andrew westman

This next Spring semester at Merritt College in Oakland I am taking a new "beneficial beasts in the garden" class. We are looking for an experienced beekeeper employing natural beekeeping methods to round out our list of field trip experts. If anyone thinks they would be a good fit or knows someone who would be, please message me for more information.

For ease of logistics, presenters should be located within the San Francisco bay area and preferably in the east bay (Berkeley, Oakland, Walnut Creek, etc.) and within 30-40 minutes driving time from Merritt College.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

To Organic Life Guru's credit, I was contacted after submitting their course survey where I expressed my disappointment in the course. They provided me access to their "Organic Soil Building for the Organic Backyard Gardener" course for free and refunded the cost of the "Permaculture Design for Conserving Water" course. I will see what the soil building course has in store, but at this time I cannot complain about the customer service.

Yesterday I decided to purchase the $40 online "Permaculture Design for Conserving Water" course available on the Organic Life Guru website. There are a number of online courses available on the same site from recognizable names such as Toby Hemenway and Michael Pilarski and a few others. This seemed to me to be an endorsement of the content. The description of the course also includes a list of 13 "Lessons", and so for $40, it seemed like a value.

First, the term "Course" is in my opinion very generous in this case. The course consists of a recorded powerpoint-style presentation that Hemenway has given. The "lessons" (again, I think a very generous term), are the presentation broken down into segments, most of which are 2-5 minutes long. Two of the segments are free (the intro segment and a segment on "Contour Soil to Hold Water") one of which I think is one of the meatiest of all the segments. The majority of the remaining content can be gleaned from videos of Hemenway that are freely available online on Youtube or from his book which retails for $17 on Amazon (Kindle price $9.88 ).

I am a fan of Hemenway, have paid for and read his book Gaia's Garden, and try to consume as much content featuring him, including Paul's podcasts, as possible. I have to say that even for $40 I feel like a sucker for having paid for this online video "course". I suppose that for a certain group of the people, this collection of video snippets could prove informative. I realize that with this $40 I could be subsidizing an important part of the Permaculture movement, but if a person is paying for something, they should receive goods or services in return that aren't legally available online for free paired with a book from the same author for a fraction of that cost.

I'm truly disappointed in what I received for my money, almost to the point where I wonder if it is a scam and Hemenway even knows about the "course" being sold in his name. I certainly will not be paying for anymore of the videos available on organiclifeguru.com. In comparison, I paid $25 for the digital download of The Permaculture Orchard: Beyond Organic movie, which though is a slightly different subject matter, I feel is a far better value.

I do not have inexhaustible funds to dedicate to my Permaculture interests and education, and I set aside what I can afford for quality, interesting, and educational material. If you have been toying with the idea of paying the $40 for this online "course", sadly my suggestion is to spend your money elsewhere. I simply could not in good conscience recommend it to anyone.

Bump...

This is an old thread, but I have been having the same problem. Initially I thought the culprits were fungus gnats (which I did have a lot of at one point) but the damage progressed passed what the gnats were capable of. A night-time investigation revealed the pincher bugs/earwigs to be the real problem. They had done a good job of chewing down almost all of the new growth on parsley, carrots and radishes, and where now working their way through the beets, basil, beans, summer savory and tree collards. I'm assuming they started with what they liked best and then on to the next in line.

Managing with birds and fowl would be great, but again, this is a nocturnal problem that I don't believe songbirds and chickens would be much help with. Toads and such would be great, but sometimes you want more immediate action rather than waiting for a toad to take up residence. I have had good luck with the following:

- Oil/vinegar traps (setting out a can or shallow jar with water, oil, or cider vinegar to attract the earwigs and they drown in the liquid)
- Rolled up newspaper (wetting the newspaper works well)
- Manual head-pinch method

One thing I have not tried is diatomaceous earth. In theory it should work, but I could see a problem with it needing to stay dry for the greatest effect, so you would have to reapply regularly and place strategically.

I have heard of placing various herbs like mint and lemon-thyme to repel earwigs. I think your mileage would vary since I have not found an herb that was truly immune to them besides maybe rosemary (stronger essential oil).

Great information. We are in the process of making another fruit tree selection and growing from the seed of an already tasty apple tree is on our check list.