Links to a Few Other Gardening Articles I Wrote

The last two weeks in July, I wrote three gardening articles for another web site, The SurvivalistBlog.net. The SurvivalistBlog.net is a preparedness web site that has lots of good information on how to be prepared for emergencies. (While I also cover preparing for emergencies, MD Creekmore's site is devoted 100% to preparing for all types of emergencies.)

He sponsors a writing contest and encourages others to write articles for his site. As a guest writer, I entered his contest with my three gardening articles as my entries.  And the surprise of all surprises is I won!

I will write reviews of some of the prizes I won in the month of September. Today, I would like to provide you the opportunity to read the articles.  Here were my entries:

• Combating Fungus Problems on Fruit Trees
• Saving Seeds: A Different Point of View
• Practicing Survival Gardening

Enjoy!

A Tour of This Year's Garden

I have been working hard on my garden this year, and it has responded by growing quite well. So, I thought I would show you some of what I am growing this year.

We are completely out of tomato sauce, so here are most of my tomatoes. Some are in the ground and some are in pots. You can also see one of my rain barrels on the right. This fall, this area is going to get re-landscaped.

I am growing these sunflowers to produce my own cooking oil. This is a Russian variety that is specifically for making oil.  It is the first time I have grown them. I think the heads look a bit small. (Don't you?) Not sure how much oil I am going to get.

In this picture you can see one of the green bean beds (I have two). The fern looking things behind them are asparagus. You can also see the blueberry bushes in the back with three more tomato plants in front of them - in the blue pots. The blueberries are still producing and covered with nets. The rocks are holding the nets to the ground so birds won't get under them.

Here is the squash. I have both winter (bush acorn squash) and summer (vine type tromboncino). The vines don't want to stay in the mulch. I must move them every other day or so to keep them out of the grass. The 'dirt' you see on the leaves is food grade diatomaceous earth. It is doing an excellent job of keeping the squash vine borer and squash bugs off the vines and the fruit. The netting on the left is a shade net for the winter squash. They don't like the summer sun this year. In the lower right hand corner is my second green bean bed.

The grapes have been my biggest success this year. I have so many I can't count them all!
I have two lattice screens around my hot tub. Each has a grape vine - one purple grape vine and one white grape vine. Here are the white grapes.

The white grapes were not happy just playing on their own trellis and decided they also wanted to go over and play with the purple grapes. This is an overhead shot of the vines in between the two trellises. I didn't need to cover the overhead part with netting, the birds didn't bother these. The white grapes are just about ready to pick. I see canning grape juice in my future next week!

As you can see, the purple ones are not ready yet.

The last picture is of the popcorn. To the right of the popcorn you can see a vine growing over my fence in a gray pot. I have three. They are loofah gourds. I had them in the ground but I don't think they like my clay soil. They kept dying. I had to put them in a pot to get them to grow. You can also see another of my rain barrels at the edge of the picture. 

I have not sprayed any chemicals on these plants this year. In fact I have used very little chemicals at all in the garden. The exception being the cotton and some orchard spray on the apple trees.

I will show you pictures of the apple trees, peanuts and cotton next time!

Look At What I Picked Today!

The garden is busy this month, and summer isn't over yet! We have approximately 6 - 8 weeks of good summer weather left!

I must tell you, I am thrilled with my popcorn harvest! Growing popcorn isn't like growing sweet corn (we don't eat sweet corn). It is much easier to grow. It is a 'plant it, and forget it' type of crop. I didn't use any chemicals on it. (Well, I did feed it last month with a chemical fertilizer so technically, I did use chemicals - but the non-organic among us will understand what I mean!) It stayed bug free all season. The husks seem to be wrapped a bit tighter and the corn starts out much harder than sweet corn. No problem with worms at all! Picking it today, I noticed some ants enslaving aphids, but they were not on the ears of corn so I just sprayed them with the hose before I added the stalks to the compost pile.

