Stink bugs enjoying their daily meal.

In some ways, doing things organically is easy, such as buying a better product. In other ways, it’s really fraking hard, such as growing your own food, especially when your garden is irresistable to insect life.

I planted 9 tomato plants of various types. So far, I think 5 or 6 cherry tomatoes have been harvested that are edible.

Oh, quite a few tomatoes have grown, and quite a few are “on the vine,” so to speak. Lots of lovely fruit growing, lots of red bursting forth from among the green. It’s all so lovely, actually, that stink bugs moved in, and they’re eating every tomato that tries to grow.

How does one deal with this problem? Well, from what I have found, you pretty much have to do it by hand. Get a coffee can, put in soapy water or honey or something to trap the suckers, and flick them off one by one into the can, and dispose of as you will. Besides the fact that I really dislike killing things (yeah yeah yeah a bit pathetic in this case, but it’s true), I simply don’t have time every day to hunt through all the plants and pick off bugs. So I’ve sort of left them to it, grateful that they’re not eating the peppers or blueberries or herbs.

This experience has taught me a few things. First of all, it has taught me that gardening isn’t as simple as I’d used to think. My mom always had a veggie garden and made it look so easy; I’ve always only had flower gardens, and their care comes naturally to me, so I figured veggies would be just as easy. But when a lush vegetable garden starts to be undermined by all manner of insects—plants start to wither, turn yellow, look sickly and chewed up—the sense of helplessness is real. What can I do? Not much, for a part-time gardener. I can’t spray something on the plants to get rid of all the insects; I don’t want anything that can kill on my food. I can’t spend all day removing pests. All I can do is try to learn what I can about preventing the problems next time, and move on.

Which brings me to the second thing I’ve learned: organic farmers must be descended from gods. I’m a hell of a lot more appreciative of them than I was before, and I was really appreciative before! People who deal with things like insects invading their crop and needing to save a harvest and growing enough to feed themselves & thousands more and everything else farmers do have my utmost respect, admiration, and love. I am so beyond grateful that they do what they do that I’m almost fangirlish about it.

And the third thing I’ve learned is that while wanting to be more personally independent/self-reliant is a great idea in theory, the truth is that there is only so much we can do for ourselves, and that’s ok. It’s ok that we’re dependent upon each other. I look for the things I can do more self-reliantly, such as using self-powered devices and less electricity, but other things I’ll always rely on others for, such as food, but that’s ok—I just need to rely on people I trust to provide it. “It takes a village” and all that, and I want to build a village I feel secure in. In order to do that, I buy food I trust, real food, from companies I believe in. From the organic farmers I treasure.

So while I’m a bit saddened every day when I’m in my gardens and see the bugs feasting away, I remember that they’ve actually taught me to be more grateful for the real food community that’s out there. I don’t have to do this alone, and that’s an incredibly comforting thought.