permaculture

[Linda Shewan <linda.shewan@bryn.com.au>]

Try homoeopathic Helix Tosta - worked well for me last year and this year I 
am going to try the white cabbage butterfly remedy recommended which I can't 
remember off hand but it is in one of the agrohomeopathy questions and 
answers on the http://homeopathyplus.com.au website

Linda


-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org 
[mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Josh Lindsey
Sent: Monday, 26 September 2011 6:06 AM
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [permaculture] mulch and arthropod herbivore habitat

Oops, just noticed my original reply should have been to Neil...sorry about 
that.

Toby - Good point, I will be keeping the soil covered in winter, one way or 
another.

I'm all for encouraging slug predators...few and far between as they seem to 
be. I've got snakes around here and hope their numbers will be increasing 
over the next couple of years. However, slugs seem to show up earlier in the 
year than snakes. It's the Spring hordes of killer mutant ninja slugs that do 
the most damage.

Josh



Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 11:29:04 -0700
> From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] mulch and arthropod herbivore habitat
> To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <640FFDF3-947C-4189-9F7A-CB8A30D6D6E5@patternliteracy.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> My observation with mulch is that it only increases slug trouble in 
> certain circumstances (in the Pacific NW, in particular). In rural 
> areas, I saw reduced slug populations after mulching because it became 
> great snake and predatory beetle habitat (the beetles eat the eggs and 
> young ones), and birds would kick apart the mulch to find bugs and 
> slugs. As we've all discussed, in the moist spring, raw mulch does 
> encourage earwigs and sowbugs as well as slugs if there are no 
> predators. In urban areas, slugs seemed more prevalent in fall and 
> spring with mulch, and I suspect it's because there aren't good predator 
> pools to draw on (not many snakes in cities).
> Birds still worked over my urban mulch, though.
>
> It's also important to remember that Steve Solomon, while definitely a 
> sharp guy, holds his opinions very strongly, to put it mildly.
>
> I would recommend continuing to mulch during the winter rains in both 
> city and country, though, because soil erosion and leaching is much 
> more severe without mulch. So I think pulling off mulch in spring, 
> when it is superb herbivore habitat, is a good idea, but I think for 
> the rest of the year its benefits outweigh the drawbacks. If we were 
> mimicking nature, mulch would be heavier in the fall--during leaf 
> fall--and lighter in the spring, when the fall leaves have decomposed. 
> Then we intervene with a moderate depth, drought-proofing summer 
> mulch, and then add more in fall, depending on what our winter garden plan 
> is.
>
> Toby
> http://patternliteracy.com
>
>
> On Sep 18, 2011, at 7:42 PM, Josh Lindsey wrote:
>
> > Bruce - I'm reading "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades" by 
> > Steve Solomon, founder of Territorial Seed Co. He comes to 
> > essentially the same conclusion you do re. deep mulching in my bioregion:
> >
> > *"What happens in our climate is that the mulch provokes a steady 
> > and unstoppable increase in two kinds of insects --- sow bugs...and 
> > earwigs...What happens under permanent mulch is that these insects
> encounter
> > an unlimited supply of food and excellent cover to hide in. They 
> > also do
> not
> > encounter what limited their population in Connecticut [referring to 
> > Ruth Stout], which is real winter." *(p.56)
> >
> > I personally abandoned the idea after one season...potato bugs and
> earwigs
> > were not yet at plague proportions, but slugs immediately were. 
> > Pretty
> much
> > all seedlings were eaten...and a great many further transplants, 
> > etc. Not worth it. My current thinking is that if I apply mulch at 
> > all, it will be during our relatively rainless summer and removed 
> > for the rest of the
> year.
> >
> > Good luck,
> > Josh
> >
> >
> >
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:13:22 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: bruc33ef <bruce.feldman@gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [permaculture] mulch and arthropod herbivore habitat
> > To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> > Message-ID:
> >       
> > <852f8a3b-518e-433d-8a19-06d459e52b39@u6g2000prc.googlegroups.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> >
> > Neil,
> >
> >> From my notes on the videos of the PDC given by Mollison and Lawton 
> >> in
> > 2005, non-woody plants require herbaceous mulch.  Possibly, your 
> > assessment that your woody mulch is locking up the nitrogen is 
> > correct.  Herbaceous mulch might provide the nitrogen needed to 
> > distract the pests from your seeds and seedlings.  Lawton goes into 
> > a long anecdote about how he was using woody mulch on his 
> > (non-woody) banana plants and ran into all sorts of problems because of 
> > this.
> >
> > Good luck.
> >
> >
> > On Jul 18, 3:56?pm, Neil Bertrando <neilbertra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> HI all,
> >>
> >> Have people dealt with the situation where mulching areas in Zone I 
> >> and
> II
> >> leads to excessive pest problems which eat all seedling starts?
> >>
> >> We consistently have this problem here in Reno, NV in the high 
> >> desert,
> and
> >> have stopped mulching our gardens for the most part for this reason.
> >> Sometimes we do light straw mulches, but we are straying away from 
> >> deep mulch beds and no-till regimes.
