organic gardening
- To: perennials@mallorn.com
- Subject: organic gardening
- From: A* L*
- Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 08:36:50 -0700
Just saw the post on Sevin/Roundup & the mint problem. It reminded me of
my experiences with organic gardening - bearing in mind that I'm a city
dweller and not subject to the abundant wildlife you country gardeners
enjoy! BTW, I always keep mint in containers...
When I started this garden 11 years ago, in the first three years, we
had grasshoppers, eel-worms, earwigs, tons of ants, tomato hornworms,
aphids, Japanese beetles (not many), etc., etc. The first three years,
I was using chemical insecticides (not much but some) and each summer,
the infestations seem to get worse. So I threw all the stuff out and
used maybe one or two doses a year of Safer's soap for maybe four years,
suffering through the damage. The last two years, I used *nothing*,
except hand picking and blasts of water for the aphids. We've also had
lots of ladybugs through the years.
This year, I've seen one Japanese beetle and nothing else to mention
except a normal ant population. I still got some damage from slugs
(mainly hostas), leafminer on columbine, and the critter that munches
perfectly round holes in rose leaves is still around, but he seems to
disappear after July. The columbines have put out lots of new foliage
now with no leafminer damage. Tons of ladybugs, lots of birds, zillions
of bees & other pollinators, butterflies galore, and some other
fascinating insects I don't know. I protect all spider webs wherever I
can and don't kill anything unless I know it's a marauder. Even roses
that normally get blackspot seem to be free of it this summer.
Is it coincidence? The weather? Is the garden now in balance? Have the
rest of you noticed lighter infestations this year? Whatever the
reason, I'm grateful and I'm going to keep on doing nothing as long as
possible.
Anne - Chicago
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