Periodically, we get a knock on the door, and it’s a guy who wants to let us know that some of our neighbors have contracted with him to take care of their (cockroach/ant/black widow) problem, and to ask if we’d be interested in doing the same. “Why would I want to do that?” I asked one of these men, perplexed. “Why would I want poison in my house? The ants aren’t hurting anything.”
The possum that lives under our deck in Michigan eats ticks, etc. Our garden fence protects beans and greens from rabbits. Mosquitoes should die but hard to kill without using poison so we do so infrequently, otherwise use a fan to keep them away when I’m cleaning fish (same for no see ums when in FL) or fire pit smoke in the evening.
This beautifully sums up my approach to nature. Still working on my family who want to kill anything they don't like around them. Rats are only a problem here in winter when they decimate and poop on everything in the winter garden. This year my solution to that is not to grow one. Spent my budget on barriers to the bunnies who have been a year round problem.
Bummer about the winter garden! I think our solution is going to start with eliminating a food source for the rats by harvesting our mission grapes. We haven't been using them because they make a sweet, non-acidic wine that's not our thing, but the rats love them.
Normally we don't mind sharing things we don't harvest with the critters, but we need to restore balance, so we are going to deny them this year.
Ugh I feel like I have had a huge shift in my ecosystem balance ever since in blocked off the garden with bird netting and drift fencing materials to keep the feral cats out. Spidermites, aphids and caterpillars galore, likely because the birds can't get in to feed :(
We have never used pesticides or poison on our little farm. We plant enough so that even when nature, uh, finds a way, we get enough. Gophers are usually public enemy number one, and we have a dozen spring traps we set on fresh holes, and a pellet gun if we’re feeling spry while relaxing on the porch in the evening. This year was the worst we have ever had, due to the neighbors cutting down the ancient eucalyptus trees that were roosts and homes to the resident birds of prey. Now we also have a murder of crows visiting unchecked, which devastated this years plums and apricots. Needless to say, we miss them, and can’t wait for the balance to return in the coming years. *nods in Ian Malcom*
I appreciate this so much. My mother actually has a book coming out which includes a wonderful essay about the permeability of her home to other beings and visitors, and the strange social pressures that regulate our willingness to put up with spiders, bats, mice, insects, etc. She notes that rats cross a line *symbolically* that many other creatures don't -- the ways in which comparing people to rats has historically been used to dehumanize them, the sense of them as plague-carriers, etc -- which I think is pretty interesting.
In our forest garden, we have a huge and unchecked population of ground squirrels, who like our backyard meadow because it's such a depleted ecosystem. Water simply flows off it, it's overgrazed by free-range cattle we haven't had the time or money to fully fence out, and there's nowhere for predator species like hawks and foxes to hang out. So it's basically just mats of tough wild grasses interspersed with dust patches, which makes it makes a perfect spot for them to burrow. They're fearless as a result, and they eat EVERYTHING we plant that isn't fully caged on every side (including underneath) with hardware cloth. This rather dashed my dreams of a vegetable garden this year, but I was inspired by one of the chapters in Gaia's Garden to approach the problem as one of actually rebalancing the landscape rather than trying to get rid of the squirrels -- if we can help route water over the meadow so that it stays in the ground rather than running off over the volcanic dust, we can support a lot more native bushes and small trees, the soil will change and other species will move in, and the squirrels will simply no longer love it as much. It won't be the straightforward process of putting veggies in the ground that we'd hoped for, but your description of your local ecosystem gives me hope that it still might actually be doable.
We live on a lake, which makes for a very complex and beautiful ecosystem to be a part of. So many of my neighbours mow right to the edge, (illegally) dump sand, rake out all of the "weeds", cut down every tree for a better view, spray herbicides and pesticides all over, fertilize their lawns... It's a bit depressing. We've cleaned out a small patch in front of the dock for swimming, and are developing a food forest of sorts, but otherwise have left most of it alone. You can really tell the difference in the amount of fish, birds, insects (not always fun, but necessary), and mammals that like hanging around our yard compared to others. I much prefer it that way, even if I have to share my garden a bit and get eaten alive when I'm tending it. I did have two weird years though where the squirrel population straight up exploded and they got into EVERYTHING. The attic, the basement, the garden, all of my container gardening, the chimney. They became a regular menu item for a year, which calmed things down. Now there's a normal squirrel population again, and I'm much happier about it. I guess cooking up your rats isn't likely going to be the solution to your current pest problem...
As a feline free home, I am struggling with this. I picked over 1000 (yes I counted) apricots off the ground from my one tree this spring and summer that the squirrels would sample and then throw on the ground. Let me know if your rat solution works on fuzzier rodents as well.
