Companions

This week in Sust. Ag has been all about companions and their roles in the farm. We have been looking at plants, weeds, insects, birds, and many more plants and animals to determine whether they are a pest or beneficial to the farm. I studied wasps and determined that they can be both a pest and beneficial to farms. Many people may not know this but wasps can play a vital role in farms. Wasps eat many insects such as caterpillars that eat plants and harm farms. Without wasps, farms would be crawling with pests that eat crops and degrade the farm overall. Wasps can also be considered pests, they sting and bother people trying to work. If this doesn't bother you, wasps should be present in you farm. To attract wasps to your farm, leave out food, specifically sweets and also make holes in logs for the wasps to live in. To discourage wasps, make sure that no food is left out, if wasps continue to be a problem, spray them with WD-40 (* ED. NOTE: not certified organic) and that should scare them away. Wasps are such an interesting insect because most people seem to dislike them but few people actually know how beneficial they can be on a farm and some of the great things they can do to keep a farm healthy. - charlie

Trip To the Marsh

This week we were forced to spend most of our time in the classroom due to poor air quality and lack of days due to school being cancelled on Friday. However the main focus of this week and the week before was companions on the Farm and how they interact with the plants growing on the soil and whether they are a pest or a beneficiary. To examine further the companion plants and animals in out local ecosystem the class took a short walk to the march on the east end of the school campus. Once at the march we observed the different plants and animals we saw and how many there was. We saw many different types of birds such as ducks and crows as wells as many plant species that were both invasive and native. This experience was very good for the class to understand how our farm should run like it would naturally without human interaction. We examined the similarities and differences between out fram and the local ecosystem and pointed out possibilities to improve the farm. - Cole

Ladybugs

This week in SustAg, Mr. Stewart has introduced us to companions and their role in our local farm. We have learned about many different companions that we can find on our farm, some being beneficial to the farm and others being detrimental. We have learned about the helpful pollination of bees, the harm of invasive weeds such as bermuda grass, and the beneficial decomposition of worms. One of the most helpful companions that we have learned about is the ladybug. Plant-eating aphids can be very harmful to a farm, but the presence of their ladybug predators keeps the number of aphids in check. Ladybugs eat 50-60 aphids per day, and without them, aphids would be able to eat and kill huge numbers of plants on a farm. As you can see in the image below, I found a ladybug on one of my bean plants in my OneBed eating aphids. In our OneBed one of the bean plants has completely died and shriveled up as it was eaten by aphids before we noticed. Once we recognized this issue we were able to smush the majority of the aphids on our bean plants and the rest should be eaten by ladybugs. Although the aphids are pests and are harmful to our plants, their presence along with the presence of the ladybugs and many other companions on our farm indicated that we are maintaining a balanced ecosystem with ample biodiversity. —Dean

More on November Market

Perhaps our most exciting day of the month, Market Day! The one day where all the classes work together to gather everything we've grown to sell at our Farmer's Market. We value each of our lbundles at $2. We determine the amount of an item in a bundle based off of both weight and size of plant. Some smaller individual plants sell for $1 such as Lemon cucumbers (very popular sellers) and horse radish plants. 

We'd gather these bundles of vegetables, split up into groups and parade around school offering them to teachers (who weren't teaching). After making our way through all four main hallways, we delivered to students flooding out of the lot and parents sitting in their car waiting to pick up students. 

Our most popular items today were our Lemon Cucumbers, Kale, Flower bouquets and our beets. We tend to sell out in these items which means we have to grow more of these goods in our garden. We already have two full class beds of Kale and on top of that students like to grow Kale in their own beds. We have several garden beds designed for flowers and are well taken care of by a group of students so increasing demand in this product shouldn't be an issue. Lemon cucumbers are a big seller but not one of our biggest growers. Perhaps we should designate more class beds for the cucumbers or encourage students to grow them in their own beds. 

