“We’ll take sandbags over pesticides THANK YOU VERY MUCH”
We spent Earth Day moving sandbags and saying goodbye to our overwintered greens – overwintered spinach, tatsoi, spicy greens mix, collards, and kale have all finally gone to seed with the changing of the seasons.
As a certified organic farm, we use sandbags to hold insect netting on top of our pest-sensitive crops, eliminating the need for insecticides. This insect netting works extremely well and lasts for many years, but it is certainly labor intensive (as well as expensive!).
Although it is hard work to move sandbags back and forth by hand, we honestly wouldn’t want to farm any other way. We definitely don’t want to be handling and spraying pesticides for the sake of our own health, nor would we feel good about eating that pesticide-covered produce or selling that pesticide-covered produce to anyone else. When people spray pesticides on produce it is recommended to wear a hazmat suit and ventilator mask so the farmer doesn’t poison themselves (I know, it’s not fun to think about). If pesticides are poisonous enough to necessitate a hazmat suit and ventilator mask for the farmer, why would anyone want to feed that produce to their family?
So, we’ll take the sandbags THANK YOU VERY MUCH. These same sandbags will now be used to hold down insect netting over the new season’s greens, melons, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, basil etc. in an adjacent field.
