Wash your veggies

Hello fellow gardeners,

I thought I would send this along. During the aerial anti-mosquito spraying last week, the plane veered around the Student Farm, as it was registered organic. But in doing so, its flight path was directly over the EC Garden. For everyone's information, both Pyrethrin and PBO which were the active ingredients in the spray, degrade in sunlight, most during the first day after the spray. However, it would still be a good idea to wash your veggies. On that note, you should probably be washing them anyway... unless you like manure bacteria on your food. Mmmm manure.

The research conducted during the spray showed that spiders and dragonflies were not affected by the spray, and my bees had a sum total of one visible mortality outside my hives. (My own bee experiment suggested that bee loss was minimal, although I didn't have very much data.) I don't think we should have any problems with the beneficial insects in the garden post-spray.

Whenever you wander around in the garden, off away from the cultivated areas, it might be good to keep an eye out for standing bodies of water, such as ponds, puddles, buckets, and tires. Let me or one of the garden coordinators know about ponds that need fish, or you could always pick up some fish yourself! Every acre of land that breeds mosquitoes makes future West Nile sprayings more likely.
Karl