“What the heck is that?! ” was the first reaction. I saw that my carrot leaves had what appeared to be weird dark stains on them.

The carrot plant was ruined and I had no extra seeds to restart my indoor carrot experiment. I was curious and so I set up the microscope to look a little closer. My reaction when I found the source of the damage sounded more like %&#@*! (instead of heck).

Insects are everywhere and keeping the predators away from our precious plants is an ongoing battle. Other than dumping diatomaceous earth, spraying soapy water and using a shake-a-stem method of eviction, we recently accidentally started implementing an alternative that we like to call the Trap Plant.

A trap plant is essentially a tasty decoy plant. The insect predator will fly to the trap plant and lay eggs, hang out, sleep in, etc. Each morning and afternoon, one of us will spray soap water or a strong stream of water on the leaves and stems of the trap plant, which is currently a small patch of kale. We also hold the leaves and give them a vigorous shake to remove anything still sticking to the leaves after the spray on. It was quite successful in eliminating the population of the latest “what’s it” and so we will keep using it.

Right now, a mature insect is eating the cabbage outdoors and kale is not working as the trap plant. Instead, we are using the diatomaceous earth and we are going to plant some strong smelling herbs like mint or lavender to throw the future invaders insects off the scent. Gardening is supposed to be peaceful but really, it’s a daily fight because we don’t want to use toxic chemicals.

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Got any ideas for taking out predators without doing harm to yourself and your food? You, unlike the pests on the plants, are certainly invited to the table. Share with us. Let’s grow something!