A Couple Gave Up on Their Failing Farm and Let Animals Take Over — What Happened Stunned Scientists
Click to view the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP5Oy7hSlfU
Lavender Tips
Beneficial Insects
Common in Australian gardens
Ladybugs (Ladybirds)
Very common throughout Australia. We have dozens of native species plus some introduced species.
* Excellent aphid predators.
* Both adults and larvae are beneficial.
* The larvae often get mistaken for pests because they look like tiny alligators.
Hoverflies
Also widespread in Australia.
* Adults are important pollinators.
* Larvae of many species eat aphids.
* Often mistaken for bees or wasps because of their yellow-and-black colouring.
Green Lacewings
Very common and one of the best garden allies.
* Larvae (“aphid lions”) devour aphids, mealybugs, scale and small caterpillars.
* Adults are delicate green insects with transparent wings, exactly as shown.
Ground Beetles
Many native species occur in Australia.
* Usually nocturnal.
* Hunt slugs, caterpillars, cutworms and other garden pests.
* Often found under mulch, logs and rocks.
Also found in Australia, but less familiar
Earwigs
This is where Australians often get surprised.
Many earwigs are actually beneficial predators and scavengers. They will eat aphids, insect eggs and decaying matter.
However, some species can also nibble seedlings, flowers and fruit, so they’re not quite the “good guys” that ladybirds and lacewings are.
Rove Beetles
Present throughout Australia.
* Fast-moving black beetles.
* Excellent predators.
* Many gardeners mistake them for pests because they raise their abdomen like a scorpion when disturbed.
Fiery Searcher Beetle
This one is the exception.
The insect shown is a North American species called the “Fiery Searcher” (a large caterpillar-hunting ground beetle). We don’t have that exact species in Australia, but we do have numerous native ground beetles that fill essentially the same ecological role.
The most commonly killed beneficial insects in Australian gardens are:
1. Ladybird larvae
2. Lacewing larvae
3. Hoverfly larvae
4. Rove beetles
People see something “creepy-crawly” on a plant and squash it without realising it’s eating hundreds of aphids for free.
As a rule of thumb I use:
If an insect is actively wandering through an aphid colony, there’s a good chance it’s a predator rather than a pest.
One small caveat: some versions of these internet charts oversimplify things. Earwigs can be both helpful and harmful depending on species and circumstances, and not every hoverfly larva is an aphid predator. But overall the poster’s message—”identify before you squash”—is excellent advice for Australian gardens.
Soil Remediation
Industrial farms abandon heavily contaminated topsoil — and the industry has never explained why.
But a flawless natural weed already solved this — centuries before the industry existed.
Meet the forgotten phytoremediation method of the Byzantine Empire.
In the 10th century, the Geoponica encyclopedia detailed planting the resilient Bladder Campion.
Its cellular vacuoles actively trap and lock away heavy metals from the soil matrix.
This botanical workhorse literally vacuums toxins directly out of the choked dirt.
Modern experts claim poisoned land must be mechanically excavated at massive expense.
Deploying this plant transforms land from permanently CONTAMINATED to organically EXTRACTED.
Save this before you need it and it is gone from your feed.
They called it primitive. The records proved them wrong. Why did nobody tell you?
Healthy Soil, Healthy Brain: What a New Global Study Found
by Eric W. Dolan, PsyPost – Psychology News:
“A recent study published in Scientific Reports suggests a notable geographical link between global soil fertility and the average intelligence quotient of nations. The findings provide evidence that the nutritional quality of local soils might play an indirect role in shaping human cognitive development on a worldwide scale.
Human brain development relies heavily on adequate nutrition, particularly the intake of essential minerals and vitamins. Plants and animals absorb these nutrients from the earth, meaning human diets are deeply connected to the health of the ground beneath their feet. When soil lacks vital elements like iron, zinc, or iodine, the food grown in it tends to be nutritionally deficient. Deficiencies in these specific nutrients are known to negatively affect cognitive growth, especially in young children.
Zinc and iron are necessary for the central nervous system to build physical structures and produce the chemicals that allow brain cells to communicate. Severe or long-lasting dietary shortages can lead to persistent cognitive impairments and learning difficulties.”
Finish reading: https://organicconsumers.org/scientists-have-found-a-geospatial-link-between-soil-fertility-and-national-intelligence-scores/
Tube Watering
A drip system sends water straight to the roots instead of spraying it across the whole bed — and the branded kits are mostly tubing you can buy by the foot for far less. Build your own from bulk parts and it pays for itself in a season.
Because the water goes to the soil and not the leaves, foliage stays dry and there is less fungal disease, and because the row middles stay dry, fewer weeds come up to compete. Add a cheap timer and the garden waters itself early each morning, deep and slow, even while you are away. Extension trials put the savings around 30 to 50 percent over a sprinkler or hose.
A few honest notes: emitters can clog, so flush the lines and check them now and then, and drain the system before a hard freeze. The upfront cost runs higher than a bare hose, but the lower water bill and the saved time make it back.
