Pests and Potatoes

If you read any book on organic gardening, you will find a section on “pests.” And the answers for best treatment of pests are these: 1. if you have good soil, you discourage bugs and diseases; 2. if you keep the weeds down, you will discourage pests; 3. companion plants will discourage pests; 4. if you can’t get the plants healthy enough on their own, bring in beneficial insects or use neem oil or a few other products that are organically approved (last resort). Basically, a healthy growing environment leads to healthy plants and good yields.

About a week ago I went out to check the potatoes. I knew the weed situation would not be good. But my heart sank when I saw the potato bugs, some of the ugliest bugs on earth, large and slimy, quick to reproduce and quick to overwhelm the foliage of a potato plant.

I knew the soil was good– I’ve been working on it for years, and with the help of my friend Kate and my step-daughter Julia, we had planted and then hilled them in a gorgeous mix of yak compost, mushroom compost (chopped straw) and peat. The weeds, yes, they were bad, but not that bad. The cover crop never developed, but the rows of plants themselves weren’t full of weeds. The weather has also been a little crazy, with stretches of torrential rain followed by high temperatures.

I was glad to discover, however, that the bugs were only on one side, a short row. One long row of high quality fingerling seed potatoes were growing and looking quite healthy, flowering, and no bugs even though the rows are only about 6 feet apart.

I went inside and regrouped. I told Steve we’d need to pull up those plants and get that foliage off the property so those bugs wouldn’t infect anything else. But then as I drifted off to sleep I thought– hey, maybe there are potatoes under there. And when I went back to the garden the next day, indeed! There were beautiful small red potatoes. In fact, the plants were just starting to die back. And usually I wait too long to dig up the red potatoes and they get too big (because of their thin skins, they don’t keep well). Plus, I am loving eating potatoes still, especially roast potatoes. Now I can have my very own!

The yield per plant isn’t high, but we planted a good number of seed potatoes. I’ve had the energy to go out and fork up one plant at a time, and am looking forward to feeling better soon and digging up a half bucket load. Or having Steve do that soon for me so we can get the bugs out.

I sprayed the fingerlings, not with neem but with spinosad (I use Captain Jack’s Dead Bug Brew) also classified as organic, though not as natural as neem. The thing about spinosad is that it is extremely effective on potato bugs. I only wish it worked as well on squash bugs.

But what was very heartening was that when Steve went out to weed that bed (and cover the center with rubber mats), he saw a giant wasp attacking one of them. Beneficial insects! I’ve never read anything encouraging me to release wasps in my garden. But that is clearly the prairie helping the vegetables.

And there are parallels with my body. In these weeks after chemotherapy has ended, my plan was to get right back to exercises– firm up that abdomen and get some strength before surgery. But when I get up and when I try to do something, I see the bug-eaten foliage. I feel the weakness that comes from anemia.

I know the soil was good. I’ve been preparing it for years.

The weather, though, and cancer-weeds, have weakened and even threatened the plants.

We have sprayed it, and now I am treating it with other things. A blood transfusion on Tuesday for the anemia. A Neulasta shot for the WBC count and an ANC near zero. I’m taking BioSil for skin/nails/hair, Vitamin B12 for the neuropathy, and a probiotic to help reproduce good flora in the bowels.

And, sometimes it occurs to me, and sometimes I unearth it– beautiful potatoes down there in the soil. All I have to do is dig.