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.

Edible Landscaping: Play with your food

Many gardeners keep their ornamentals and edibles segregated: fruits and vegetables go in neat rows or tidy boxes in the backyard and ornamentals are given domain over the front yard landscape.  But what if we blurred the lines a bit?  

The practice of edible landscaping has been around for a long time, but it has become very popular in the last decade or so.  The practice involves purposefully including edible plants in a planned landscape, appreciating plants for both their aesthetic qualities and their edible potential.