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Don’t wage chemical warfare on those pesky bugs in your garden. Not only are pesticides a health hazard, they may not even work. According to David Pimentel, entomologist at Cornell University, over the past 50 years pesticide use has increased 30 times (and toxicity of pesticides more than a hundredfold), yet twice as much of the harvest is lost to insects today. A better way:

COMPOST: Healthy soil helps minimize pests. Build yours up with compost to add nutrients, promote microbial activity, and attract earthworms. Use clover as undersowing: it curtails weeds and actually helps certain plants, such as corn, cabbage, and cauliflower, flourish; plus, after harvest, you have a ready-made cover crop that can be used as mulch.

ROTATE: Bugs are like the American electorate: confuse them and they’ll do whatever you want. “You don’t want bugs saying to each other, ‘Hey, look, the carrots are in the same place they were last year,'” says organic farmer Scott Chaskey of Quail Hill Community Farm in New York. “Certain pests like certain conditions; if you’re creating the same conditions year after year you’re also going to have the same pest problems.”

DISGUISE: Bugs use sophisticated cues to find the plants they want, so keep ’em off guard by surrounding your veggies with flowers. In particular, marigolds and calendula mask the odor of food crops and attract beneficial insects. Or protect by planting in combinations: Plant dill and chamomile around cabbage, leeks or onions with carrots, lettuce with strawberries or radishes, tomatoes with basil or parsley. “Plants that taste good together often grow well together,” says Chaskey.

ATTRACT: After harvest, plant buckwheat; its white flowers attract “good” bugs like ladybugs, butterflies, bees, and wasps, which devour aphids and other pests. Raspberry bushes host the cocoon of the praying mantis, an all-purpose pest fighter.

GET HAIRY: When growing season is over, build up soil by layering a cover crop like oats or rye to add organic matter and prevent erosion. (Oats may die during winter; you must cut and till the rye.) Add “hairy vetch,” a legume that twines up the rye, flowers, pulls nitrogen out of the air, and replaces organic matter. Put in a little nitrogen fixation bacteria to let “hairy” ensure that the nitro stays in (plants love nitrogen; it gives them their green color).

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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