Tomatoes are everywhere. At first I was thinking I wasn't going to can some sauce but now I am having second thoughts. I have given away so many tomatoes, I don't know what to do with them! Making sauce may be in the works for next month.

Also picked but not in the picture are 1 gallon of green beans and a pint of strawberries. (They didn't fit on the chair!) The strawberries are doing great this year because we are having cooler than normal weather. As a reminder, these are ever bearing strawberries, not June bearing. Ever bearing will produce strawberries all summer long - well into November here in the south.

The green beans will reach peak soon and I am so glad I bought a new canner this year! This canner will work outside on the grill. No electricity needed to pressure can green beans any more!

Watch for a post on how to pressure can foods without electricity next month!

Look What I Picked Today!

I am really blessed this year! After my chipmunk and bunny rabbit issues of Spring, my garden has been a haven for me. It is mostly looking after itself now . (I have started a new work project part time that has been taking me away from the garden.) The good news is, I haven't had a need to spray chili pepper powder in weeks! I have more winter squash than I have had in a long time (they aren't ready to pick yet) and the popcorn is almost ready to harvest! 

However, today is about this picture.

These are Granny Smith apples. My husband and I have eaten these for dessert a few times this month. They are much sweeter than the Granny Smith apples you can get at the store! I also have a few more left on the tree. Not bad for a baby tree only 1 1/2 years old!

Next week, I am going to go to our local orchard and purchase our normal 2 bushels of apples to can. Between canning apples, work, zumba, ASL (American Sign Language) classes and the normal work I do around here, I won't know if I am coming or going!

Make Your Own Chili Pepper Powder Insecticide/Critter Repellent

This week I have run out of a few things: chili pepper powder, garlic powder, onion powder, personal soap, chicken broth and parsley flakes. Normal people would just go to the grocery store and purchase these items. Will I? Of course not! 

I will make my own! I still have issues with critters in my garden so the first thing I made this week is the chili pepper powder. I am going to state the obvious here and say is not possible to make your own chili pepper powder if you don't grow your own chili peppers. You may recall that last year I grew three plants and harvested about 250 chili peppers. They produced all summer and fall! Here is a picture of my plants from last year. You can barely see some of the red peppers peeking out from behind the leaves.  I also saved some seeds for this year. The plants this year are not quite this big yet.

One you have picked some peppers, cut them up and dry for storage.

I vacuum sealed mine in a food saver bag and stored them in my pantry. I took them out yesterday and opened the package. Here they are.

The next step is to set up the grinder. I have a Wonder Junior Deluxe Hand Grain/Flour Mill. I use the stone grinders when I make flour and the metal ones when I grind pepper, garlic and onions. The spices can embed themselves into the stones (and be difficult to remove). I don't want the spice flavors to mix with the whole wheat flour so I solve that problem by using the metal grinders. 

When you have made enough powder, fill your jars. I have some old chili pepper powder jars that I purchased from the store a few years ago.

I am not using this powder in recipes. (I have a lot of digestive problems and can't eat chili pepper powder.) The label from the store states that the purchased version contains salt as well as garlic powder. Since mine is just for bug and critter repellent, I don't bother adding these ingredients.

I made enough powder to fill four jars. It took a few hours to hand grind that much because I was multi-tasking and doing a few other things at the same time.  

The last thing to do is to sprinkle it on the plants. 

This is woad. I haven't had a problem with critters eating it in years past, but this year it must taste extra yummy! You don't need this much powder. Just a few sprinkles will do. I poured too much because I was focused on taking the picture and not focused on sprinkling. 

Processing food in a non-electric kitchen would not be possible without my Wonder Junior! It is a must have kitchen appliance for me! This afternoon, I think I will grind some garlic powder!

