Do the thoughts of a home winter without tasting or eating fresh produce from the garden have you feeling blue? Or don’t have outdoor space to grow even the smallest garden? As we slip out of summer and fall into autumn, there are some things you can do to to keep the growing going year round.
Storing the Harvest
As the end of the warm weather garden season rolls to a close and fall and winter grow closer, many gardeners harvest the last of the summer produce before planting the fall crops or putting the garden to bed.
But how do you store all of the extra produce at the end of the season? Especially those things you don’t freeze or can to preserve?
Defense against summer diseases and pests
The heat of summer, it seems, is not only the time that gardens produce the most, it is also the time when the things that want to eat or destroy your gardens are at their busiest.
So while the heat and humidity may have you wanting to be a couch potato rather than tending your potatoes, you should be out checking on your plants, scouting for diseases and insects, and treating them appropriately.
National Moth Week: Not all that flutters is friendly
So this week is National Moth Week. Much of the info you’ll see online is about how to attract nice moths to your garden, how some moths are pollinators, and other interesting moth facts. And while most moths are perfectly nice creatures, there are some that you definitely DON’T want in your garden. These are like the lepidopterans that your moth-er warned you about. They’re insects only a moth-er (or entomologist) could love.
Controlling Japanese Beetles on Fruits and Vegetables
These destructive pests can decimate a landscape, but they can also do some serious damage to vegetables and fruits. Adult beetles will feed on just about anything if they are hungry enough, but they definitely have their favorites. Most commonly, they feed on fruits such as apple, crabapple, grapes, peach, cherry, blackberries, and raspberries and vegetables such as asparagus, corn (foliage and silks), beans, okra, and rhubarb.
IPM: An Ounce of Pest Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure
Perhaps the right question to ask is not about what to spray but about how to prevent the problem in the first place, and to take the advice of Ben Franklin that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” It’s a philosophy we call Integrated Pest Management. The secret is planning ahead, instead of waiting for problems to present themselves.