If you have a garden, you  have pests. There is always something looking for a free meal, and your luscious garden produce looks a lot like an all you can eat  buffet to many insects. Pest management can be broken down into 2 parts, the first of which is, or at least should be, pest prevention. The second is pest control. Prevention is always better than dealing with the aftermath. Control is what you do when you failed to prevent. We understand this with auto accidents, and disease, but often forget when it comes to our homes and gardens.

Pest prevention

Pest prevention in organic gardens is really a matter of keeping your plants healthy. Healthy plants ward off fungus, disease, and insects, and healthy plants are a result of having the right plants in the right place with the right conditions. This is accomplished by taking a few steps that most organic gardeners do instinctively. These tips for pest prevention in organic gardens can serve as a reminder for those who have been involved in organic farming for a while, and as a checklist if you are new to the craft.

Choose the right varieties

Choosing a variety of plant that is resistant to your local pests is a great first step in avoiding pest problems down the line. The right plants will favor insects which pollinate, and those that eat other insects. Talk to other gardeners and even your local county extension agent to learn what works and what doesn’t in your area.

Grouping plants according to elemental needs

Group for water and sunlight. Some plants need more sunshine than others, some need wet conditions, some need dry. Grouping your plantings according to their elemental needs will go a long way toward keeping them healthy, and free of pests.

Attention to the plants internal calender

Plant at the proper times If a plant is trying to grow in opposition to what it’s genetics are telling it to do, it will be weak and pest prone. Try to match your plantings with your season.

Soil structure

Improve soil structure Organic gardeners automatically have a head start on pest control, since organic gardening tends to have some aspects of pest prevention built-in to the process, due in large part to the emphasis on good soil structure. Loose, well aerated soil, with plenty of organic matter creates a healthy environment for plant roots

Soil fertility

Balance soil fertility Good fertility leads to healthy plants, and healthy plants are less susceptible to pests. Overly lush, over fertilized plants are easy targets for garden predators, and under fertilized plants are weak and susceptible to unwanted insects.

Soil moisture

Water properly. Properly balanced watering according to the needs of the plant, will strengthens plants, while under watering weakens plants and makes insect attacks inevitable. Over watering can cause the same problems, and create a few new pest problems in the process.

If these factors are balanced, your garden plants will be healthier, and more disease and pest resistant, thus preventing the majority of pest problems. Failing this, or if other factors have conspired to bring on a pest invasion, or if some pests just managed to get through the prevention barrier, it may be necessary to resort to pest control.

Pest control

Organic pest management methods are separated into 3 types, biological, and botanical and physical.

Biological

Biological pest control is one method suitable to organic gardening. Biological pest controls include lady bugs, spiders, praying mantis, and other bugs that feed on the insects feeding on your garden.

Botanical

Botanical pest management agents are made from plant oils and naturally occurring pyrethrins. There are products available to target and safely kill unwanted pests, but like most commercial insecticides, they will kill beneficial insects as well, so caution should be exercised.

Physical

Physical pest control is the removal of pests by hand. This is often done with a stream of water, a net, or by picking the bugs from the plant using the fingers. This method is often slow and tedious, but can be effective in many situations.

Pest prevention in organic gardens is really a matter of keeping your plants healthy. This is accomplished by taking a few steps that most organic gardeners do instinctively. These 6 tips for pest prevention in organic gardens can serve as a reminder for those who have been involved in organic farming for a while, and as a checklist if you are new to the craft.

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There are a few basic principles which guide successful organic gardeners, and they are simple enough that a child can learn them easily, incidentally, getting your children involved can be another great benefit. Organic gardening principles are pretty simple and basic, in fact, they boil down to one thing: Balancing the elements. Balance is the key to many areas of life, we have to do it every day. We balance such things as work with family life, or relaxation and exercise, and how well we do that determines how well we get along in life. Gardening is no exception to this principle.

Balance in soil fertility and plant material

Balance in soil fertility is important for the healthy growth not only of the plants themselves, but also the soil microbes necessary for the continuation of proper soil structure and fertility. Organic growing involves the recycling of decaying plant material for soil structure and nutrients. Proper balance between the nitrogen needed for microbes to break down the decaying plant matter and the decaying plant matter itself must be maintained to continue the cycle.

Balance in variety

Variety in the insect world is needed. Insects that pollinate plants should be present in sufficient abundance pollinate the garden. Insects that eat other insects such as ladybugs, spiders, and the praying mantis perform pest control work. Some plant types ward off bugs with natural insecticides and repellents, and some, like sweet potatoes, even keep other plants and weeds away. Having a diverse selection makes success more likely.

Balance in varieties

Having the proper plant varieties, at the proper time, and in the proper places goes a long way toward the balance needed for successful organic produce production. Weak plants invite insects and disease, and plants grown out of season, or in an other situations that compromise their health will be susceptible.

Balance in soil moisture

Having the proper balance in soil moisture will aid in avoiding disease, fungus, and insects. Planting moisture loving plants at the bottom of a slope is much better than planting them at the top where water is likely to run off quickly. Moisture loving plants will languish in dry areas, and drought tolerant plants will usually suffer where there is a high level of water. Place your plants accordingly.