A Sad Garden Update

Yesterday, I was standing in my kitchen making a 'Cooking With Food Storage' post (I will post that next week), and I suddenly noticed that I can't see the peas in the garden. I thought that was odd, so I go outside to see what is wrong. Well, all I can say is they are gone! Almost everything in the garden is gone! The only things still living in the garden are the baby onions and the garlic. 

Something ate the pea plants, broccoli, and the tiny shoots of carrots and spinach. It happened Wednesday night. I know this because I went out to look at the garden Wednesday morning. We had some cold temperatures Tuesday night and I wanted to be sure the blueberry buds were OK. I looked at everything, and all was well.

Here is a before picture of the peas. I took this picture (but didn't use it) at the last Garden Update on March 21st.

Here is a picture as of yesterday.

You can see, I have one pea plant left. (It is in the lower right corner of the picture.) The creature must have stuffed himself on all the rest! I put a few more peas in the ground to replace the ones that are gone, but I believe it is a lost cause. I do not have enough cool days left to harvest any peas or carrots I plant going forward. The only plant I can expect to get something from now is spinach. Spinach can be ready to harvest in about 50 days. I am going to put more in today. 

You may also notice blotches of dark red stuff in the 'after' picture. I sprinkled the one pea plant and the 6 broccoli plants I have left with chili pepper powder to keep the 'thing' away from the garden.  I also sprinkled in the areas where I replanted the peas. 

I find this completely frustrating because I don't have any peas or carrots left in the house. This means I must go to the store to purchase them for the rest of the year! Even if I get a good fall crop, it will be late November or December before I harvest. I don't think many people understand how much I loathe the thought of going to the store to purchase something I should be able to provide for myself! On the other hand, I am thankful that I can go to the store. My great, great grandparents would have been forced to do without.

I am sure you are wondering what the 'thing' is that ate my garden. I don't know what is it. I have had bunnies eat some things in my garden before, but never the pea plants themselves. They always passed the peas in favor of the carrots. So, I am not sure it is a rabbit or rabbits.

What I do know is that I have a new hole under my fence that is big enough for a rabbit (or two!) to get into my back yard. That will be fixed next week when I go to plant the asparagus. (My goal was to plant the asparagus this week but the cold weather made me change my mind!)

I will definitely string some chicken wire around that raised bed. I am going to plant it with green beans come summer and I can't afford for anything else to eat them!

Make Your Own Garden Insecticide

For the most part, I don't believe in using either insecticide or fungicide chemicals. They work best when used sparingly and only after everything else you tried has failed. A small bottle of concentrate should last for years. This philosophy will keep your garden healthy, in balance and provide a home for the good bugs. The good bugs will help keep the bad bugs in check.

So what should you do when you see the bad bugs getting the upper hand? Try this homemade insecticide! Now I must say, although I call this an insecticide, it really isn't. It won't kill anything. What it will do is keep the bad bugs off your plants until the good bugs come in to help. It also works on rabbits, deer, chipmunks, squirrels and other small critters that want to eat your garden. I read in the Wall Street Journal awhile back that in Africa, it even keeps elephants out of the corn fields! You can use it safely on all vegetables, fruits and herbs. What is it? Chili Pepper powder!

You can go to the grocery store and purchase chili pepper powder if you would like, I prefer to grow my own. You can see how I do that a little further down in this post.  For now, lets start with the instructions to make the insecticide:

1. Mix one to two tablespoons of chili pepper powder in one quart of boiling water.
2. Mix well. Let the larger pieces fall to the bottom of the container.
3. Let the chili pepper 'tea' cool to room temperature. I mix mine up at night and then let it sit until morning.
4. Pour carefully into a garden sprayer. You want the tea in the sprayer but not the pieces at the bottom of the container. You may want to use a strainer to make pouring easier.
5. Add additional cold water to make one gallon.
6. Spray as needed. This works best when the weather isn't rainy. If it rains, you are probably going to have to spray again. 

