I’d noticed you hadn’t food blogged but figured you might be out of town or something.

It’s almost wild blueberry season!  (bounce)

My garden is being attached by these freaky little grey-silver beetles that look very crab-like, plus horned beetles attacking the bean leaves.  It’s depressing.  Luckily, the local farmers’ market is finally in full swing and the spouse distracted me with a tasting at a small nearby winery.
For a really cool late summer, early fall activity, for those who drink, I highly recommend it.  There are quite a few of these up and down the east coast as well as in CA.  I can recommend the Alfalfa Farm Winery in Topsfield MA.  I have heard good things about one just north of New Haven CT.  Both are very close to I95 for those doing coastal road trips, and there are many others I have seen signs for.

Do you have what we call Ag Extension services at your local 4-year college, helen?  They might be able to help you with your bug problem.

At the very least, a soapy spray using dish detergent/soap works against aphids IMHO, it might work for your pests, and its’ non-toxic to cats, dogs, ferrets, children, and other dependent creatures, while the run-off will fertilize your soil and not pollute the environment.

For a really cool late summer, early fall activity, for those who drink, I highly recommend it.

My father grew up in the Napa Valley, and in the early to mid-50s started visiting wineries with some of his college buddies on the weekends, holidays and summers.  This was before wineries were open to the public, but because his ‘tours’ became well-known at his school San Jose State College(“People ask me where I went to college.  I didn’t go to college, I went to San Jose State.”—Tommy Smothers.), they started putting up billboards and having hours open to the public because of the sales they generated.

In perhaps a small way, he was one of the inventors of wine tourism.

I have insecticidal soap - it helped, for about 2 days, then was washed away in a torrent.  So the grey crabbish beattles have been knocked back a bit and the horned ones a very little.  As the garden is too close to the chickens, I wont use the stuff I know will kill them, which is all the local extension people are good for beyond some really basic, but pretty good recipes, around here. 
Seriously pathetic compared to out west; even to the point of trying to get a call answered and “what is 4-H?”.  THAT pathetic.  Though at least they are finally having a presence at farmers’ markets to give out those recipes, a major improvement over the 15 years we have been in eastern MA.  I understand it’s a little better on the west side of teh state.

helen, I’d recommend a pyrethrin-based insecticide, they won’t hurt your chickens, and unless you have any significant water drainage out of your yard(not a problem here in the Central Valley except in the winter time ,  you should be able to find something you can use. 

There are some that use D-limonene as the active ingredient, the worse thing then would be chickens smelling of lemon, I suppose.

DAGCM - We do have significant drainage in our yard as we are reclaiming what was essentially a sand pit after the hill was cut away for engineering fill, and New England has a lot of rain.  I’ll see about the D-limonene, thanks. 
I often default to MN & other lakes region midwest extension help as those tend to come up first on the google searching I do, even with my region added to the criteria.  It helps, but isn’t a perfect fit.

helen, try the CA extensions, you can find all sorts of stuff if you peek and poke around(we have USDA climate zones 5b and upwards), if that’s helpful to you,.

Oregon has all the zones MA has, AFAICT, so you might try the OR and WA Ag departments as well.

I came over to respond to your other post, but then I got distracted by this one. These are great tips! I’ve been toying with the idea of signing up for a CSA here in Austin, but was always worried that I’d waste the food. I didn’t even realize there were produce preservers—I need to look into this. Also, I completely agree about preparing things ahead of time. Even without a CSA, it’s *the* key to not eating a bunch of crap all week.

Also, you may want to consider the book 12 Months of Monastery Soups. I know, I know, monastery stuff is probably not your thing, but I’m telling you, there are some awesome recipes in there, all of which use tons of fresh veggies. I like to make big batches of these soups then freeze the leftovers in individual containers—great way to keep produce from going bad, and makes for super easy healthy eating during the week.

Anyway, thanks for the tips!