The Urban Garden Bug Bash Rocks On

 Here's my beautiful Lacinato Kale (the orange specs on the plant are cayenne pepper--obviously the culprit likes its kale hot and spicy!):

And my Filderkraut Cabbage (the white powder seen around the plant is white flour--it's obviously not helping much):

It's maddening. Thankfully, this kind of damage is only seen in one planting area, and I have lots of both of these plants as backup yet.

I know that this could be done by many a bastardly creature--so I immediately initiate a multi-faceted search and destroy mission. Over the next three days, I: (1) make Bug Killer Juice; (2) set beer and oil traps; (3) place rolled paper in the garden; (4) begin hunting at midnight.

(1) Bug Killer Juice: I adapt a Jerry Baker recipe, combining water, dish soap, finely chopped onion and garlic, and shredded marigolds. I spray it on all of my plants daily, and I shoot the bad guys with it when I spot them. Bugs really seems to hate the stuff, and it doesn't harm the plants. Bonus: my garage and yard smell delizisio! 

(2) Beer and oil traps: Who doesn't like beer, especially at one's first Spring Bug Bash? I cut the bottoms off of plastic water bottles and also use a few flower pot trays, and set them into the ground so that their tops are about even with the soil. I pour beer in some, and olive oil in others. I lay a few beer bottles horizontally into the ground so there is just a slit of an entrance into them.

(3) Rolled paper: My daughter and I collect a few empty toilet paper rolls and some newspaper, twist them and wrap them with a rubber band. I pour a little beer into each and place them throughout the garden. Various pests are said to like this kind of environment and crawl in for shelter before the sun comes up. At that time, they can be snatched up and put in soapy water.

I step back and sigh--my garden looks terrible with this paper and cardboard and bottles in it, but I don't want to lose all of my heirloom plants. I head for bed and hope the morning brings some insight into what is feasting on my cabbage and kale. 

The sun comes up, and I run out to the yard. First thing I see, mucking it up on a paper roll is the mighty SLUG. Drats! Repulsive. There's also one in a beer trap. I begin to turn over stepping stones, and within 10 minutes, I'm looking at more than a dozen slimy, gross slugs.

These guys can do MAJOR damage. They love wet, dark hiding places, so I move the large rocks in my garden and place them toward the back fence and away from my edibles (over the next few days, I will continue to look under them for additional slugs), and I decide to stop watering the beds in the evening.

I continue to search for them. They're under the plastic plant trays on the patio and in the little drainage holes of the plastic planters. My daughter gets a kick out of using tweezers to pull them out--I'm too grossed out by them--and we place the planters in a drier place. In total, we collect 30-40 slugs in two days. Yesterday we could find none.

(4) Midnight hunting: I get on my boots, take a flashlight in one hand and the Bug Killer Juice in the other, and head out. The first night, I discover another garden pest enjoying my marigolds and broccoli--the cursed EARWIG!

More than a dozen of them are on one plant alone. Prior to this point, I didn't even know that earwigs ate plants. Lovely. What else do I see en masse? Pill bugs, aka rollie-pollies. I've never seen them ON PLANTS before, but here they are, I'm assuming also munching away. I douse them all with bug juice. I check back out around 5:00am, and the plants are bug-free. It seems to be working, at least for now.

On the positive, the lady beetles are numerous and industrious. I've had no additional issues with mites. But I realize that I need to make some changes, and fast. I believe that wood mulch is probably causing pest problems--it may need to go. I wonder if I should give up trying to grow anything in the cabbage family this year. They are prone to attack, especially when growing them organically--and I'm not about to start using chemicals.

Also, I need a plan for getting more plants off of the ground. It's time to get creative with vertical gardening.