The spray should last about 10 days. If needed, spray again after 7 to 10 days. This should give the good bugs enough time to find the bad bugs in your garden and 'take over' the job of insect control. If needed, sprinkle chili powder directly on any plant that larger critters like to eat. I have sprinkled powder on tomatoes, parsley, carrots and squash with very good results.

As you may know, I have a chipmunk that has taken up residence somewhere in my garden this year. He loves to eat my tomatoes. I have made a paste of chili pepper powder and water and smeared it on the tomatoes that are starting to turn red. (The chipmunk isn't eating the green ones.) It is raining here almost every day but the paste is lasting well through the rain! I have also tried wrapping the tomatoes in insect fabric with good results too. When the tomato is ready to pick, I move the fabric to another tomato.

Now all this spraying and making paste can get expensive if you are having a bad year for bugs. What to do? Try growing your own! Peppers are easy to grow, not much bothers them and they are not susceptible to many fungal diseases either. I have mine in a grow box. I mixed plain potting soil with compost and filled the container. Then, I planted the peppers and added mulch on top so the dirt won't splash up on the leaves. Peppers are heavy feeders so be sure to periodically side dress with more compost or fertilizer. I  use an organic fertilizer and feed 2 tablespoons per plant twice a month (the first and fifteenth).

As a side note, the most important thing you can do in your garden to help keep diseases at bay is to mulch. There are a lot of fungal diseases in the soil. They get on the plants when raindrops splash a bit of dirt onto the leaves. Mulching avoids this. 

Here is how to make your own hot pepper powder for an insecticide:

Grow the hottest jalapeno peppers you can find. The hotter, the better. Here is a picture of one of my plants. I have a total of three.

When the peppers are ready, slice them thin. My husband usually slices ours because peppers this hot make me sick when I touch them. I must wear both gloves and a face mask. Don't forget to save some seeds to plant next year!

Spread out on a dehydrator tray. Each piece should have space around it and should not touch any other piece.

I dry peppers as a vegetable at 135 degrees. You can also dehydrate fruits and vegetables in a sun oven. It's easy and it is my preferred method of drying foods. However, it only works when the sun is out. That hasn't happened in my area in a while.

Dry the peppers until they are crisp and break up easily. In the picture below, I have dehydrated 38 peppers. (This is a big family size serving bowl, I am sorry I did not include something to show scale.)

I store the dehydrated peppers in a storage bag until the end of the growing season. Then I will vacuum seal and place in storage until next year. Late next spring, I will grind the peppers into a powder to use as needed during the summer. There are lots of ways to grind them up to make a powder. You could use a blender if you would like. I don't have an electric blender so I usually use a mortar and pestle  I have also used a hand crank grinder as well. It really depends on how many peppers I have to grind!

Making your own garden insecticide is super easy, cheaper than what you can get at the store and encourages a healthy garden! Even better, it brings you one step closer to a self-sustained life!

Got Ladybugs? You Have a Healthy Garden!

Most novice gardeners reach for a chemical spray when they first see bugs in their garden. Spray with insecticide and you will eliminate all the bad bugs. The problem is you will eliminate all the good bugs as well. Then, in a few weeks you will find the bad bugs returning (sometimes in even larger numbers). What do you do then? Reach for the spray and the cycle starts all over.

Spraying chemicals is actually one of the worst things you can do for your garden. Ideally, you want to have both good bugs and bad bugs. The good bugs will keep the bag bugs in check for you. The best thing to do for your garden is to plant things that will attract the good bugs. For example, there are quite a few good adult insects (lacewings and hoverflies come to mind) that feed on the pollen and nectar of flowers. However, the young nymphs feed on bad bugs.

In my garden, the bug that is the star of the show this time of year is the ladybug. I love these bugs! Usually, the first bug of the year I see is aphids. The second is ladybugs. I am always reminded to remain patient as I watch the aphids try to eat everything I treasure. Currently, they are in my irises, strawberries, grapes and apple trees. At about the time I lose patience with these critters, I start to see the glorious ladybugs do my work for me!

