perturbance in paradise

when it looks like it's been blasted with a shotgun...

 feast & famine

my posts have become increasingly cerebral & cryptic, i fear.  that's generally how i cope with hard life-stuff...by flipping that weird mystic-switch that enables me to observe my participation in reality while remaining emotionally detached. sheesh.

recognizing that, i tend to actually deal with the big-picture problems best by dealing with small, practical tasks. 

& dealing with bugs:the good, the bad, the beautiful, is one of those recurring tasks this time of year.

look for flea beetles. they hop like fleas. and are small like fleas.

i steer clear of the term 'pest control' for the same basic reasons whatwhy the term "systems of control" bothers me: i'm a strange human with odd beliefs....but i suppose we could just call that a person.
the goal is for us to graduate from Pest Control to Integrated Pest Management and eventually to Stewards of Balanced Ecosystems Capable of Self-Regulation...
 That said, you'll never catch me sprinklin 7dust or even Bt in my garden. Homemade natural products are more my style: they take a lil time but they cost less & tend to smell much better.
     I need to slow the flea beetles down so they don't decimate my eggplants before the plants are big enough to handle them or predators find the feast.
         Creating Pest-Deterring Concoctions, like Potions, is a subtle science and an exact art, and all you need are a few basic ingredients:

• hot peppers: i save pepper seeds&scraps in a big freezer bag as i process them through the summer&fall so i have a solid stash for spring. you could probably use dried peppers in a pinch.
• garlic: is magic
• liquid castile soap: i like peppermint from the All-One-or-None! man's kids
• water: also magic

All you do is make a "tea" out of the peppers and garlic. You can steep it in a bucket of rainwater for a day or two or do it on the stove in a couple hours (about 30mins of work over the course of a couple hours).

I have a 1/2 gallon sprayer so I started by putting 2qts of water in a pot and turning on the heat. You can make your batch to fill your sprayer or make extra &store it in the fridge, you'll need enough for at least a coupla days.

Then chop, smash, slice, chew up & spit out or otherwise release the essential oils of the garlic (small bulb for a half gallon, big bulb for a full gallon; tops & roots if ya got em) & drop it in the water.

Eyeball or measure the spicy peppers. You're shooting for about 1-2 cups per gallon of water. Drop em in the water. Invoke something, say abracadabra, pray, meditate or medicate as the water begins to simmer.

i took off the lid for the photo, but seriously kids, put a lid on a pot when you're trying to get liquid hot, it's way faster and uses less fuel. thanks. stepping off the soapbox. boil it for about 10 minutes.

now shut off the heat, cover the pot, and let it steep for another couple hours. you can pretend you're soaking beans, lay in a hammock, go get your feet dirty or otherwise occupy yourself as the concoction gets spicier.

a point comes in the steeping/cooling off period when i inevitably want to taste it. so i do & i recommend it. i probably wouldn't take a shot of the stuff unless i was coming down with something, but i like to dip a finger in and touch the tip of my tongue a few times. when my tongue tingles in a fashion that i imagine would be torturous to a tiny creature, i know i'm ready for the next step.

strain the spicy liquid & go toss the solids in the compost, your worms won't like it and neither will your chickens...you might be able to train a dog to fear you if you're evil, i s'pose. i recommend compost.

now we're ready for our decoction to become a concoction. add your castile soap ::(sidenote: i like the bronner's cuz i keep it around for all kinds of stuff, other oil-based soaps would most likely work just as well, e.g., horticultural oil or even murphy's oil soap in case of desperation)::

The general rule is to add 1-2Tbsp per gallon of water.

Give it a stir & presto-chango! 

If you're particularly sensitive to the spicy substance Capsaicin you might want to put on some gloves now.

Fashion a funnel & fill up your sprayer. Head outside armed to the teeth with your pepper spray & start misting them lil buggers! 

At this point i pretend i'm in an unpublished prequel to Ender's Game as i rain burning oils onto the world of the buggers.  

 make sure you hit the underside of the leaves too.

watch them buggers drop. even slugs wilt from the stem. a thousand tiny voices scream every moment...all life is suffering.

necessary&beautiful.

quickly cultivate shallowly around the plants before &/or after you spray to expose the eggs and larva that the mature beetles drop into the soil below their favorite foods. keep spraying until they move on, their life cycle is disrupted for the season, or a predator population emerges... and let the most resilient survive to feast another day...

 to feed a mouth other than ours.