Organic Gardening: #Pests

Over the years I have had my share of pests and I can tell you it would be one of the biggest challenges in organic gardening. You have to be on top of any changes with your garden and know the signs of pests or potential disease. You could easily lose a crop if you do not address issues quickly. I am always learning innovative ways to battle with them. Two pests in particular will challenge me each year, aphids and miners.

Aphids are a worldwide group of insects popularly called plant lice, attacking nearly every garden and greenhouse crop. Small, soft bodied, they are usually green but may be brown, yellow, pink or black, depending on where and what they are living on. Mine are usually white or light green in color. They feed by thrusting a sharp-nosed stylet from their beaks into the plant cells and sucking out the sap; lovely things they are. The plant's resulting loss in vitality is shown by discolored areas on the foliage, curing of leaves and blighting of buds and fruits. 

I have found them in my collards, cabbage, broccoli and kale. I will notice a leaf curled into itself and this is a sure sign of an aphid infestation. Sometimes they switch to varieties of peppers, including jalapeno, red, yellow and serrano peppers. On peppers they will attack the blooms. 

They love a dry climate so keeping everything moist and off the ground helps. I will rinse my infected crop daily and remove heavily infested leaves. I recommend spacing your seedlings out which also deters these pests from spreading. Lady Bugs will eat aphids and soapy water is somewhat successful. I will be testing some new approaches this year, including tobacco tea. I'll be sure to post any results.

Aphids

The second pest I have encountered is the leaf miner. An insect that spends part or all of its life between the upper and lower surfaces of a leaf, getting its food from the tissues and usually eating a tunnel that shows as a pale or white area against the normal green leaf, a narrow twisted path. 

I have found this pest on my spinach and beets especially. This year I spotted the leaf miner eggs on the back of the spinach leaves and decided to just harvest it all before they had a chance to take over. The eggs are white and line up symmetrically on the underneath of the leaves. I rinsed each leaf and was able to harvest most all of the spinach thankfully. 

Last year my entire beet crop was stunted because so many miners had infested the leaves, not allowing the roots to obtain vital resources. I removed the infested leaves last year but the plants never recovered, so my beets were the size of radishes. This year I will grow beets again but will recognize the little white eggs and rinse them off and work to remove infested leaves quicker. I will try the tobacco tea too, but it will need to be timed appropriately and be sprayed before the eggs are laid. 

Leaf Miner

Happy Organic Gardening,
The Dirty Girl

How do I love thee?: #Cauliflower

I found over the years many recipes that I love with cauliflower and I create new ones all the time. Cauliflower has proven to be one of the most versatile vegetables in my kitchen and I am always pleased with its performance and reliability.

Cauliflower is a biennial herb developed from the wild cabbage but distinguished from cultivated cabbage by its swollen flower-stems which form white (or other colors) heads and suggest its name "stem-flower". Of all the members of the cabbage group cauliflower can be most finical. I have had luck with cauliflower in the garden, as long as I can keep the aphids at bay. When the heads start to poke through into the sun I tie the leaves to shade the flower (head) so that it won't get brown from sun exposure. In addition, I use the entire plant and will juice or sauté the leaves in a dish.

In the kitchen I use cauliflower in a number of traditional dishes, like an Asian stir fry or simply seasoned and steamed or raw cauliflower dipped in a tofu ranch dressing. But where is the fun in that! 

Cauliflower is a great replacement for the white potato it can be steamed and then blended and seasoned into a creamy potato-like dish. It will have fewer calories and be just as tasty. I have also used it as the base for a vegan Alfredo sauce, also steamed; I blend it with roasted garlic, nutritional yeast, almond milk and spices. One of my favorite dishes is cauliflower wings with a nice lite batter and baked with Frank's Red Hot. I am now experimenting with the other beautiful colors of cauliflower.

I will likely have cauliflower in the garden this year and will be sure to post the progress. I think my biggest challenge will be having enough of it as I don't have the room for 20 plants!

Happy Cooking!

The Dirty Girl