Peppering for insects
Mike Senkpiel
In his 1924 lecture series Agriculture, Rudolf Steiner described an organic method for dealing with insect infestation. Dr. Steiner suggested that one may “dry and store the insects” until “the Sun is in the sign of the Bull” at which time they are burned and the ashes scattered or “peppered” around the area of infestation. “After the fourth year you will certainly find that they have become quite powerless. They cannot survive; they shy away from life if they have to live in soil that has been peppered in this fashion.” 1
I have been moved to experiment with this process on several occasions recently. Being a basement dweller for many years, Camel Crickets were like a member of my family. Around our house, they are referred to as Three-Legged Monsters because they frequently seem to be missing a leg.
They are a particularly unattractive, mutated version of our friend the cricket, whose main defense is to jump toward their predator, often ending up the pant leg or down the shirt. This will make a normally modest person strip in public. I can still picture clearly my father going down into our basement to work on the furnace armed with a flyswatter in each hand and rubber bands around the pant-leg of his high water, fifty-cent, Salvation Army blue jeans.
Anyway, Three-Legged Monsters, like I, enjoy a cool, dark and moist respite from the persistent summer sun. I have never lived in a basement that didn’t have them to some extent. Chemicals and poisons work only fleetingly and of course create stronger, irritated bionic strains. I had made peace with them until I moved to Chapel Hill, where there exists a different, more sociable version. This version wanted to sleep with me. The frequent nocturnal battles made me at once sluggish and tense. Something had to be done.
I resolved to avoid poison, but fortunately, I was armed with spiritual science. So I diligently chased them around all summer, collecting them as Dr. Steiner had indicated into an old mayonnaise jar. I wasn’t able to dry them. If anything, I would say that they actually became moister. In any case, when the Sun was in Taurus in 2003, I experienced some pleasure in burning them in my woodstove. 2
I collected all the ashes and put them in a jar next to the basement door. I had intended to pepper the ashes around the outside of the basement where they live until they come to bed at night. But as things occasionally happen, I never did get around to scattering the ashes. The interesting thing is that I have never seen a single Three-Legged Monster since. Now, I must admit that toward the end of the Bug Wars of 2003, out of desperation, I applied a palletized poison. But I have lived in basements for thirty years and I have never NOT seen a Three-Legged Monster for two years straight. Even when Jerry the Bug Man used to come every year, after a few months, they were back again. In addition, there were no corpses lying about as one would expect from chemical pesticides. They did indeed shy away from life. The retreat of the Three-Legged Monsters was swift and sure, but this was a bit curious as Dr. Steiner indicated that it should take up to four years to become fully effective. More experimentation must be done!
This very opportunity arose when Japanese Beetles decided to make claim to my green beans later that summer. I knew from previous incident that if I did not act immediately, there would be no biodynamic beans on the table that year. So once again, I followed bugs around with a jar. The Japanese Beetle is much more cooperative than the Three-Legged Monster.
They are so stuck together in some kind of phlegmatic orgy of gluttony that they fall right into the jar in their stupor. Soon the jar was full - and it was still half a year before the Sun would be in a position to help.
I set the jar aside and gazed down at my poor Broccoli plants. Nothing but a skeleton was left from the voracity of the ruthless Cross-striped Cabbage Worm. I had meticulously picked them off and thrown them into my neighbor’s yard, but they easily prevailed during my two-week stint of overtime.
Luckily, I had more jars. In they went and within minutes they were peering wretchedly through their jar to the Japanese Beetles, discomfited by the depravity which they were forced to witness.
These jars sat around for a long, long time . . .
The next time that the Sun was in Taurus, I fashioned a roaring pit fire. I poured the two jars of now unrecognizable sludge into a bowl of thick newspaper and tossed it into the fire. Even with the blaze threatening to burn down my tool shed, the bug juice almost put the fire out. I had to run and get my propane torch. Eventually the bugs burnt down and my shed didn’t and once again, almost instantly, these bugs have not dared to set a tentacle on my property since.
They really were quite powerless.
Well, I suppose my materialist friends would have plenty of theories and graphs to explain these apparently miraculous communications with the insect world. The Japanese Beetles do seem to come and go in cycles and it has been an unusually cool spring this year for the Cross-striped Cabbage Worm. And of course I did call in the cavalry of conventional science at the end of the Bug Wars.
Well maybe, but we all have until the 19th of June to become true believers. This is a method that is at least healthier for the Earth than chemical pesticides and probably more humane for the insects in the long run.
I am currently brewing an organic Bamboo Grass herbicide, following indications from Rudolf Steiner and Maria Thun. I am also interested in documenting more peppering experiments. If anyone would like to help, please contact me at
msenkpiel@nc.rr.com.
1 Agriculture by Rudolf Steiner, pp 124-125
2 Actually, it is helpful to carry out these procedures with a feeling of appreciation and gratitude. In her book Gardening for Life, Maria Thun says, “It is extremely important that we do not do this in anger … No one should wish to get rid of [pests and weeds] altogether for they fulfill tasks in nature.”