Tips & Solutions

Here are a number of eco friendly solutions to some pesky gardening problems. We would love to hear how well they worked.

Good Bugs!

Plant fennel, alyssum, dill and Ami majus to attract ‘good bugs’ like lady bugs & lacewings. The good bugs will eat the bad bugs etc etc etc

Garlic

Plant some garlic cloves into your compost pile to keep pests out

Aphids

Can be blasted off your plants with the garden hose (aphids can’t fly till the end of summer so once off they stay grounded)

mix a soap solution of 2 Tbsps dish soap to 1 liter of water and spray the leaves of plants infested with aphids (be persistent, they are)
Sunflowers will draw aphids so plant some around the edge of your garden to keep them away from other plants

Slugs and snails

Hand pick them in the early evening when they are the most active or scatter egg shells around the base of your plants.

Cutworms

Don’t disturb your garden soil between July 15th and Aug 15th. Cutworm moths lay their eggs during that time and they prefer loose soil (if you must weed pull them)

You can also cut the bottom out of a margarine tub and press it into the soil around the base of the plant to prevent cutworms

Tomatoes

To label tomato varieties cut an empty sour cream container into strips, use a permanent marker to write the name of plant on the white side, punch a hole at one end, attach with a twist tie to tomato cage

supply extra calcium to your tomatoes by using 2 tablets of any Alka-Seltzer, like Tums, in the planting hole when digging in your tomatoes
clipped tomato leaves spread under rose bushes will greatly help prevent powdery mildew on the roses
don’t plant tomatoes and potatoes together as they will transfer disease to each other
to help control disease clean your garden of all plant material in fall, especially tomato leaves and fruit. Can also add a thin layer of garden lime to your garden soil before you till in fall. Don’t compost tomato fruit or leaves – too large a risk of carrying disease from year to year

Powdery mildew

Can be controlled with a solution of 1Tbsp baking soda, ½ tsp dish soap mixed with 4 liters of water. Don’t spray in the full sun and don’t store unused solution