First it was gray mold;** now it’s slugs. Apparently, these slimy creatures find my organic chard super tasty! They don’t really eat a whole lot — just enough to wreak havoc on my garden, which hasn’t yet seen a whole lot of growth…

Luckily, I got some gardening advice from John Valenzuela, a permaculture design horticulturalist and guest speaker in the permaculture class I’m taking.** Slugs, he said, can be excised from gardens simply by plucking them off. These creatures tend not to burrow, so they aren’t hard to find. To avoid future slug invasions, I can put a copper strip around each plant, John said.

So I went ahead and plucked out the slugs — and am hoping they won’t return. If they do, then I’ll go ahead and get the copper strips –

While my own garden isn’t doing so well, Michelle Obama seems to be having better luck. She says she’s already harvested more than 80 pounds of produce!** Granted, Michelle’s got expert garden help — but her garden’s so productive and popular it’s getting the attention of Big Ag, which seems to be getting concerned about what the popularity of small-scale food production could lead to.

In fact, Slate** reports that Big Ag’s trying to punch holes into the benefits of local and organic eating — arguing local isn’t necessarily more eco-friendly if the food’s trucked (um, Michelle’s garden’s pretty close to her living quarters), and that organic gardening requires a carbon-intensive process called tilling (actually, many permaculture and organic gardening experts embrace no-till gardens).

Big Ag’s fear, as Slate summarizes it,** is that suddenly, people are discovering options other than buying from Big Ag, whether it’s shopping at their local farmers’ markets or planting their own tomatoes. Writes Christopher Beam at Slate: “That’s the real subversive appeal of the Obama’s organic garden. If it succeeds in shifting public perceptions about organic food, then the market for it may grow.”

It isn’t just produce that people are finding outside the Big Ag model. Time reported this week on the growing popularity of cow-pooling** — a practice that lets people buy tasty beef from grass-fed local cows for prices comperable to the factory-farmed stuff.

In L.A., I seem to hear about a new community farm or community supported agriculture program on a weekly basis! Last weekend, an eco-friendly entertaining venue called Marrakesh House** had its grand opening — during which it showed off its organic garden (below). Created by GardenNerd, this raised-bed garden has a Tetris-inspired design — and is expected to yield about $1500 – $2000 worth of organic produce a year!

How much organic produce do you think my own garden will end up yielding? I guess I’ll find out after the dust settles in my fight with slugs and gray mold. In the meantime, it’s the tail end of cherry season at the farmers’ market — and I’m off to buy ‘em while they’re cheap and sweet!

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