Insect Assassins

Cleaning Edamame

One of the defining activities of the last week was preparing the Edamame for bundling and distribution. Edemame is very easy to grow. It sprouts right up and turns into a bean filled jungle in no time at all. It is also easy to harvest, we simply snip the base of the plants’ stalks and carry them into the barn. Preparing the stalks is another story- hours of snipping leaves, cutting to rough lengths and taming unruly stalks into bundles. Of course, the rest of the farm doesn’t slow down, so we end up enjoying late night and early morning radio programs we prefer not to listen to on a regular basis while we work on the edamame. At least with this farm job we could enjoy a beer and work at the same time!

The insect assassins clean up summer garden beds

One of the reasons our summer squash and cucumber harvest met an early demise this fall was an over abundance of squash bugs and cucumber beetles. After killing off the late summer crops both of these insects will over winter in brush and debris around a garden ready to emerge again in the spring with their voracious appetites. Before they got a chance to go hide (at least we hope we caught them early enough) we went through the demolished squash patch turning over brush and shaking dead plants until they fell off. Then we ruthlessly hunted them down as the scurried for cover. We hope we got most of them! After taking care of the insect problem we put down our weapons of destruction and prepared the beds for late fall greens, hoeing out weeds and raking them smooth. The former jungle of summer now lays neatly tamed ready for sowing and transplants.