Ladybugs on my irises.

Ladybugs on my apple trees.

Ladybugs love to eat aphids. It doesn't take many of them to eliminate the aphid problem in my yard. Patience is the key here. It will not happen overnight, but it will happen. To help encourage the good guys to show up and do their work, plant some lovely flowers. A mix of flowers is best but here is a list of some of the ones the good bugs seem to love:

• Herbs such as dill, caraway, yarrow and fennel (plant some for you and a few extra that you can let go to flower for the good bugs)
• Geraniums
• Lilies
• Tulips
• Cosmos
• Zinnias
• Sunflowers
• Marigolds
• Daisies
• Angelica 

Ideally, the flowers should have different bloom times. That way you can continue to attract them all season long. This brings me to another point. Sometimes you see ladybugs for sale in seed and plant catalogs. In my opinion, purchasing bugs is a waste of money. If the good bugs can't find anything to eat in your yard, they will leave. So if you purchase them and don't provide any food, all you did was help your neighbors who did provide food. And if you are going to provide food for the good bugs, you are going to attract them naturally anyway!

Plant flowers instead! Beautify your yard and help to keep the bad bugs at bay! This will require less work and less money in the long run. You will truly have a garden in balance.

A Mid-Winter Chore for the Garden

You are probably thinking it is too soon to think about the garden for next spring! Or, you may be browsing seed catalogs with no thought of going outside. Let me suggest a mid-winter chore that will help make your life easier next summer!

Go outside and turn the garden dirt over! If you live where the ground is frozen right now, wait until a mid-winter warm spell. However, if it is winter where you live and the ground isn't frozen solid, January is the time to take care of this chore. It really isn't necessary to get out the tiller, you can do it by hand.  It doesn't have to be perfect!

What this will do is bring up to the top of the soil all the bugs and bug eggs that are over-wintering six to eight inches down. They like it down there.  It is warm and their chance of surviving the winter is good.  Bringing them up to the surface of the soil before the next hard freeze will help kill them.  Exposing them to a hard freeze will wipe out the eggs of many different types of bugs!

When will you notice? Next summer. Your bug population will be significantly less if you turn over the soil now. That will help to eliminate (or at least greatly reduce) the need for pesticides on your garden next summer! 

Try it!  It really works!

Garden Tips for the Hot August Days

In our part of the world, August is the hottest (and sometimes driest) month of the year. Your garden is doing fine one day and the next day it looks terrible!  There is no need to give up! Here are a few tips to help your garden thrive in August.

