Pesticide, never! Marinade forever!
We can all agree that pincher bugs (aka earwigs) are hella evil, right? All that pinching and crop destruction?
When we moved into our new place, we had no idea that we’d be living with millions of pincher bugs. Okay, maybe thousands. The point is, they completely invaded our home and garden - they were everywhere. In our dishes. In our bed. In our shampoo. In our water filter. IN OUR TOOTHPASTE. But all that was just a nuisance. When they came for the massive zucchini plant leaves and decimated them in one night, it was a heartbreak. Our thriving zucchini plant was so healthy one day, and suddenly, there was nothing left but a skeleton of a leaf the next morning. We went out hunting for the culprits the following night with flashlights in hand. To our horror, we found plants blackened with these vicious, little bugs. We needed to counter-attack! But how?
Pesticides are chemicals used to kill and repel a variety of pests. A pest is a term used to describe any living thing that humans consider to be a nuisance. Pesticides are just a temporary treatment (not a solution!) to rid an area of pests, typically of the insect variety. However, they do not remove the environmental attractants (shelter, water, food sources, etc.) that draw the unwanted insects in, and they require repeat applications over time. Pesticides can also destroy non-target insects that are considered to be beneficial. Even worse, they often negatively affect entire ecosystem functions, including: soil health, water sources, and carbon sequestration. Many animals (birds, fish, bats, small reptiles, amphibians, etc.) rely on insects as their primary food source. The dramatic decline in insect populations in recent years is already causing detrimental impacts to our planet. Pesticides are also harmful to wildlife, pets, and humans. Children and farmworkers may suffer the greatest impacts from exposure.
So we did our research for alternatives to pesticide. Everyone says to use organic neem oil, but we worry about what it can do to beneficial bugs like lady bugs. It’s an oil and so has to be applied early in the morning or at night, as to not burn your plants from the sun’s direct hit. We’ve tried it, and it works. But how? Is the oil suffocating the bugs? We decide to try the alternative approach. We heard an intriguing technique from a friend - sink a bowl in the soil so that the top of the dish is even with the soil, and fill it with soy sauce. We thought this was so simple that it probably too good to be true, but we gave it a try. Soy sauce is irresistible, after all. We popped a few pincher bugs on a stir fry pan with a splash of the soy sauce, and popped ‘em on top of our garden-harvested salad. Protein baby! Waste not, want not, amIright? Then we returned to the garden to see if the experiment worked.
Turns out, totally good and totally true! Bowl after bowl, night after night, inches of savory sauce were thickened to the consistency of sludge by the morning, as pinchers couldn’t resit the traps and drowned. Put that in your ear, earwigs!
Because the soy sauce is not applied directly to the plants, it doesn’t harm the leaves and it doesn’t even get in the soil. The zucchini plant regenerated its foliage, produced DOZENS of zucchinis that were donated to Una Vida, and we learned a whole lot about living with and without pinchers and without synthetic chemicals on our plants and in our soil.
Here at the Deviled Eggery, we are committed to Environmental Protection and Sustainable Agriculture. We are committed to restoring the property to how it was cared for before imperialism. We don’t have all of the solutions to the planet’s most pressing issues, but we are dedicated to learning, growing, and being stewards to this land and the lives we are fortunate to share it with.
To learn more about what actions we’re taking to protect the environment, check out our programs.