Actually tox, some of the best solutions for desert and arid soil have been developed here. Nearly impossible to get here though; it's almost exclusively exported to Africa, where it's been very successful. But more and more permaculture classes are being given, and more and more people know exactly what compost is, etc. Lots of community gardening groups in the larger cities and lots of small community building around saving the beaches or not polluting the water we have with better laws about waste management. Long long way to go but although the normal citizen is fairly clueless (about a great many things.......don't get me started!) it's no way as odd as it was to hear party chatter about these things anymore, and the NGO's that deal with the environment are mainstream and not ignored. Much. Hoo - I didn't rinse the seaweed, just glopped it on the pile and it didn't do - or at least I couldn't discern - any salt damage. And in Haifa, the whole city is on a mountain overlooking a bay (think San Fransisco), and our winter rains from Oct-March wash everything downhill into the sewers, then into the sea. Including any topsoil on any slope, leaving rocky bare lifeless layers of mud which will become hardpan and bake into concrete when it dries. Dotty: Kitchen waste? Probably not. Yet, anyway. But my upstairs neighbor saves her shower and cleaning water, and has a bucket under her AC spout. The other first floor lady is ripe for an AC bucket consciousness change; DG and I talked about getting her to do it yesterday. So far, they are pleased as punch someone finally is dealing with the space around the house, but differences in, um, style abound. Like one sweeps the dirt under the tree so it won't be dirty, and the other can't understand why worms are our friends and will hysterically kill anything she sees as an interloper into her sterile space around the house and stairs, and neither of them can fathom why I rake the leaves but won't throw them away in the dumpster. Besides things like that, they are good neighbors and cautiously interested from afar as they watch me dig the second compost pile. We've only been here a year, and we are going to have to all 4 of us completely replace the roof before winter, a huge expense, and I don't want to push my luck! Peace, B

I am also having this issue. Last year I lost a bunch of brassica plants when I (too late, after a windy spell knocked over a bunch of plants that had been looking great) eventually figured out they were attacked by cabbage root maggots. (When I excavated the plants/soil around where it had been planted, I found small white maggots.) For the rest of the season I protected plants with skirts (flat on the soil, with a slit/star cut for the stem) made from weed cloth. This seemed to work well, although from what I learned, earlier spring is when they are most an issue, so maybe the worst of it had already passed. So this year, I was prepared, and every brassica seedling I planted was given a skirt. Well, after they seemed to be doing well, all of a sudden after another windy day, I noticed several plants looking pretty wilted. After closely inspecting all of my plants, I found very small (what I would call sugar) ants around several of the plants. I too, have understood that ants don't usually attack plants, but rather 'farm' other things. I dug up one plant, and found two very small wire worms (which I am familiar with, but because I am always keeping an eye out for them in the garden (and feeding them to my chickens), they do not usually do significant damage. I also found one very small white larvae of something. I'm not going to rule out that the ants, but around some of the plants, I also noticed some very tiny gray bugs. And also small winged bugs, similar to aphid flies I've seen on the leaves of brassicas. I need to do more research, but the two things I'm going to investigate further are springtails and root aphids. (I think pill bugs could also be an issue, as I think they like the slightly more damp environment that the weed cloth skirts create, especially as we are actually having a wet spring here in WA. But they aren't my #1 suspect right now given the ant activity.) I applied a thick circle of diatomaceous earth around each plant (I think that should work against both springtails and root aphids, although only if they come up to the surface), and also sprinkled some cinnamon to deter the ants. I figure even if the ants aren't actually the primary issue, I don't want them encouraging any pests that are feeding on the roots. The long and short of it is that I am suspecting in my efforts to deter one pest from feeding on my brassica roots, I've created conditions that encouraged some others. (Ugh. I swear, I do enjoy gardening...right?!) Hoping this might be helpful for others...

No offense was intended but when folks post pictures asking what did this the first follow-up question is always what have you seen in the way of pests. That is the only way anyone can narrow down the possibilities. A picture alone tells us little to nothing. So if the poster already knows they have slugs the question is are they treating for them? If not and then they discover damage to the plants the odds are 8 out of 10 it is slugs doing the damage, right? The easy way to prove it is simply to treat for slugs and when no further damage happens you know what was doing it. Dave

Forester: I do not usually grow my apples organically, but for the sake of some of the fruit growing lectures I give, I have grown apples in plastic sandwich bags. This has worked well. I loose a few to deer that eat them out of the bag where they can reach. A few bags somehow have blown off, but so far very successful. You need to bag the fruit when dime sized or as soon after that as possible before they get damaged by insects. This works well on small trees or if you just have a few trees. Since I have 22 trees, it would be tedious to bag them all. I resort to spraying for the most part for control. Many orchardists hang red sticky ball traps in their orchards to monitor for apple maggot and then spray if necessary. Some actually use this method to control maggot but you will have to use enough sticky ball traps in each tree to successfully reduce the population. The traps are not expensive but it is cheaper to go to the store and buy some red delicious apples (they seem to be available year round these days). Use a wire coat hanger to thread thru the apple and then coat the apple with tanglefoot. Hang in the tree. When the apple gets too covered with insects or starts to rot, just put on a new apple. Use gloves as tanglefoot is so sticky is a real chore getting it off your hands! As far as coddling moth, some do use pheromone ties to confuse the males so they do not find and mate with the females. Others just use a pheromone trap to trap the adults so they know when to spray for them. Maggots are odd as they do seem to prefer some apple varieties over others. Those that have a heavy waxy skin seem less prone to them. Connell red has a very waxy skin. I find that Jonathan apples seem to call in the maggots for miles! I also noticed this as a young boy since I grew up on the remains of an old orchard that was most likely planted in the very early part of the 20th century. Many varieties were striped and nobody could identify them. Some were always full of maggot every year yet other varieties nearby never had maggot. None were sprayed so easy to notice that maggot seems to prefer certain varieties over others. Should you wish to spray, I have found that Ortho Fruit,Flower and Vegetable insect killer containing Acetamiprid (.5%) works very well. I bought a bottle of it from Amazon and am impressed with the results. This does assume that you use the product at the right times when maggot and coddling moths are present. In my area, maggots can be an issue late July thru August. Coddlings normally have 2 generations where I live. The first seems to hit in mid-late June (fruit usually aborts) and the second generation in August. It may be different in the area you live.