• Cover crops are all the rage these days, and may be a part of the solution for problems confronting the long-term sustainability of agricultural production in the U.S. Simply defined, cover crops are plant "place-holders", designed to cover bare soil during fallow periods and in between growing seasons. Their benefits are myriad, from reducing soil erosion, to replenishing soil nutrients, to suppressing weeds, to growing soil microbial communities. I would argue that another benefit of cover crops that is too often overlooked (arguably the most IMPORTANT benefit) is in reducing pest insects and growing beneficial insect communities.
• Bare soil kills a lot of insects. Actually, bare soil kills most biology in a system. For this reason, farmers and entomologists alike have long touted that a good way to remove pests from a farm or garden is to till the heck out of it and get rid of any non-crop vegetation. And they are right: you can really kill a lot of pests this way. But the problem is that you remove all of the friendly insects from the system as well. Predators (things like lady bee

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