Andy Jensen

I agree that your crop is simply dying back mid-season as the cultivar is apt to do. Such dying back is often accompanied by an increase in fungal disease organisms, but that is normal. In potato production, farmers often think of the season as a race between the plant and its may fungal pathogens. The holes in the leaves look like flea beetle damage. Potato flea beetles

I skimmed the article, and indeed it covers the topic well! Your questions are good too.

It may be spotted wing drosophila (a species of fruit fly recently spreading across N. America). I don't know much about management, but you might look it up by that name and see what research has been done in B.C. for organic fruit growers. Washington State University has also done a fair bit of work with this beast. It is very difficult to manage in larger scale farms, I know that.

Something I notice is that small birds like finches, juncos, and sparrows like to hang out in piles of pruned branches during the winter. I've not done it yet, but I plan on putting such piles of branches on garden plots during the winter to accumulate bird droppings on a small area. Not sure how effective it will be, but worth a try.

We moved to our place in Colorado last year. It has bindweed on almost every square meter of the 3 acres that are not under concrete or house. So, I've learned a bit about bindweed. ;-) In the lawn-like or pasture-like areas it can be held somewhat in check by giving soil fertility (e.g. manure) and water, which leads to grass outcompeting bindweed. In the veg garden I just pull or break off stems that emerge in my beds (I spend a few minutes weeding several times every day). My hope is to keep it in check. With the level of infestation common on our place and our whole valley, eradication (or anything close) is impossible in my reasonable period of time. Its flowers are kind of pretty in the lawn!

One strategy I read, and that I use in our more marginal ground, is to let the plants emerge and start to flower before pulling or cutting them off. The idea is that the roots have expended a lot of energy to make vines and flowers and decapitating the plants at that point speeds the gradual weakening of the plant.

I like your idea of sharing your land, offering someone a chance to live and work on your place. I've thought about doing something like that on our place, which is probably too big for us to manage from fence to fence. I cannot offer you any help except interest and encouragement! And, I love bugs too. www.aphidtrek.org.

I've been an aphid enthusiast and expert for 30+ years (https://aphidtrek.org/). As somebody mentioned elsewhere, there are thousands of aphid species, each with different biology, behavior, and most importantly, host plant preferences. In my garden I generally don't worry about most species of aphids very much. With good crop and plant diversity, ground cover of plants or organic material, there should be plenty of biocontrol to help you out. Also, many aphids will go away on their own during the heat of summer. There are exceptions. I'll try to squish and otherwise eliminate cabbage aphid because its waxy coating (some predators are dissuaded by the wax) and habit of living deep in the inflorescences or curled leaves mean that it will persist throughout the summer. Once, on my apples, I had a roaring conspiracy between ants and an apple feeding specialist aphid called Aphis pomi, the ants helping the aphids stay abundant all summer, which is rare in tree feeding aphids. I prevented the ants from accessing the aphids for one summer (using sticky traps wrapped around the trunks), and the cycle was broken. That said, many ants, when tending aphids, are not actually protecting them; they are simply gathering honeydew and harvesting aphids as needed as well.

Bottom line for me is that the key principal of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is important here: know what species of insect you have (i.e., not just a broad category like "aphids" or "caterpillars"). Knowing this means you can predict your insect's biology and host range, and then you can act accordingly.

We just got some for free from a local nursery -- they gave us some of a size they no longer use. I see them on the side of the road all the time too, having blown out of yards.

Bean cooking aspects I've not seen mentioned in recent posts include adding some baking soda to the cooking water. For cooking 2 cups dry beans I use about a teaspoon of soda. This helps soften the beans and they cook more uniformly and quicker too. Also, as the pot of beans comes to a boil I scoop off any foam that forms.

Over the years of transitioning to an almost vegan diet, I've apparently developed a different gut flora such that beans and lentils make me feel good, and meat gives me gas. So, I think there is hope for recovery from the beans and gas issue.

All I can add here is that the first three dogwood or cherry photos are indeed a dogwood. The fourth one is probably some kind of cherry. It reminds me of nanking cherry, but being a in western N. America, I might not know enough to be helpful for you.