My farm is full of spiders.
As I was weeding one of our high tunnels, I started to notice them crawling away as I pulled the weeds from the baseboards. Some small and yellow, some quite large, some with longer legs, some fast, some slow. It seemed that with every weed I pulled, a new spider appeared, probably unhappy that I disturbed her nest and/or hunting grounds.
I then started noticing the dew-covered webs glistening in the morning light. Some webs are small and tucked into corners, others seemingly haphazard between fence posts or branches. Others as big, round, and perfect as you’d see in a movie or children’s book.
I’ve been running into webs. Harvesting tomatoes, I eat some web walking between the rows. I feel webs across my arms even traversing areas I thought were far too wide open to string up a web. Impressive builders, spiders are.
On the Farm, Spiders Are a Welcome Part of the Ecosystem
I think back to nearly every encounter I’ve had in my life where there was a spider and at least one other human. Almost always, spiders are met with a combination of fear and disgust on our part. As I go about my farming business, encountering spiders everywhere, I don’t feel that fear or disgust. Mostly, I’m happy to see a friend!
Spiders, like most living creatures, are an important player in a healthy ecosystem. They are one of the most diverse sets of insect predators, eating small and large bugs alike. Having abundant spiders means that the farm has abundant bugs to feed them. In other words, it’s proof we’ve got a balanced food chain.
Balanced food chains mean that no one pest or bug gets to explode in population and, say, eat my lettuce. Seeing so many spiders is the surest sign that I can grow abundant food without chemicals!
Why there are so many spiders on the farm right now is hard to say. Maybe it was our wet August, maybe our more humid summers are supporting them, or maybe our focus on soil biodiversity is slowly making its way up the food chain. Either way, I’ve encountered more different kinds of spiders in the last month than I have in my life up to this point, and I only hope to encounter more.
Thank you, spiders!