Garden Hacks--6

In planting my cool season garden over the last few weeks, I’ve encountered some of the usual problems—cabbage moths, moles and sow bugs. None of my methods for dealing with these is perfect so I experiment and try new interventions.

Cabbage worms are a terrible problem at this time of year. Though the moths are quite lovely as they dart about the garden they are part of the cycle that causes significant damage to the brassica crops.

My typical interventions are BT (Bacillus thuringiensis), hand picking and row covers. For more detailed information I highly recommend this short podcast from Epic Gardening How to Get Rid of Cabbage Worms Organically.

Here’s what I’ve been using lately when I’m working in the garden. It’s a child’s butterfly net and my personal challenge is to capture those elusive cabbage moths. Occasionally, I smash one between my hands but I’m more successful with the net. Once captured in the net I decimate it but admittedly, sometimes they escape. Spraying with BT every five days is a more reliable option which I’ve been doing.

Moles disturb my seeds and seedlings. Though we placed half-inch hardware cloth at the bottom of the raised beds, they found their way in. They’re in search of sow bugs, earthworms and grubs that might arrive with my compost additions.

The damage here looks minor but day after day, the emerging carrot seedlings or small lettuce transplants may not survive.

When I planted radish seeds this week I angled wooden skewers under the row of radish seeds to discourage the moles. Several days later, there is no mole intrusion evident and the seeds have sprouted.

When I planted celery today I slipped wooden skewers and small pieces of bamboo beneath the rootball to discourage the moles. This technique has been successful in the past with my brassica crops.

I’ve written about sow bugs in Garden Hacks—1 but the compost I’m using now for topdressing is riddled with them, and many very tiny ones. I resorted to using a fine sifter to eliminate most of them. As I prepared the soil to plant radishes there were still some larger ones dashing about. I grabbed the vinegar and sprayed them. Since vinegar is only 5% acetic acid it is easily diluted with irrigation before I plant the seeds.

Here are a few of the sow bugs that succumbed to the vinegar spray. Tell me in Comments about your favorite garden hacks.

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