07/07/2025
I've been outstanding in my field this week...
Week 5
(Stage direction: Rustling of papers sounds, the slide of box across the floor and two flip flop steps on top of the box…..me clearing my throat…)
GOOD MORNING FLOWER GANG!!!🌻 This week's newsletter is a story of triumph, a personal victory and a lecture on a soap box. If you know me, you know that lots of things bother me…but bugs🪲 really bug me. With a farm comes farming practices that I abide by. One is you never kill a bug unless you know its intentions are only for evil. I’m looking at you locust (or aka a grasshopper in your yard)!! Once I spot one, I make sure to identify it and its life cycle. Sometimes I fall into a rabbit hole, sometimes (usually when you're a good bug) I just learn your name and the benefits of having them around. One rabbit hole I fell into started 25 years ago, when a friend and her husband bought their first home. They planted grass in the front yard, watered and watched it grow only to die a few weeks later. They repeated this a few times, tried fertilizers, expensive grass plugs and finally a lawn company told them….you got grubs. So then the battle of the grubs began….Geoff throws down chemicals that kill the grubs, replants grass…grass dies, repeat. Why, because Geoff never learned the life cycle of the grub. Fast forward 10 years and I am fighting my own fight with Japanese beetles on my white Sunflowers.
At the time I learned I could tap them into a cup of soapy water, because they can drop down on you. Get rid of them pronto after you have killed them, because the smell of them dying tells other beetles to come this way, so you are just calling them over. Everything I learned about them infuriated me.
These were resilient bugs and to treat them organically is painstaking and feels like you're vacuuming the beach! But I continued on using the more natural ways hoping in the long run it would make a difference. I think it was when I got my bug book that I really learned about the beetle's life cycle…see, they live in the ground as grubs and eat the roots of your vegetation…aka Geoffs and Amys front lawn!!!
Then when they are full and fat, they curl up in a disgusting little ball and morph into a beetle. It then crawls out of the earth in beetle form, spreading fungus as they walk up your plants only to settle into the blooms to make a meal!
Ugh!!! 😤
So how do you fight a fight that seems impossible?
When you have an imbalance you see it. Or you can see clues. So what did I lack in my soil that gave the grubs the ability to bully and take over. I needed to find the beetle's natural kryptonite. Turns out, there is a fungus that naturally lives in our soil that the grubs love to eat. However, after they ingest it, they explode and die and they become food for nematodes and beneficial microorganisms! Bye Bye Grubs!! But even when you make a commitment to a natural solution, it still takes time. When I applied my Milky Spore Fungus, it was three years ago, and I’m just now seeing the results. But I’m pleased for sure! Nature is a cycle not a system. This is why I’m so against the evil blue juice… Miracle Grow.
Let me explain.
If we choose to feed our plants with chemical compounds and not natural organisms. We feed the plant and the plant alone. It grows fast and produces flowers and fruits. It appears healthy. The fertilizer does what it promises. However, it does a few bad things along the way. First, it is too much nutrients for the plant to uptake, so the unused chemicals stay in the soil and kill the naturally occurring nutrients (which are living organisms not just chemicals!) It then gets washed away into the streams where it over feeds algae and then hurts the fish and wildlife…think trickle down economics…second, it’s a chemical, it’s not natural so it is harmful to you and pets no matter what the label says! And thirdly, it makes the plants weaker in the end, calling in pests and diseases. Then guess what?!? You now need to apply this that other chemical….one spray to the next!! Sounds like an expensive system to me, not a free natural cycle!
When we feed our plants with organic materials we are feeding the soil and micro biome in the soil. Plants grow roots to reach into the soil to draw up water, and the nutrients ride along in the water. The water travels up the stem and drops off nutrients where the plant has needs. So both the soil and the plants are working together. Making for a healthier plant. So you are not only growing a plant but an entire environment, and the plant is showing you how healthy the natural cycle of that environment is.
Good things take time. Enjoy the flawless Lite White Pro Cut Sunflowers this week.
Pick Up: Wednesday July 9th
Location: Briggs Nursery
Time: 8-5
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