Overall, I would say this Market was a success. We look forward to getting back in the farm to make next months market even better! -H Jones

Companions

Every healthy, balanced ecosystem has companions and it starts with benificials. Companions can be pests or beneficial plants and organisms. In the redwood farm, we find weeds all the time. They are constantly popping up in our plant beds and can be really frustrating. Weeds steal nutrients from the soil that our plants could be using. By using Grow Biointensive methods such as close plant spacing eliminate the opportunity for weeds to begin growing. There's no room for them to squeeze in between the other plants, and not enough nutrients for them to survive. We can also plant companion plants with crops to help them grow and even taste better, like legumes with strawberries. It's important to encourage beneficials in your garden because it may lead to attracting pollinators. Planting flowering plants in your garden will draw in bees, birds and butterflies. Birds, while they may be seeking a seed lunch, may stick around for an Aphid dinner. They can act as a natural pesticide that doesn't harm your garden.

The best defense against pests is a balanced ecosystem. Pests lurking in your garden can range from aphids to a symphylan. Symphylans are a gardener's worst nightmare. They feed on sprouting seeds and roots, causing damage to a plants ability to acquire water and nutrients. An easy fix to all these pests are pesticides, but the truth is that less than 2% of the pesticide used actually reaches the targeted organisms. The other 98% effects the non-targeted crop. There are sustainable alternatives to pesticides like promoting diversity in your garden, and mimicking nature which make for stronger plant defense and companion support. While herbicides are still semi toxic to plants, they kill unwanted vegetation and leave the crop somewhat unharmed. —Hunter

Snails

This week in class, we dove into the concept of companions on the farm. At the beginning of the week, Mr. Stewart introduced a new project to better familiarize ourselves with companions. For this project, everyone chose different companions, found on the RHS farm, to research. I wanted to choose an organism that I had actually interacted with in my lifetime, but didn't know that much about. As I looked at Me. Stewart's companion's list, my eyes immediately darted to "snail (pest)." This surprised me because I'd always thought snails were beneficial to plants, especially in an agriculture environment. I wanted to find out more about snails, so I decided to do my report on them. Through extensive research, I learned a decent amount of new information on this unique animal. I found out that snail's are damaging to an agricultural system because they munch on plant leaves, young plant bark, foliage, and fruit; this throws off an ecosystem. Snails especially like to eat fruits close to the ground like strawberries, which make them unreadable. Also, snails typically eat decomposing organic matter, which is vital to maintain soil nutrients, and therefore, plant growth. Because snails are pests, I looked into sustainable solutions to eliminating these animals from appearing in a farm setting. One of the easiest ways is to pick them off by hand and place them in a environment, like a grass field, in which they won't cause any harm. Another way is to spray a coffee mix around the plants that snails typically eat because it acts as a snail repellent. Lastly, is to create obstacles of crushed eggshells, lime, wood ash, wood shavings and sawdust around plants because snails aren't the athletic type and won't make that much of an effort to eat the plants. Overall, I learned that even though snails are slow, they can still cause a decent amount of harm to an ecosystem, and not all companions are compatible with the farm! --Makayla

The Wonderful Mantis

The Praying Mantis is a most interesting and beneficial insect to have on the farm. It is the only known insect to be able to turn its head and look over its shoulder (as its doing in the picture on the right). It is a general predator to most insects. You might be able to find a praying mantis on twigs, leaves, fences, and other vegetation which they don't eat. They are quick when attacking their prey, known to be two times quicker than an average housefly. They wait until prey is in reach before they snap at lighting quick speed. It's very beneficial to have these on a farm because they eat pests such as various aphids, leafhoppers, mosquitoes, caterpillars and other soft-bodied insects when young. Later they will eat larger insects, beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, and other pest insects. If you encounter a praying mantis, handle them with care or they can bite, and do not place them on the ground, as they can become easy prey for ants and other predators. A good location to place them is on vegetation so they can use their beneficial abilities such as killing off pests to promote growth on the farm. -Alex