Organic Pest Control for Beginning Gardeners & Upcoming Garden Workshops

When I first started gardening,  I found pest control to be the most vexing of all challenges in the garden.  I've never been willing to spray my garden with pesticides so there were seasons when the bugs had a better harvest than my family. I remember coming in to the house one day and exclaiming "pests have no values!"  Really -- its true.  I was always willing to share with them, but they greedily took a bite out of every tomato.   Luckily, my good friend Leslie Kurtz (Kurtz and Sons Dairy) introduced me to the topic of organic pest control and helped ease my frustrations with those pesky pests. 
The principle of understanding nature is at the heart of all organic gardening. Your very first step in creating an organic pest control program is in understanding the nature of pests.
If you spot Colorado Potato Beetles on your plants, for example, try to interrupt their life cycle. Colorado potato beetles pupate in the soil during the winter and emerge in spring to mate and feed on host plants. The female lays about 2 dozen orange-yellow eggs on the underside of leaves for several days. She can lay up to 500 eggs in a months time! Larvae hatch and begin feeding on foliage about a week after eggs are laid. In 2-3 weeks, larvae return to the grown to burrow. They emerge as fully grown beetles in about 7 days. The adult beetle feeds on roots for several days before the female begins laying eggs and begins the cycle anew. The effects on your plants will be dramatic stunting of the plant and skeletonizing of the roots.

What's an organic gardener to do to stop this cycle? Be as aggressive as the beetle at every stage of their development!

-Dig trenches at a 45 deg. angle and line with black plastic between garden rows. This blocks the beetle's journey from the soil to the leaves. Beetles have difficulty navigating on an angle.
-Use floating row covers, such as Remay, to provide a physical barrier in early spring. I have found this method to be the most useful. You'll need to remove the barriers when it is time for your plants to pollinate.
-Inspect leaves for eggs when weather warms. (Be careful not to remove the eggs of beneficial insects.)
-Remove any plant debris that might provide cover for the beetles as they make their journey back down into the soil.
-Manually remove adult beetles.
-Encourage predatory insects by planting pollen and nectar host plants.
-Last resort: If the infestation is threatening the majority of your harvest, apply Neem or Pyola at the dilution rates specified for vegetable plants on the bottle.
Note: Container vegetable gardeners do not face as many challenges with pests as growers who garden in the ground. For more information about organic vegetable gardening, see my book: Container Gardening for Health: The 12 Most Important Fruits & Vegetable for Your Organic Garden.
The bottom line: Know your pests! Study the little scoundrels and get between them and your plants.
In my next blog, I'll cover organic prevention and control of disease in the garden.
For my local readers, I'll be giving a workshop on herbs at the Madison Garden Club on Saturday, March 13 at 11 AM. Then I'll be off to Borders Book Store in Gainesville to give a seed starting workshop/book signing at 4 P.M. It will be a busy day. Hope to see you some where along the way.

Easiest Veggies to Grow and Lake City Home & Garden Show

This is the first in a series of blogs for beginner gardeners.
I'm frequently asked which vegetables are the easiest to grow from seed. My favorites are beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, summer squash, radishes and lettuce. These can be planted directly in the garden and are vigorous growers.

Variety Selection: Select varieties with resistance to pests and diseases found in your region. Call your local agriculture extension office for recommendations. It's fine to branch out and try a few that aren't recommended for your area too. Sometimes you'll get lucky! I like fin de bagnols, for example. These slim green bean are tender and delicious. They are recommended for northern climates, but grow fine for me in Florida.
Grow in Season: Sometimes it is fun to trick mother nature into giving you beans in December, but generally you will have more success in the garden if you grow at optimal planting times.
Sun: All of these vegetables require at least 4-6 hours of full sun. Lettuce can be grown in partial shade and will even fare better in partial shade in warm climates.
Moisture: Lightly water all the above plants on a daily basis until they have two sets of leaves. Once established, beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, and summer squash all need to receive about 1" of water a week. Radishes and lettuce require light daily waterings throughout the growing season.
Soil: Beans and peas are nitrogen fixers. They can take nitrogen from the soil and convert it for their growth needs. Other vegetables require nitrogen for steady growth. I add fish meal or kelp to my garden for a boost of essential and micro nutrients. All vegetables benefit from the addition of compost to the soil. Compost adds structure and micro-organisms to the soil.
The back of any plant packet will give you advice on sowing the seeds so I won't bore you here with this information.
It is hard to go wrong when growing beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, summer squash, radishes and lettuce. The above guidelines will give your plants a good start. Once your plants are up and growing, you'll need to be vigilant about pest control, however. More about that in my next blog.
Lake City Home & Garden Show It's this weekend! We'll be there -- inside where it is warm! Please stop by and see us.

Workshop-Tallahassee

Anyone in the area --

I'm giving a workshop tomorrow night at New Leaf Market in Tallahassee. Details