Know Your Good Bugs From Your Bad Bugs!

Or as the Master Gardeners might put it, know your beneficials from your pests!

Organic food growing seeks to increase biological diversity in the garden (or farm), and increasing insect populations is a high priority. Of course there are bad bugs that will eat or otherwise destroy your crops, but one of the best ways to control the pests is by attracting the beneficial insects that will eat them. (Not to mention the beneficials that will pollinate your crops!)

A variety of flowers is the best way to attract beneficials (along with a nice straw mulch to attract slug-eating ground beetles), but just as important as attracting them is knowing what they look like, so you don't mistake them for pests and kill them. For instance, would you guess that the prehistoric-looking critter at right is actually a ladybug larvae, which devours even more aphids at this stage than it does in its more familiar adult form?  Our warm winter means we're going to have a lot of insects this spring and summer, so check out the sites below to learn what's what, or rather who is who, in the insect world of your garden!

The MD Master Gardener's Grow It Eat It website has good pictures and descriptions of common garden pests.

There is no one best site for pictures of the beneficials, but check out this one and this one for some excellent pictures and descriptions of most of the important ones.

Lastly, another very helpful website is Bug Guide - simply search the name of the insect you're looking for, and you'll get literally dozens of pictures. Have fun learning, and keep attracting the good guys to your garden!

Cold Damage - and Premature Flowering

After record-shattering warmth in March, the weather in April has fluctuated from warm to almost wintry - and as a result you may have some frost damage in your garden.

What might be surprising is that we don't need a frost to produce cold damage, and even cool weather plants (like broccoli, spinach, kale or chard) can be affected. (At left is a picture of typical cold damage on a broccoli plant.) Young transplants are much more vulnerable than mature plants, and variables such as where and how the transplant was grown, how (or if) it was hardened off, and the relative change in temperatures (like going from 80 to 40 in the space of a couple days) are as significant as the absolute temperatures. The good news is that cold damage is usually not fatal - even hard hit plants will generally survive if there is enough new leaf growth.

And here's one more weird thing you might see because of the stretches of very warm weather early on - premature flowering. Incredibly enough, I've got very young broccoli plants that have gone to head and flowered in the middle of April, as have some of my kale and other greens. Oh well, here's hoping the weather in May turns out to be a little more stable...

Wendell Berry - Agriculture Saint, American Hero

"Eating is an agricultural act." With this famous quote, and seminal books such as The Unsettling of America, Wendell Berry became the first voice in America - and some would say still the most eloquent - opposing the rise of industrial agriculture, and outlining its effects on the American farm and society while preaching sustainability and community. He is a prolific essayist, poet, academic, and social critic, as well as being a farmer.  Even superstar food author Michael Pollan acknowledges that he doesn't say anything Berry hasn't already said.

Just last week, Mr. Berry was in Washington to deliver the 2012 Jefferson Lecture, the highest honor the federal government has for "distinguished intellectual achievement" in the humanities, and a small spate of columns appeared surrounding this event. For some soul-satisfying entertainment and mind-opening thinking, we recommend food author Mark Bittman's column "Wendell Berry, Finding Patience in an Era of Uncertainty" and this delightfully titled Grist article,  "Wendell Berry: this old farmer is still full of piss and vinegar."

Wanna go straight to the source? Check out this page of wonderful Wendell Berry quotes. And then go about and quote him freely. We need this great poet/farmer's words, wisdom and sanity now more than ever. (Particularly when you read our next story...)

Agribusiness' Answer to Herbicide-Resistant Super Weeds? More and Deadlier Chemicals

A critical agriculture story first noted in the MVG update two years ago is now making it into the mainstream press: the industry-wide use of glyphosphate, the primary ingredient in Monsanto's Round Up herbicide, is creating a new generation of resistant "superweeds." The herbicide became ubiquitous after Monsanto began selling its Round Up resistant GMO corn and soybean in the mid-nineties; now, the superweeds are found on over 13 million acres in 26 state, and have gone from being a nuisance to a serious threat to industrial farming. Round Up has had disastrous effects on some insect populations as well, such as decimating monarch butterfly populations by killing the native milkweed they depend on.