• Most gardens need a boost to make it through the hot weather.  You can give your garden a boost by spraying it with seaweed extract. Seaweed extract is supposed to be available in garden centers but I have a hard time finding it.  If you are like me, and can't find seaweed extract, try kelp powder.  It works just as well.  Kelp powder is generally available in health food stores. I have no problem finding it. You don't need a lot and the bottle lasts a long time.  Use 1 TBS in 1 gallon of water.  Spray the plants in the early morning or late at night.  Make sure the plants are well watered before you spray.  If your tomatoes stop producing because of the heat, this will fix it.  If you have any spray left over, spray it on your foundation plants and problem areas in your lawn.
• Squash can present a problem this time of year.  The squash vine borer, squash bugs, stink bugs and aphids can all kill the squash plants you've been growing all summer.  If you didn't place aluminum foil down when you planted the squash, you can still coax a few more vegetables out of the plant by dusting the entire plant with diatomaceous earth. (Diatomaceous earth is not toxic and is safe for your family as long as they don't breathe the dust. Be sure to follow the safety precautions on the package.) Pay special attention to the growing tips of the plant and each individual squash.  Your goal here is to dust it like you would flour a cake pan.  Repeat if it rains.
• Is something eating your green beans?  Diatomaceous earth will stop that as well.  Mexican bean beetles love green beans.  If not controlled, they can kill the plants. Dust each plant with diatomaceous earth and get a few more beans from them!
• Have you noticed large worms on your tomatoes? They are tomato horn worms and they eat a lot of leaves!  They can also eat holes in your tomatoes.  It really isn't necessary to spray them.  When you find one, cut the leaf off of the plant (the leaf the worm is sitting on) and place Mr. Worm (along with the leaf) somewhere in the lawn where the birds will see it.  Birds love tomato horn worms! Do the birds a favor and leave them a snack. One other way to keep the worms off of the tomato plants is to plant tobacco. The worms prefer tobacco to tomatoes.  Just don't plant the tobacco and tomatoes together.  Although they are related, tomatoes can catch a virus from the tobacco plant and die.
• Another tomato problem this time of year is blossom end rot.  Blossom end rot is caused by a calcium deficiency.  The extremes of dry soil and then very moist soil inhibits the plant from accessing the calcium it needs.  To fight blossom end rot, crush some Tums (any brand antacid tables work fine) and sprinkle around the tomato plant. 3 to 4 tablets per plant works - and it works immediately.  To prevent blossom end rot from returning, try mulching the plants well. That will help keep the moisture level in the soil steady and the plants can access the calcium.
• Most of our country is in a drought so many readers might not have this next problem, powdery mildew.  However, if you do have powdery mildew on any of your plants, you will need to deal with it or they can die.  Powdery mildew is common on squash, roses, strawberries, green beans and others garden favorites.  I have even seen it on annual flowers.  No need to get a fungicide.  You can kill the powdery mildew with powdered milk and baking soda.  Use 1 cup powdered milk to 1/2  - 1 gallon of water. Then add 3 TBS of baking soda.  Shake well and spray.  The milk will coat the mildew and stop the spores from spreading.

If you have a specific garden question or problem,  leave a comment.  I would be happy to help!

Happy Gardening!

Garden Update

I am having a frustrating week in the garden.  We  are having nightly thunderstorms and last night's storm knocked over some of the corn.  This morning I moved some of the soil up around the base of the plants to help, but I am not sure it will work. I may have to stake them until the plants are bigger and the severe thunderstorms pass.

I am also having problems with green beans.  I have ants herding aphids and they are everywhere.  (The aluminum foil works wonders on most pests but unfortunately, it has no effect on ants or aphids.) Eliminating this problem requires two steps: get rid of the ants and get rid of the aphids.  Each problem requires a different solution.

The aphids are easier to eliminate and keep off. This is because tomato plant  leaves have toxins in them that kill aphids. The toxin won't harm beneficial bugs, pets or humans. (Well, as long as you don't ingest it.); but to the aphid bug, it is toxic. You can use the toxin as a natural pesticide. Here is how you make it:

Chop enough tomato leaves to make two cups. I prefer not to chop with a good knife or use a cutting board so I cut them with scissors. Don't chop the stems - this works best with just the leaves.

Making an insecticide with tomato leaves.

Soak the leaves in two cups of water.  It is best to soak them overnight. If the aphid infestation is severe and you can't wait for the tomato leaves to soak overnight, spray them off with a blast of water while you are making this insecticide. 

After soaking, the water will turn brown. Strain the leaf pulp from the liquid and discard the leaves. I used some garden insect fabric so I could just toss it when I was finished. It is dark at the bottom of this picture, but you might be able to notice how brown the water is after soaking overnight.

After straining, pour the liquid into a spray bottle.  Add an equal amount of water.  My spray bottles are small and they only have a two cup capacity.  So, I added one cup of the tomato leaf liquid and one cup of water. Now, add a few drops of liquid dishwashing liquid and you are ready to spray on the aphids. Be sure to always label your bottles for safety.

This can be used on any plant but I am only going to spray the green beans. As I mentioned in previous posts, I had an aphid problem on the grapes as well. However, that problem was solved by the ladybugs that made my backyard their new home.

