliflower and decided that the chickens deserved …continue reading
By John, on June 16th, 2010 |
 Well the beetles are back. Just look at what they did in a day to my poor eggplant. This season is truly turning into a battle royale between me and nature’s pests. Unfortunately, the pests are winning most of the battles. …continue reading
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I have always had a soft spot in my heart for chipmunks. Sure, they are rodents, but so are squirrels and rabbits, and with their brown and white fur and dorsal racing stripes, they are, in a word, cute. At least, they WERE cute before they started terrorizing my garden. At mediaOrganic, 2011 will forever be remembered as the year of the chipmunk. 
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