Attempted pest-o-cide
Look out - Resilience cuts both ways
In January, mice under the snow were trying to gnaw the trunks of the Asian pear trees. In February, the sun and 60 degrees arrived, confusing the trees so their bark expanded thinking it was Spring. After the last frost, which may take out every bud if it comes too late, there’ll be the summer-long rodent attack - birds pecking at fruit to test if it’s ripe, inviting ants and wasps to move in. By Fall, deer will chomp off anything that hangs low on fruit-laden branches then in winter, rub their antlers on the trunks.
It’s a system like any, both brutal and productive, serving best those with the power to assert their need to survive.
Most visitors just see the beauty. They marvel at the abundance of round, caramel-colored fruit on 50 trees planted on contour in old terraces amidst prairie. They appreciate the comfrey’s long-stemmed flowers that attract native bees. They love the bright silver blue of the honeyberries hiding amidst leafy green bushes.
I steer them away from multiflora rose and poison ivy, brome grass, autumn olive and gray dogwoods. It’s their vacation after all. The average tourist doesn’t go to Israel to see Gaza or Chicago for Englewood. So there’s no mention of the gooseberry cultivar mow-down murder I committed after years of awaiting one sweet berry that would save them. No grumbles about time, money and lives wasted trying to grow elderberries, strawberries and more as drought or grass marched across the landscape and ate them alive in a summer or two.
I try to introduce new plants into the system to generate food for us and our neighbors, because humans cannot live on acorns alone. I learn what wants to grow here and what doesn’t, who can get along and who will take over at every chance. I also try to be a human that plays well with others in this system. As a species, we’re notoriously bad at that.
Along the way, I learned a lot about “pests,” which are often but not always native. Like their cousins weeds, pests are by definition a part of the system a particular human doesn’t want there. When there are so many pests that the plants can’t feed them all, the pests starve and die off. Farmers have to short-circuit that system to succeed. It’s pretty hard for someone relying solely on the income from apples, for example, to wait until Japanese beetles wipe out their own food supply by destroying an orchard that year.
Organic farmers find ways to disrupt the beetles’ lifecycle or make the leaves taste less delicious. It doesn’t always work 100 percent but it usually helps. Of course, one solution is not to rely solely on any single crop. Farmers with the wherewithal to watch the beasts eat their orchard have probably diversified their system with other crops and income streams.
Most Iowa farmers haven’t done that. The large majority of corn, bean and pig farmers, for example, are all in on one crop per year. So they try to destroy the one pest going after that crop that year. It throws the whole system out of whack. Synthetic pesticides and herbicides kill most bugs and weeds, but because nothing can kill them all, superbugs and superweeds survive the genocide, adapted and stronger than ever.
It’s the way of the world, like Palestinians who will survive the genocide in Gaza or Ukrainians who will survive Putin. In cities, it’s the most resilient roaches and rats. In the ag world, it’s antibiotic resistant bacteria and palmer amaranth. In every case, there is a tragic amount of death, yet enough survivors come back stronger than ever to assert their needs, bringing with them the added passion of species that know someone’s out to get them. That’s when we’ve made things worse. After all, if someone tries to kill you with a cleaver, you’ll probably buy a gun.
At Draco Hill, we don’t attempt total annihilation of any species, though we’re not immune to the temptation. Sometimes when I reach up to pick a pear, my hand crawls with wasps. I yelp loud enough for my neighbors a half-mile away to see this fool hopping around her orchard on the hill. Amazing how something so tiny, yet well-armed and organized, can take down a human. If I didn’t have nightmares of a giant superwasp stinging me to death, I’d probably try to fight back. Instead, I save the wasp spray for indoors.
Call me Zen or lazy, maybe I’m just cheap and surely after more than a decade of this I’m humbled. I have the luxury of no debt and diversified income streams, so I can afford to be those things. I spend little money on synthetic chemicals, though I still use them selectively. I get to take the moral high ground, if you want to call it that, of doing my part for cleaner water and healthier soil. I know I’ll never be the master over this place because someday I’ll be gone, like the humans before me. I hope the land will still be here. So I leave the pests alone as long as they leave a little for me.
And I always check for wasps before taking that first bite.
Additional resources
Bumblebee Watch - For those of you who actually appreciate insects that can both fly and sting. Sign up as a citizen scientist or just explore the maps and info. Special thanks to Cedar County Conservationist Sarah Subbert for the reference.
More about wasps from Stefan Sobkowiak, permaculturist
Finally, this Substack is not overtly political, but I mention Gaza so no one forgets that the US supports Israel to the tune of billions of dollars per year.
According to the Associated Press’ latest coverage:
1,200 - the number of Israelis murdered in Oct. 7 attack
130 - remaining hostages held by Hamas
29,000 - the number Palestinian civilians murdered in retaliation so far
250,000 - the number of Palestinian civilians starving today
The ethics of this should not be up for debate. Cease fire now.
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Thank you Suzan for these insights. I appreciate your caretaking of Draco Hill. Wish there were more people with the same philosophy.