This past weekend several people talked to me about porcupines, and about losing their entire harvest in one go. It made me think of our mole rats. We’ve single-handedly created a Cape Dune mole rat sanctuary of super-intelligent, well-nourished super-mole-rats. Well done, us????

As many of you know, we grow in beds that are lined with welded mesh to exclude the mole rats. I thought of myself as a bit of a genius, as the investment has paid itself back within a year. But guess what those clever geniuses have figured out? They dig tunnels right under the beds then create enough disturbance in the tunnel to make veg roots collapse enough through the wire, where they can access their yummy goodness. Genius, right?

Part of me is super resistant to being calm in the face of this kind of destruction. But practically speaking, calm is the only good response. We’ve tried many things over the years, for mole rats and for other kinds of losses, and this is my general orientation:

Keeping growing through the mole rats (porcupines, cabbage moth, snails, insert frustration of choice here)

• Observe and be curious about the creature that seems to be making your life more difficult. See what they don’t like, how they travel, what time of year they like to visit, and so on. For example, the mole rat tunnels are much higher in the winter, because the mole rats want to be above the water table.

• If the pest is smarter, faster or more motivated than you, focus on exclusion rather than on facing your enemy head-on. Exclusion could be the mesh that makes it harder for mole rats to eat our veg, high raised boxes to make it more difficult for porcupines, netting for birds, moths or butterflies, etc.

• Gradually, you will change your environment enough that you will have an advantage over your clever archnemesis.

• If there are things that are simply irrestistible to clever creatures and it’s impossible to exclude, rethink your growing. For us, maize/sweetcorn/mielies is more or less guaranteed to bring baboons, who manage to spot it growing at the exact moment before harvest. So we grow only a quick, token block of sweetcorn and don’t worry too much if it gets consumed.

• For creatures that are smaller or slower, consider physical removal. Often damage is done by great numbers of small creatures, and if you can curb population growth, you can get a good harvest.

• Some growers have success spraying organic mixes and I usually don’t bother, because I want our environment to be more capable of managing itself, and minimise systems that require my constant attention. Usually predators move in over time to consume the food source.

July is a month of hopefulness and seed starting

• Thanks to our volunteers, we’re starting many summer seeds, while doing a second round of winter growing. It’s so helpful to have other people around, because they know what was planted and they can see when things look good or bad.

• You can start almost anything indoors this time of year. Starting things indoors, the most difficult challenge is mediating water levels. Experimenting with making mixtures that retain water and also drain is worth the trouble. Sorting out light is the second most common challenge, but you have a fair amount of leeway!

Write to me with growing questions, and I’d love to answer them in a newsletter in the coming weeks. Here’s to growing together, adapting, and living with the fullness of so many different creatures!

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