I recently received this e-mail from Wendy Pietrzak, who oversees the community gardens in Santa Monica, and thought I would pass it along in case anyone else is dealing with the dreaded badraga bug (aka the painted or harlequin bug), which has been attacking cabbage crops in California. Photo is from Mike Lewis of the UC Riverside Center for Invasive Species :

Several of our diligent Main Street gardeners shared some information on a bug that seems to be infesting kale and other lettuce plants/seedlings in the community gardens and I want to share it with you also. It has been identified as the Bagrada Bug. Here a link with more information on the bug:

http://cisr.ucr.edu/bagrada_bug.html

If you are having issues with this bug in your garden here are some organic ways to combat them (click "read more"):

We recently received the following question: I am a home vegetable/herb gardener in San Diego.  I have only been growing for three years, so I am still learning.  I tried to grow cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage last cool season and they looked so wonderful.  I harvested them and got ready to cook, and they were FULL of aphids!  What a disappointment.  I spoke to my local nursery, Walter Anderson, and they advised me to “just give up growing cole crops organically.”  Well, I just refuse to believe that!  Can you help me with some tips on controlling aphids on my cole crops here in San Diego?  I'm in Sunset climate zone 23. Thanks, Jennifer Boles

For the answer, we contacted Nick Sakovich and here are this thoughts.

I wouldn't give up. There are some things to do: The two main organic insecticides you can use are horticultural oils, including neem oil, and soap sprays. These will do a decent job. Spraying when you first see the problem, i.e. when the aphid population is low, is best. Other organic insecticides that can be used -- but are more toxic to humans and beneficial insects -- are the pyrethrins (derived from the chrysanthemum flower) and rotenone. One should always read the labels to make sure the product is registered to be applied to that particular crop. When spraying with insecticides, repeat applications are needed since the sprays usually do not control all stages of the insect’s life cycle. Labels usually recommend at least two applications at 5 - 7 days apart.

Other options (click "read more" for rest of article):

Called the "eco-oracle" by Wine Spectator magazine, "Amigo Bob" Cantisano (below) was a legend in the organic gardening field. Sadly, he passed away at the end of 2020 but I had the opportunity to learn so much from him during the organic gardening workshops I took up at Esalen and wanted to share some of his wisdom.

One of the most important things Amigo imparted was the critical role diversity plays in our gardens. He started by imparting this interesting fact: There are 70,000 different species of insects in the world and less than 100 are pests in the garden. The rest are our allies. That's pretty cool, huh? We have 69,900 allies! Yea!

So the question becomes: how do we get these allies into our gardens? The answer is through diversity. The greater the diversity, the more stability a garden has. So if you're growing mostly vegetables, you will want to add flowers and herbs and allium (onions, garlic, etc.) as they attract the beneficial insects (those allies we talked about) like ladybugs, which are predators and eat the pests, and wasps, which are parasites and love to lay their eggs within the little buggers.

The reason the pretty flowers attract the ladybug-style predators (and who doesn't love a ladybug? come on!) is that they are omnivores. They eat insects but they also feed on nectar and pollen. They need both so will be attracted to gardens with the diversity they crave.