How to build it (45 minutes, one person):
1. At the spigot, thread on a backflow preventer first, then a hose timer, a pressure reducer, and a filter. The backflow preventer keeps garden water out of your drinking supply.
2. Run 1/2-inch poly mainline down the center of each bed and pin it with stakes.
3. Punch 1/4-inch emitter line to each plant, then cap the open ends.
4. Set the timer for early morning, long and slow, two or three times a week.
5. Run it once while you watch — fix any dry spots or leaks, adjust emitters.
Richard Joyner
The town of Conetoe, North Carolina barely exists on a map. Population, 300. Mostly poor.
The nearest grocery store sits 10 miles away. That’s what a food desert looks like – farmland stretching in every direction, and not a single fresh vegetable within easy reach.
1986. Conetoe, North Carolina.
Richard Joyner already knows this land. He grew up here – one of 13 children in a sharecropping family – and spent every summer bent over crops under the eastern North Carolina sun. The moment he turned 18, he joined the Army and left. He swore he would never come back.
But he came back.
He came back to lead Conetoe Chapel Missionary Baptist Church. And in a town this small, serving a congregation means standing at the graveside more than anyone should ever have to.
The deaths come early and often. Diabetes. High blood pressure. Obesity. Edgecombe County ranks 97th out of 100 North Carolina counties in health and economic well-being. These diseases don’t wait for old age here.
2005. One year. 30 funerals.
In a single 12-month stretch, Joyner buries 30 members of his congregation. Not elderly men and women at the end of long lives. These are people under the age of 32. Every single death is preventable.
“Diabetes, high blood pressure – when we first got started, we counted 30 funerals in one year,” he says. “I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I was spending more time at funerals than anywhere else.”
Here’s what makes it worse, the town is completely surrounded by farmland. Food grows in every direction. But none of it reaches the 300 people who live here. The nearest grocery is 10 miles down the road, most families have no reliable way to get there, and what’s cheap at the corner store is almost never fresh. So people eat what they can afford. And they keep dying young.
Joyner looks out at his congregation every Sunday and sees what is coming. People he loves. People 100 pounds overweight, moving slower each week, their bodies giving up piece by piece. He knows exactly what happens next if nothing changes.
“It just started to feel unconscionable,” he later says, “that you would see someone 100 pounds overweight on Sunday and not say anything about it.”
He decides to stop being quiet. And then he decides to do something.
2007. An empty church lawn. A completely different idea.
Joyner walks outside and starts to dig. He turns the grass around the church into a garden – rows of vegetables, herbs, and fruit. Then he makes a decision nobody sees coming, he goes looking for the kids.
Not the easy ones. He goes after the ones failing in school. The ones drifting toward trouble. The ones with nowhere safe to be after 3 p.m. He puts a shovel in their hands. He teaches them how soil works, how seeds grow, how a living thing needs tending every single day. He makes them responsible for something alive. Something that needs them.
One boy arrives – restless, struggling with attention, full of energy with nowhere to go. Joyner looks at him and says, “Get out in the field and have fun.”
The boy pauses. “Can I take my shoes off?”
Joyner grins. “Yeah, pull your shoes off.”
The boy sprints barefoot through the rows, crouching down to press his fingers into the dirt, tasting raw vegetables for the first time in his life. Over the months that follow, his teachers watch something change. His focus sharpens. His grades climb. His whole way of moving through the world shifts.
This is what the garden is actually growing.
Today. An oasis where there used to be only grief.
The Conetoe Family Life Center now manages more than 20 plots of land – including a 25-acre site. More than 80 young people help plan, plant, and harvest. They manage beehives, produce honey, and pollinate the crops themselves. Together they grow tens of thousands of pounds of fresh food every year – all of it given away, free, to families who need it most. Roughly 1,500 people are fed every single week.
In 2015, CNN named Richard Joyner one of its Top 10 Heroes of the year. The center has expanded to 21 locations across 4 counties – and it has united Baptists, Muslims, and Unitarians, all working side by side in the same dirt.
“We can grow more medicine through the plants than we can buy,” Joyner says. “And there are no side effects.”
He took the land his family was once forced to work as sharecroppers – land soaked in generations of injustice – and turned it into something new entirely. A place where children learn their own power. Where a community decides it will no longer eat badly and die young.
The funerals didn’t stop. But the preventable ones? That’s a very different story now.
Share this with someone who needs to be reminded that one person – with a shovel, a church lawn, and a heart that refuses to quit – can change the course of an entire community.
Tomato Triage
Most early-season tomato problems aren’t caused by the soil. They’re caused by misreading what the plant is telling you.
A purple leaf gets treated with phosphorus. A yellow leaf gets treated with nitrogen. But in both cases, the plant is often reacting to temperature or its own growth pattern — not a deficiency. Reaching for fertilizer before diagnosing the cause can make things worse.