I found what I needed to take care of the ants at a visit to a garden center.  This is what I bought.

Diatomaceous Earth is extremely effective on any crawling insect. However, it is only effective as long as it stays dry.  After it rains, you will need to re-apply it. Sprinkle it around the base of each plant.  Make a ring around the plant so that the ants will contact it if they try to climb the plant. As long as you don't breath it in or get it in your eyes, it is safe for humans and pets. You can even purchase food grade diatomaceous earth and use it in your food storage grain buckets to keep the bugs out. This box is not food grade quality.

While these organic bug solutions may take a bit more work to make and apply, I definitely think it is worth the time if keeps the garden bug free without chemicals!

On a good note, the strawberries continue to flower and I am also still picking blueberries. I apologize that the blueberries in the picture are a little hard to see.

The strawberries are still flowering.

 We are still picking blueberries.

 The peanuts are now flowering.  The picture below shows Spanish peanuts. You can see some of the yellow flowers at the bottom of the picture. The Virginia Jumbo peanut seeds I purchased this year were bad.  They didn't germinate at all.  So the few Virginia Jumbo peanuts I do have growing are from last year.  I am going to have to save them all for next year's seed so I do not have to purchase additional peanut seed next year.  I also had a bit of a germination problem with the Spanish peanuts. The germination rate on the Spanish peanuts was about 60%.  That is what I get for purchasing seed from a company I didn't know! 

Peanuts are flowering.

Everything else in the garden is doing very well.  The tobacco is getting tall.  I will take a picture of it when I transplant it to the front yard landscaping. The squash is producing like gang busters! I have lots of tomatoes and the pumpkin vines have almost reached the corn!

If you are having a gardening problem you can't solve, email me or comment below.  I would be happy to help!

Happy Gardening!

A Garden in Balance

My goal is to not have any bugs in my garden. That is why I use aluminium foil to repel them. (You can read about using aluminum foil here.) However, it isn't practical to eliminate all bugs because some of them are good for the garden.  The good guys are called beneficial insects. They're good bugs because they eat the bad bugs.  Creating the perfect balance between the good bugs and bad bugs leads to a garden that is in balance. Having a garden in balance is the best way to garden organically and avoid a heavy reliance on pesticides.

Let me give you an example. Last night, my husband and I took the dog outside and we were walking by the grape arbor. My husband said to me, "Hey look, you have a bunch of bugs on the end of this branch."  I looked and sure enough, there were aphids all over one of the grape vines.  This is very normal, aphids love grape vines. Because the temperatures did not get low enough this past winter to kill off some of the bugs, aphids are everywhere this summer.  So what can you do about aphids?  One option is to get the hose and knock them off the plant with a blast of water.  Once on the ground, something will eat them.  This is one of my favorite techniques. I usually end up doing this a couple of times a week.

After I blasted off the ones I saw, I inspected the rest of the vines to see if there were any other aphids.  I only found one more vine (really it is just the vine tips that the aphids want) covered with the aphids. My first inclination was to blast them with the hose as well.  However, when I looked closely at the branch, I found a lady bug was doing the job for me. 

Lady bug and aphids on my grape vine.

I do realize this picture is dark, it was taken at about 9:00 pm last night when I found them. The big oval shaped thing is the lady bug.  The little dots above the lady bug are the aphids.  Rather than spray the aphids off the vine, I left the lady bug to eat all she wanted.  Here is what I found at 7:00 am this morning. It looks like that lady bug had a fine evening of dining!

Same lady bug on my grape vine. Notice there aren't any aphids now.

The lady bug is still there, but she is all alone now.  I know she will crawl along my grape vine until she finds something else to eat. 

So, other than lady bugs, exactly who are the good guys?  Any bug that attacks your plant is considered a bad bug.  Any creature that eats the bad bugs is beneficial to your garden. They are the good guys.  This includes birds (although they can eat your garden too), frogs, praying mantis, lacewings, spiders, and others.  You can order beneficial insects from a catalog, but without a good environment they will fly away or die. A better way is to plant what will attract them naturally. 

