Vulnerable
When you
choose to garden without toxic chemicals your plants become vulnerable to
insect attack. If you are at all identified with your crops you can feel under
attack yourself. You might find yourself saying such things as “I put a lot of
time and effort into that and now look at it “It is your food after all, you
might even say something like, “dam it”.
However,
before you go marching off to the shop to buy chemicals please look carefully
at the picture bellow
I had been away for
four days providing raw food cuisine at a festival with muriel and friends.
When we came back our Brussel sprout patch was crawling with cabbage white
caterpillars. What had been a few small caterpillars had in the few days away
become an infestation. I am wishing that I had taken a picture then as it would
have been a brilliant before and after study. I was too devastated to think of
taking a photo. However, if you look at the scars on the lower leaves in the
picture you can estimate how badly the plants were damaged. In fact, the whole
crop was skeletal. And it crossed my mind to cut my losses and pull them all
up.
I didn’t
pull them up, trusting in the amazing powers of recovery that the cabbage tribe
possesses. there followed a week of picking the caterpillars of by hand. It is
amazing how cleverly they can hide at first it seemed that though I removed loads,
they were back next day in undiminished numbers. Gradually though, through
persistence they were visibly diminished, then just a few lingers, then the odd
one or two then finally gone and my ragged patch began to recover. I guess it
was a little over a month later I had that “oh my god” moment when I realised
that the Brussel Sprouts had recovered beyond all expectation and We were going to get a crop after all.
The
resulting picture is a great symbol of recovery of hope, of not giving up. Not
only did they recover but (I don’t know if the picture really shows this) but
with such tender new life
Another spin off of
keeping to the “ chemical free way” is that I have a growing population of Ichneumon
wasps. Look at the picture below. Not just an amazing insect in its own right,
but also a valuable ally in keeping the cabbage white under control next year
as these wasps predate on them.
If I had
poisoned the caterpillars these wasps would have been killed off too, along
with a small but highly significant part of myself, and my relationship with
the environment, which brings us back to the beginning. Its…. vulnerable.
p.s I have just pulled this couple of photos of the internet.
Our Brussels looked like this or worsre.