> >>
> >> Here's my assessment of the problem, and perhaps other people have 
> >> dealt successfully with this issue.
> >>
> >> pest populations increased by deep mulching
> >>
> >> ? ?- european earwigs
> >> ? ?http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/veg/european_earwig.htm
> >> ? ?- sowbugs/rollypolly isopods
> >> ? ?
> http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/ent/notes/O&T/flowers/note11/note11.html
> >>
> >> most info I have read does not include these as major crop pests 
> >> however through direct observation we have seen them here to be the 
> >> culprits.
> >>
> >> they prevent seedling establishment eating them at the cotyledon 
> >> stage,
> > and
> >> even eat small trees when planted in an area with dense populations.
> >>
> >> Strategies tried:
> >>
> >> ? ?- traps:soap and sugar, soy sauce and oil, beer, etc. ?work for 
> >> ? ?established plants but don't drastically diminish populations 
> >> and are
> > time
> >> ? ?consuming
> >> ? ?- diatomaceous earth: also works for established plants when 
> >> applied
> at
> >> ? ?night to feeding insects, time consuming, needs reapplication
> > consistently
> >> ? ?- chicken food: grazing with chickens in late fall and early spring.
> >> ? ? chickens eat them happily and we tried to get them in when 
> >> small
> > veggies
> >> ? ?are not growing and at key stages in the insect life cycle to
> minimize
> >> ? ?reproduction. ?still not effective at diminishing populations to 
> >> a
> > level
> >> ? ?where we can get seedlings established.
> >> ? ?- transplanting in established seedlings: still get heavily 
> >> eaten ? ?- get plants established before the populations boom as 
> >> weather
> warms:
> >> ? ?works fairly well, but not a strategy for warm season crops and 
> >> makes
> > fall
> >> ? ?cropping difficult.
> >> ? ?- raised beds: works for a while until populations get 
> >> established
> (1-2
> >> ? ?years) in the beds and structural material
> >>
> >> so now we've stopped mulching heavily in Zone I and use mostly 
> >> on-site generated mulch in Zone II, using only a scattered straw 
> >> mulch to
> decrease
> >> wind and sun evaporation and a focus on row covers instead of mulch 
> >> to achieve this function. ?any off-site woody mulch needs to be 
> >> composted through hot compost piles before being applied to the 
> >> Zone I and II
> > gardens.
> >> ?and this seems to work well since there is no habitat for them in 
> >> the garden.
> >>
> >> My conclusion is that sheet mulching (and deep mulching) is not an
> > effective
> >> strategy in our climate context for Zones I and II. ?Has anyone 
> >> else
> found
> >> this to be the case? ?or are we just applying the technique incorrectly?
> >>
> >> some thoughts are
> >>
> >> ? ?- that N is being tied up in the mulch, and the insects are 
> >> relying
> > upon
> >> ? ?seedlings to fulfill this need, although this occurs in mulches 
> >> with ? ?relatively high manure content as well.
> >> ? ?- natural foods and predators of these organisms are not in 
> >> balance
> and
> >> ? ?take years to come into balance (or are not present at all in 
> >> our
> > climate?)
> >> ? ?- mulch increases the humidity in summer and decreases the cold 
> >> in
> > winter
> >> ? ?which allows populations to grow rapidly out of balance with plants.
> >> ? ?- there is some other factor that is causing plants to lack 
> >> hardiness
> > and
> >> ? ?become attractive to these organisms
> >>
> >> This situation has been very disheartening to many beginning
> Permaculture
> >> gardeners who read about the wonderful benefits of mulch and have 
> >> their veggie gardens decimated. ?Any thought and suggestions would 
> >> be very
> > helpful
> >> for gardeners in our region.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Neil
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> permaculture mailing list
> >> permacult...@lists.ibiblio.org
> >> Subscribe, unsubscribe, change your user configuration or find out 
> >> more
> > about this list here:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> >> Garden Hand Tool Sourcelist and Biointensive Gardening Guidehttp://
> > www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech/documents/gardening-hand-tools.faq
> >> permaculture forumshttp://www.permies.com/permaculture-forums
> >> Texas Plant and Soil Labhttp://www.texasplantandsoillab.com/
> >> List contacts: permaculturefo...@gmail.com,
> ch...@thefutureisorganic.net
> > andp...@richsoil.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > permaculture mailing list
> > permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> > Subscribe, unsubscribe, change your user configuration or find out 
> > more
> about this list here:
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> > Garden Hand Tool Sourcelist and Biointensive Gardening Guide 
> > http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech/documents/gardening-hand-tools.fa
> > q permaculture forums http://www.permies.com/permaculture-forums
> > Texas Plant and Soil Lab
> > http://www.texasplantandsoillab.com/
> >
>
>
>
>
>
_______________________________________________
permaculture mailing list
permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subscribe, unsubscribe, change your user configuration or find out more about 
this list here:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
Garden Hand Tool Sourcelist and Biointensive Gardening Guide 
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech/documents/gardening-hand-tools.faq
permaculture forums http://www.permies.com/permaculture-forums
Texas Plant and Soil Lab
http://www.texasplantandsoillab.com/
Market Farming Mailing List
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/marketfarming