Whitsend Market Garden

Hey Folks:

There is quite a bit of work going on at the farm.   Most of which involves keeping the crops intact - Watering, providing shade with row covers, laying (and emptying) mousetraps, and picking cucumber beetles are taking a lot of time.

When it comes to pests, I try to spend some time observing them to learn as much as I can about them.   I learned quite a bit bout earwigs the first year I did container gardening, spending late evenings out in the garden with a flashlight.

This year, the mice in particular are proving to be a challenge.  My bait of peanut butter was ineffective, even as they burrowed into the potato beds.  I was beginning to suspect voles, a root loving rodent.  I finally caught one, after switching baits and getting better at finding their runways.  I have considered going out very early in the morning to do some "mousing", but with the work schedule being what it is, commuting time, and having a fairly delicate sleep/wake cycle at the best of times, that has prove impossible.

However, the mice seem to be obliging me with opportunities to observe them.  They seem to be so desperate for water that they will leave their shelters and scurry into the open areas to reach the irrigation system - I saw one the other day licking condensation off of a hose, and another scurried past me while I sloshed watering cans about.  The plants aren't the only things that are thirsty.

A very positive development is the arrival of two red tailed hawks in the area.  They are welcome welcome welcome! 

Another positive development in the "has legs not leaves" category are frogs.  The first March I was out at the farm, the field was full of hopping amphibians.  This spring, I found that their numbers were way down, I presume due to the tractor and tiller tearing up the field.  Their numbers have begun to rebound, and I have noticed quite a few in the past couple of days.  I catch as many as I can and place them in the most sheltered areas in the field - near the cistern, or with the Brussels sprouts or in the cold bed (the two beds with the most moisture and shade cover).  Nature being what it is, the frogs and toad population will continue to grow, and a new population will begin to move in - snakes!  These in turn will become interested in baby mice, and eventually, the whole meal. 

This is where organic gardening proves that in the long run, less is more.  If I were dumping pesticides  and poison into the field, this chain reaction of pests/little predators/big predators would not occur, as the poison would concentrate on its way up the food chain and eliminate the top predators.  Predators, such as snakes, are much better adapted to hunting mice.  They have the forked tongue to can sense mice much better than I can, and their ability to crawl into burrows enable them to follow my pests into the ground.

By letting nature do its thing, I will require less time for hunting mice, and more time to tend to your food. 

Talk to you soon,

Bob