The agribusiness/biotech answer to this farm crisis - incredibly if not surprisingly - is to develop new forms of GMO crops that are resistant to even deadlier chemicals... such as Dow's new GMO "Enlist" corn, made to resist 2,4-D, a particularly nasty herbicide from the 1940s, a component of Agent Orange that is linked to birth defects, cancers, neurotoxicity, and liver and kidney disorders. A herbicide which would have to be widely used with plantings of the new corn.

Is this a solution to herbicide resistant superweeds? "It's like pouring gas on a fire," says Charles Benbrook, former head of the agriculture board of the National Academy of Sciences

In fact, it's so bad that even conventional (i.e. - nonorganic) farmers and some biotech advocates are beginning to protest, and suggesting that industry and the government rethink this "newer and deadlier chemicals" approach. (Another source of great anxiety is a new biotech corn bred for use in ethanol, a GMO some think could destroy current corn varieties and turn our corn flakes to mush.)

The USDA has so far approved every one of the 80+ GMO crops they have reviewed. A lot of people are working to make sure this new GMO corn is the first to be denied approval, and you can help: click here to sign a petition to the FDA, to "Keep Agent Orange Corn Off My Plate."

No More "Pink Slime" in Montgomery County Schools

Anyone who follows food issues, or the news generally, has heard about the controversy over "pink slime."

Known in the industry as "lean finely textured beef," (LFTB) this product is a combination of fat, sinew and connective tissue, bloody effluvia and occasional bits of meat that are by products of meat processing. Once used only in dog food, the process of treating it with ammonia, to kill bacteria, unleashed it into the human food supply - until knowledge of its use became widespread and people, for understandable reasons, objected. Fast food burger joints stopped using it in the face of public protest, but the USDA caused a renewed furor by recently ordering 7 million pounds of it to use in school lunches.

Well, the protests continued, including locally, and on April 18, Montgomery County Public Schools Food Services Director Marla Caplon appeared at a meeting of the Montgomery County Food Council to announce that our public school system will stop using meat containing LFTB. As outlined in a March 26 memo from Superintendent Joshua Starr to the Board of Education, the USDA is giving schools the option, starting in the 2012-2013 school year, to order LFTB-free beef through its School Food Distribution Program - and Montgomery County Public Schools will take advantage of this to stop using the product. Thank you, MCPS, and thanks to all who let MCPS know their concerns!

Is "Sustainable Meat" a Myth?

The disastrous environmental and human health effects of factory farmed meat, particularly beef, are legion - and increasingly well-known in recent years. This has led to a significant branch of the new food revolution: the sustainable meat movement of local, humanely treated, non-feedlot raised animals.

Nonetheless, few issues inspire as much passionate debate in food circles as that of sustainable meat production. The debate flared again with this recent NY Times op-ed, "The Myth of Sustainable Meat" by James McWilliams. This in turn led to a number of responses, including this one from world-famous sustainable animal farmer Joel Salatin. Another very helpful commentary on the subject, "What About Grass-fed Beef?" was written a couple years ago by vegan author and Rachel Carson Award winner John Robbins. 

While everyone should read these articles and reach their own conclusions, a few observations seem in order: a) our environment cannot tolerate the continued existence of industrial/factory meat farming, let alone its continued growth; b) it is possible to raise animals for meat in a way that is much more humane, healthier, and better for the environment; and c) the sheer volume of meat Americans and others around the world eat will overwhelm any attempt to raise meat sustainably.

In short, as author Michael Pollan prescribes in his basic mantra - "Eat food. Eat less of it. Mostly plants." So here's to eating less meat, and making sure that whatever you do eat is sustainably and humanely raised.

Farmers Markets Are Open Again - And Here's a New Resource To Find Them!

The growing season is upon us in full force again, and all of the seasonal farmers markets in the area, which generally operate from May - October, will re-open this coming month. Yeah!!!

And not a moment too soon, the Washington Post has produced a wonderful new resource - an online, interactive map with listings and information for the nearly 140 (!) farmers markets in our area. So if you aren't sure where the closest one to you is, or you're taking day trips in the region and want to find a new market you can visit, click here!

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That's it for this update, friends!  Thanks for sharing these emails with your friends, and sending us word of any local food events and/or ideas for articles in future updates.  And here's to keeping ahead of the bugs as we enter the heart of this growing season!

Yours in healthy, sustainable food,