Farming insects to eat

http://phys.org/news/2013-07-insect-larvae-pan-ready-home-appliance.html
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This is a tabletop insect farm for harvesting and preparing food for meals. "Insects are healthy, nutritious alternatives to mainstream staples such as chicken, pork, beef and even fish
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….Crispy-fried locusts and beetles are eaten in Thailand
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I'm a vegetarian myself. But I have no objection to you eating a load of crispy fried maggots or even live ones.
I currently keep picking off cabbage-white butterfly caterpillars off my garden cabbages by hand to stop them eating my cabbages (extremely tedious and time consuming but can be better than spraying ). I suppose that, if I was a less fussy eater, I could eat the caterpillars as well as the cabbages! -protein and veg from the same patch of land.

Yuck 😛

Originally posted by DeepThought
Yuck 😛

LOL

Originally posted by humy
http://phys.org/news/2013-07-insect-larvae-pan-ready-home-appliance.html
“...
….
This is a tabletop insect farm for harvesting and preparing food for meals. "Insects are healthy, nutritious alternatives to mainstream staples such as chicken, pork, beef and even fish
….
….
….Crispy-fried locusts and beetles are eaten in Thailand
….”

I'm a vegetarian ...[text shortened]... ld eat the caterpillars as well as the cabbages! -protein and veg from the same patch of land.

I've seen where the pro's have these humungus vacuum cleaners, powered by 200 hp motors, that literally suck the bad insects right off a tree. I wonder if you could do the same on a smaller scale? It might be faster than just picking them off by hand.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I've seen where the pro's have these humungus vacuum cleaners, powered by 200 hp motors, that literally suck the bad insects right off a tree. I wonder if you could do the same on a smaller scale? It might be faster than just picking them off by hand.

Too bad you can't pull weeds this way.

Originally posted by dryhump
Too bad you can't pull weeds this way.

Maybe a mini black hole?

Originally posted by dryhump
Too bad you can't pull weeds this way.

I haven't had too much weed problems because I use mulch that both reduces watering and suppresses weeds. The catch with that though is that it is often extremely difficult to find enough suitable organic material to cover all the ground between your plants. I had an idea of using something non-organic next year that I can use again and again as a mulch -perhaps some kind of woven plastic fabric? (it must let through both oxygen and rain water else it would cause problems which is why I don't think of the otherwise obvious which is to use non-transparent polythene )
I have already used pieces of slate as a mulch with some success this year but found slate rather awkward to use.
Don't know if anyone has any better ideas of what I could use?

Originally posted by sonhouse
I've seen where the pro's have these humungus vacuum cleaners, powered by 200 hp motors, that literally suck the bad insects right off a tree. I wonder if you could do the same on a smaller scale? It might be faster than just picking them off by hand.

I think a humungus vacuum cleaner WOULD suck up the caterpillars on my cabbages -along with the cabbages, the mulch around the cabbages and all the top soil.

Originally posted by humy
Don't know if anyone has any better ideas of what I could use?

I assume you don't have enough space to grow your own mulch.
I think I have seen wood chips used as mulch. Not sure if you can get those either.
Plastic would probably work if you make lots of holes in it, but I suspect that with time it would disintegrate and end up polluting your soil with small pieces of plastic. In fact that would be my main concern about any non-organic mulch.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I assume you don't have enough space to grow your own mulch.
I think I have seen wood chips used as mulch. Not sure if you can get those either.
Plastic would probably work if you make lots of holes in it, but I suspect that with time it would disintegrate and end up polluting your soil with small pieces of plastic. In fact that would be my main concern about any non-organic mulch.

I am afraid that lack of space is one of the big problems with my garden -the other big problems being everywhere in it having semi-shade and the soil having a high clay content and setting almost like concrete when it dries and, to make matters worse, I have the perennial battle to stop the neighbors many cats using my garden as a cat litter tray. I am also worried that the giant lime tress overhanging my garden from a public area may get blown down by a storm and come crashing down on my garden and house. These lime trees are infested with tree aphid that have been secreting honeydew that has rained down on many of my vegetables and stuck to them and now there is a risk of sooty mold taking a hold on that which would cut out light for photosynthesis and contaminate the crop.
And now, unbelievably, I have just discovered asbestos berried in my garden -along with broken glass bottles, plastic, nails and other rubbish. I have been systematically and painstakingly been removing every tiny piece of it.
Altogether, a very bad garden to have.

I had an idea of using waste cardboard which I could shred in a shredding machine -but that would require me buying a shredding machine and not really sure if that would be worth it.

I once heard of a farmer using second-hand carpets which he just lay on the ground and put slits in it and planted through the slits. That sound like an interesting idea but not sure where to get hold of ultra-cheap second-hand carpets and I have also heard you must be very careful about which carpets you allow for this because some would have toxic chemicals in them that would leach into the soil and make anything that grows in the soil poisonous!
I would also worry that, if a carpet is second hand, it may have been in contact with something very dirty and be contaminated with god knows what -so I don't think I will use that idea.

But I will continue to work on the problem and I am sure I will come up with a plan eventually.