Please tell Harlequin that I said pspspsps
The possum that lives under our deck in Michigan eats ticks, etc. Our garden fence protects beans and greens from rabbits. Mosquitoes should die but hard to kill without using poison so we do so infrequently, otherwise use a fan to keep them away when I’m cleaning fish (same for no see ums when in FL) or fire pit smoke in the evening.
This beautifully sums up my approach to nature. Still working on my family who want to kill anything they don't like around them. Rats are only a problem here in winter when they decimate and poop on everything in the winter garden. This year my solution to that is not to grow one. Spent my budget on barriers to the bunnies who have been a year round problem.
Bummer about the winter garden! I think our solution is going to start with eliminating a food source for the rats by harvesting our mission grapes. We haven't been using them because they make a sweet, non-acidic wine that's not our thing, but the rats love them.
Normally we don't mind sharing things we don't harvest with the critters, but we need to restore balance, so we are going to deny them this year.
Ugh I feel like I have had a huge shift in my ecosystem balance ever since in blocked off the garden with bird netting and drift fencing materials to keep the feral cats out. Spidermites, aphids and caterpillars galore, likely because the birds can't get in to feed :(
We have never used pesticides or poison on our little farm. We plant enough so that even when nature, uh, finds a way, we get enough. Gophers are usually public enemy number one, and we have a dozen spring traps we set on fresh holes, and a pellet gun if we’re feeling spry while relaxing on the porch in the evening. This year was the worst we have ever had, due to the neighbors cutting down the ancient eucalyptus trees that were roosts and homes to the resident birds of prey. Now we also have a murder of crows visiting unchecked, which devastated this years plums and apricots. Needless to say, we miss them, and can’t wait for the balance to return in the coming years. *nods in Ian Malcom*
I appreciate this so much. My mother actually has a book coming out which includes a wonderful essay about the permeability of her home to other beings and visitors, and the strange social pressures that regulate our willingness to put up with spiders, bats, mice, insects, etc. She notes that rats cross a line *symbolically* that many other creatures don't -- the ways in which comparing people to rats has historically been used to dehumanize them, the sense of them as plague-carriers, etc -- which I think is pretty interesting.
In our forest garden, we have a huge and unchecked population of ground squirrels, who like our backyard meadow because it's such a depleted ecosystem. Water simply flows off it, it's overgrazed by free-range cattle we haven't had the time or money to fully fence out, and there's nowhere for predator species like hawks and foxes to hang out. So it's basically just mats of tough wild grasses interspersed with dust patches, which makes it makes a perfect spot for them to burrow. They're fearless as a result, and they eat EVERYTHING we plant that isn't fully caged on every side (including underneath) with hardware cloth. This rather dashed my dreams of a vegetable garden this year, but I was inspired by one of the chapters in Gaia's Garden to approach the problem as one of actually rebalancing the landscape rather than trying to get rid of the squirrels -- if we can help route water over the meadow so that it stays in the ground rather than running off over the volcanic dust, we can support a lot more native bushes and small trees, the soil will change and other species will move in, and the squirrels will simply no longer love it as much. It won't be the straightforward process of putting veggies in the ground that we'd hoped for, but your description of your local ecosystem gives me hope that it still might actually be doable.
I love this story, well done!....
Hank knows I love "discussions", and one of my go to points when speaking with vegans is "I'll bet you have pest control though, right?"
but this also reminds me of the "biggest little farm" documentary....once you get your ecosystem in balance, nature takes care of you.
We live on a lake, which makes for a very complex and beautiful ecosystem to be a part of. So many of my neighbours mow right to the edge, (illegally) dump sand, rake out all of the "weeds", cut down every tree for a better view, spray herbicides and pesticides all over, fertilize their lawns... It's a bit depressing. We've cleaned out a small patch in front of the dock for swimming, and are developing a food forest of sorts, but otherwise have left most of it alone. You can really tell the difference in the amount of fish, birds, insects (not always fun, but necessary), and mammals that like hanging around our yard compared to others. I much prefer it that way, even if I have to share my garden a bit and get eaten alive when I'm tending it. I did have two weird years though where the squirrel population straight up exploded and they got into EVERYTHING. The attic, the basement, the garden, all of my container gardening, the chimney. They became a regular menu item for a year, which calmed things down. Now there's a normal squirrel population again, and I'm much happier about it. I guess cooking up your rats isn't likely going to be the solution to your current pest problem...
As a feline free home, I am struggling with this. I picked over 1000 (yes I counted) apricots off the ground from my one tree this spring and summer that the squirrels would sample and then throw on the ground. Let me know if your rat solution works on fuzzier rodents as well.