Terry Coombs wrote:
....
Â* I take exception to a caterpillar/worm that eats all the foliage -
and green tomatoes - off my tomato plants . I've been plucking and
stomping , but as much fun as that is it gets old after a while .

i've not seen any this year so far, they usually appear
early to mid July. *knocks on wood*

they are not impossible to control here with manual
methods. we don't grow many plants compared to before
so to go out in the early morning to check plants can
be quick. just look for any damage and then look on
the ground for where the droppings are at and see if i
can find it. sometimes i can't for a day or two and
yes the damage can be more than i'd like, but i'll
get into why below...


BtK is
harmful only to certain caterpillar-type pests . DE will also affect
pollinators , which is one of the reasons I don't often use it . I'm
VERY careful with what I use and when , I'd hate to poison my bees .

i'm not convinced that most of what is being done
these days with bacteria and other controls is actually
studied enough and i sure don't want any collateral
damage to creatures not directly causing harm. so to
me if i can't do it manually or close to that then i
tend to avoid it. i've just seen too many examples
of where people who develop such things say one thing
but years later scientists who study such things find
out the damage is different than what was originally
thought.

i am in big favor of studing as much as possible
and learning, but there has to be a point where some-
one stands up and says that we need to be a lot more
careful with things than we have been up to this
point.

the big collapse in many insect populations is
not a good thing. not if you understand ecosystems
and how energy and plants and insects work together
and how they are broken down by fungi and such. it's
a very interconnected system and yes there are
various pathways, but a lot of those pathways are
now being disrupted and it's going to come back on
us eventually.

the older generations seem to say "so what, it's
just a bug, it carries disease or eats my crops or
whatever get rid of it" but that approach is laden
with future problems. there are other ways of
dealing with damage, plant more, increase diversity
and accept some losses where you can. this planet
now needs every break it can get.

i took a drive the other day. in the middle of
summer a drive in the car would often result in
plenty of bugs on the front of the car or the
windshield. not this time and not for a while. this
is in a state and area with plenty of woodlands and
some wild areas. we've lost a lot of the frogs and
toads that used to be common too.


songbird