To attract the good guys, do the following:

1. Don't use chemicals of any kind.  Chemicals don't discriminate between good bugs and bad bugs.  They kill everything.  This isn't good practice because once you stop spraying, all that you will get  back are the bad bugs.  It will take some time to attract the beneficial insects, birds and other creatures that will help. That's all time the bad bugs use to feast on your plants and reduce yield or kill them.
2. Put in plants that will attract the good guys.  This means planting lots of herbs, flowers and other flowering plants that provide pollen and nectar.
3. Have a water source.  Bird baths are great but some bugs drown in bird baths as they are trying to get water. Put out some flower pots on top of a tray of gravel. Fill the tray with water so the little creatures have a source of water too. 
4. Put in landscape plants that attract butterflies, hummingbirds (they eat insects too) and birds.

The goal is a garden that is healthy and in balance.  With a garden in balance, you will have less of a problem with pests and spend less time in the garden trying to control them. You will also improve the yield of your garden and you will get to eat more of those wonderful vegetables!

Happy Gardening!

Are Bugs Bugging Your Plants?

This is the time of year that I put most of my efforts into gardening.  Growing a year's worth of  vegetables in the garden takes up quite a bit of time. Managing it without chemicals makes it more of a challenge but also makes me feel better about the results. Because we really didn't have a winter, this year the bugs are everywhere and managing them without chemicals can test anyone's patience!

A friend of mine asked me this past Sunday what to do about all the whiteflies on the bushes in her yard. She told me they seemed to be everywhere. Whiteflies are tiny flies, they are white, (who would have thought), and they fly off the plant as you touch it.  They are sucking insects and will ruin the looks of any garden or landscaping plant. If not controlled, they can kill the plant.  Working in my herb garden yesterday, I felt her pain.  I had whiteflies everywhere! 

So, I thought I would pass along a spray solution that kills the whiteflies (and any other sucking insect) on your plants.  The best thing about this spray solution is it works wonders on indoor houseplants as well. 

Alcohol Insecticide:

1 cup isopropyl alcohol (either 70% or 91%)
3 cups water
2 to 3 drops liquid dishwashing liquid

Put everything in a plastic sprayer and shake well. Spray the plant, wetting both the top and underside of the leaves.

Now, this will kill the adult flies but it won't do anything about eggs left on the plant.  So, you will need to spray again in three days to kill the new adults that hatch. Spray again in three more days to break the reproduction cycle of this pest. Most insecticides aim to break the life cycle of the pest. That is why so many commercial products recommend spraying every few days.  For this homemade alcohol insecticide, you must spray three times, three days apart to completely eliminate the insect.  If you don't spray that often, you will control them but not eliminate them.

I use this on flowers and shrubs, rather than edible plants. In fact, I don't recommend spraying anything you plan to eat. After all, you are spraying isopropyl alcohol on the plants. Also, to prevent your hands from stinging, wear gloves and certainly don't get the spray in your eyes. Be sure to follow all other caution statements on the isopropyl alcohol bottle  and use normal safety practices for applying insecticide.

Having said that, I did spray my herbs yesterday.  I severely cut them back to just a few inches tall and left just a few leaves. (This alone eliminated a lot of the bug problem.)  I threw away these clippings - rather than put them on the compost pile. Then I sprayed.  I don't plan to eat anything from these plants until they at least double in size. I will spray twice more before I check the underside of the leaves for new eggs.

You can use this spray for all indoor/outdoor non-edible plants. If you are a bit hesitant to use it on your roses or other prize plants, test an area first. Spray just a few leaves. Then, go back and check it the next day for damage.  This test will tell you if you plant can tolerate the spray. 

If you have a specific bug problem that you can't seem to solve, just email me!  I will be happy to help. 

Happy Gardening!