Three signals that fool people every spring:
– Purple undersides on young leaves — almost always a temperature response, not a soil deficiency. When the soil is still cool in early spring, the roots can’t absorb phosphorus efficiently even when it’s there. Adding more fertilizer doesn’t help. Warming the soil does — black plastic mulch or a few more weeks of spring sun solves it on its own.
– Yellow lower leaves with green veins — the plant is often moving stored nutrients from its oldest leaves to feed new growth at the top. This is normal internal redistribution, not a nitrogen shortage. Adding nitrogen at this point pushes leaf growth at the expense of fruit set.
– A stem that turns brown or yellow at the base while the whole plant wilts — this one is different. Soil-borne fungal diseases like fusarium and verticillium can’t be treated once symptoms show. Remove the plant, don’t compost it, and avoid planting tomatoes in that spot next year.
Before you reach for anything:
– Check soil temperature first. If it’s still cool, most early-season leaf discoloration resolves on its own as the ground warms.
– Wait a week before adding any amendment. Many early symptoms are the plant adjusting, not the plant failing.
– If the problem is at the base of the stem and spreading upward, that’s when to act fast — remove the plant to protect the rest of the bed.
The best early-season intervention is usually patience. The plant is adjusting, not dying.
Protected By Blackberry Security
Three men parked down on the road in front of our property a couple nights ago. They had bolt cutters and a plan to break into our shop. What they didn’t have was respect for brambles.
The first man hit the property line at a jog. He made it four steps. The canes took him like a cat takes a mouse — not quick, but certain. One barb in the jeans, then another in the jacket, then three in the scalp. He yelled. That was mistake one. Sound carries in a holler.
The second man tried to go around. Blackberries don’t “around.” They’d swallowed the old deer path in ’09. He pushed in with his forearm and came back with his sleeve in ribbons and blood running down to his elbow. The thorns are recurved, built to keep prey from backing out. Every time he pulled, they bit deeper.
The third was smarter. He had a machete. He swung once, twice. The canes sprang back. Blackberry is whippy, green wood. Cut one, three more slap you in the face. He got ten feet in and realized he couldn’t see the road anymore. Couldn’t see his feet. Couldn’t see anything but thorns and the dark. That’s when the yellowjackets came up from a nest he’d stepped on. They didn’t care who was trespassing.
Now, I didn’t call the sheriff until sunrise mind you and we all slept just fine. The dogs didn’t even bark — they knew the briars were working.
The Sheriff found them at 6:40 AM, picking their way out to the road looking like they’d lost a fight with fifty cats. One had to cut his own boot off to get his ankle free. The bolt cutters were still in the thicket somewhere. Nobody was going back for them.
The Sheriff walked the edge with me, looked at the scratches on those men, looked at the wall of green and purple.
“You do this on purpose?” the Sheriff asked as
he popped a berry in his mouth. July-sweet, still warm from the night.
“No sir,” I said. “I just quit mowing. The mountain did the rest.”
I offered the Sheriff a hatful to take to the station. He took it. Evidence, he said.
Folks in town started saying those folks up on Big Dog Reserve had the best security system in Smyth County. No wires, no batteries, no subscription. Just pays you back in cobbler.
And if you ask me about it, I’ll tell you the same thing my Dad said: “A fence tells a man he’s not wanted. A blackberry patch convinces him.”
That’s security.
Five Garden Myths
Some garden advice gets repeated so often it stops being questioned. Five pieces that sound right — and aren’t .
Gravel in the bottom of pots doesn’t improve drainage:
– A layer of gravel actually raises the wet zone into the root area instead of below it. A continuous column of potting mix with perlite mixed throughout drains better than a layered pot. Skip the gravel. Drill more holes.
Watering in midday sun doesn’t burn leaves:
– Water droplets on smooth leaves don’t focus enough light to scorch tissue. This has been tested. There ARE good reasons to water in the morning — less water lost to evaporation, and foliage dries before evening when fungal infections are most likely. Water early for those reasons, not because of sunburn.
Eggshells don’t add calcium quickly:
– Eggshells are one of the slowest-decomposing organic materials in soil. Crushed by hand and tossed in the garden, they take years to release anything a plant can use. If you want them to break down in one season, grind them to a fine powder first. Coarse pieces are still sitting in the soil when the next season starts.
Used coffee grounds don’t acidify soil:
– Brewing extracts most of the acid. Used grounds test nearly neutral. They’re a fine addition to compost as a nitrogen source, but they won’t lower pH for blueberries or azaleas the way most people assume. And don’t spread them thick as a surface mulch — they form a water-repellent crust. Mix them into compost instead.
Marigolds don’t repel most pests:
– French marigold roots release a compound that suppresses a specific type of soil-dwelling nematode. That’s real, but it’s underground and it’s specific. Marigolds planted among tomatoes don’t repel aphids, beetles, caterpillars, or anything above ground. The strongest effect comes from growing marigolds as a cover crop and turning them into the soil at the end of the season — not from tucking a few plants between your vegetables.
Five corrections. Same garden. Better decisions.