Field Report | April 29, 2010
Those are not White Caterpillars

Our landscape may appear unusual

The landscape of Living Hope Farm has started to change. In the last few weeks we had some major repairs to our high tunnel (often referred to as a hoop house) by the Amish crews out of the Lancaster area and we have had our fence erected on a plot of land surrounding approximately 12.5 acres. With the interns help we have been planting outside and making beautiful beds of color. The strangest color we have been questioned about has been our long white tunnels in the fields that waft in the wind. They are not caterpillars or toys for children to crawl through but they are row covers referred to as Remay, which protect our cabbages and broccoli from those white butterflies you see flying. Those white butterflies lay their worms on the leaves of the plants and then the larvae feed on the plants. The worms can be rinsed away with somevinegar placed in a sink of water and then submersing your produce...but if they can be avoided we would rather do that. The Remay also warms the soil and retains moisture for the plants. We are presently holding them down with the rocks we find in the fields (which aren't hard to find). We were blessed to have several workers from Peaceful Living tend our rocky areas by filling some of our soil bags with those rocks, which we can then just carry to the edges and plop down on the Remay. We are hoping for some more of those to be filled because it keeps us from constantly tending the Remay when it blows off in the wind.

We would like to plan several childrens activities for the month of May. Anyone who has an interest in planning, leading, or assisting with projects please let us know. A few of the items we would like to incorporate are making farm journals and building bluebird boxes.