Spark — Pests find hobby farm a welcome home

The Armchair Mayor News is pleased to welcome back Dan and Jody Spark after their break.

COLUMN — There is much to say about the birds and the bees, but on this farm, the discussion is more about hate than love. And don’t get me started about the flowers and the trees.

Sure, I love that the bees pollinate our fruit, and the sweet sounds of songbirds, but that’s where the affection stops.

Living on a hobby farm, or any farm for that matter, is a constant battle with pests under the dirt, on the ground and in the air. And with this being the year of the pest on our acreage, it’s turned a hobby into aggravation.

The list of offences includes chewed up carrot tops (voles); decimated potato foliage (beetle) and their taste-tested roots (grubs); broken and leafless branches (deer); a ransacked pear tree (bear); corn, wheat and sunflower stalks missing their kernels (black birds); and mowed-down wheatgrass (geese).

Granted, we were blessed with some successful crops this year and, generally, are grateful for anything we can grow ourselves. But every time I see another branch knocked off a sapling or a potato plant biting the dust, the blood pressure starts its almost-daily climb.

It’s like animal cruelty in reverse.

Of course, Jody and I are partly to blame. We don’t believe in pesticides and try to grow everything organically or, as my wife likes to say, “biodynamically raised with no chemical inputs.” There is no room for compromise on this issue, so we have come to accept duties such as squishing beetles in the garden and spreading dog poo on the edges of our property to ward off hungry deer (pro tip: it doesn’t work).

But in the past couple of years, we haven’t been overwhelmed like we have this year and seen our hard work and planning go down the drain due to animals and insects looking for a free feast.

So, here we are, helpless. If we want to really take care of the situation, we need money and time — money to buy fencing and time to crawl through the garden on a daily basis in search of pests.

Since we’re lacking both of those needs, we are left to just make due by doing the simple things such as enriching our soil organically, transplanting seedlings from the greenhouse, putting Irish Spring soap near our young trees to ward off deer (the jury’s out on that one) and spreading netting over our grain to prevent black birds from dive-bombing our garden.

These are all things we have tried and continue to tweak over time, but until we find that perfect solution for natural pest control, it seems my heart will always be in for a workout.

Dan and Jody Spark are in their fourth year of living their back-to-the-land dream on their small acreage at McLure and they are having the time of their life.