Balance in light

Light is important to plant growth and health. There are sun loving plants, and shade loving plants, and they should be placed accordingly. There is a good deal of variety in vegetables, so you can probably find something that will produce in almost every available spot that you choose to plant.

Balancing these factors is the key to organic home vegetable gardening. Proper balance of these elements will ward of disease, fungus, and insects, and provide optimum growing conditions for your garden plants. As in everyday life, balance is the difference between success and failure.

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Organic vegetable gardening is not some magical, mystical process attainable by only a select few gardening guru’s or former hippies living in mud huts. Organic produce can be grown in the smallest spaces, and by common people, no matter what their demographic. Organic food offers many health advantages, and growing your own organic vegetables can save a bundle of green at the market.

Gardening can be a great way to promote family unity, family wealth, and family health. Especially if done organically. It can provide education and opportunities for the growth the children as well as the vegetables. Organic gardening can save you some money by supplementing the families groceries with a fresh supply, straight from the backyard, and can even provide extra cash and a lesson in capitalism if you want to set up a temporary curbside vegetable stand for your extras, or create better neighborhood relations if you give it away to the folks down the block. Good nutrition, education, self reliance, and financial well being, all from a little plot in your backyard, and some therapeutic labor. What’s not to like about that?

Organic gardening is good for you and your family because it involves connecting with your food, eating healthy food, and healthful family activity, not to mention the benefits to your pocketbook. There are a few things that you should consider before you get started:

Things to consider before you start:

1. Find out what will grow in your area. You may want to grow citrus fruit and bananas, but if you live too far above the equator, you will find it difficult to succeed without some serious alterations. Plan your organic garden realistically with plants that grow well in your area. Find your region, and check your plants and seed to be certain that they will grow well where you live.
2. Determine the amount of light available for growing. If your garden space is walled in by high buildings, or tall trees, you may need to consider plants that love shade, or need only a few hours of sunlight per day to thrive. Attempting to grow sun-loving plants in the shade can be frustrating.
3. Decide how much space you will need for growing your organic garden, and how much space you actually have. Unless you have several acres available, growing a significant amount of most cereal grains will be out of the question. If grains are a must, consider corn grown in small blocks of space and shade loving crops between rows. There are ways to win the space war using containers and vertical gardening, So don’t let lack of space keep you from starting your garden.

Consider these ideas before you begin, draw up a plan including what plants you will use in what positions in your garden, get the supplies you need, and get started. There are very few problems you can’t overcome with the proper information and a little creativity.

Finding organic vegetable garden space

One of the biggest problems for most organic gardeners is finding space. You may have the knowledge, you may have the experience, you may have the tools and materials for a fantastic organic garden, but if you can’t find the space to get your plants in the ground or containers, your garden is just a dream. Don’t let the dream fade! There are many ways to find the space for your vegetables even if your space seems limited. You just have to think outside the box, and in more than one dimension.

Get rid of your lawn

If you have a lawn, get rid of it, or at least enough of it to grow your garden. Lawns are resource hogs, so why not make that space work for you and turn part of yours into a garden.

Well maintained lawns were once the domain of the wealthy, but at some point in the last half of the last century home lawns for middle class Americans became the standard. It is safe to say that Americans spend more on lawn care annually than on any other aspect of home maintenance.

Lawns require a lot of resources. These resources are in the form of water, fertilizer, pesticides, equipment and labor and the cost can be enormous. The average lawn size, front and back, is about a quarter acre. The average monthly cost for lawn care is somewhere in the neighborhood of $200.00 per month, or $2,400.00 per year. The average first time home buyer never considers this cost until the mowing starts.

Typically, 30 to 60 pounds each of nitrogen and phosphorous are applied to the home lawn in a year, along with an unmeasurable quantity of herbicide and insecticide, and irrigation amounts are somewhere around 60 inches per season, and labor time comes in at 10 hours or more per month during the growing season. All of this to have a pretty, green showplace for your neighbors to admire.

There is a way you can avoid some of these expenses, and even get a pay off. Yes, a pay off!

Simply get rid of that resource draining lawn and raise a garden in it’s place! Instead of spending all that time and money on growing grass, grow something that will save you money at the supermarket. It is good for the environment, good for your health, and good for your pocketbook.

You don’t even have to do it all at once. If you are afraid of suffering lawn withdrawal you can get rid of a section at a time. Once you get started, you will probably not stop until your lawn is all gone and your pantry all full!

Replace your landscape

Use the space that your landscape plants now occupy. Remove those old non productive shrub hedges and plant attractive peppers, cabbages, kale, squash, sweet potatoes or other plants in their place. In some parts of the country, there are native dwarf fruit trees that might be suitable replacements for standard landscape bed plants, and fruiting vines that could be trained on a trellis to add variety if you want to use perennials.

Use fruit and nut trees

Replace small to medium decorative trees with fruit trees. Fruit trees are attractive additions to home landscapes. If you are just starting to landscape a new place, instead of using the standard dooryard or shade trees, use a nut tree native to the area. The magnificent pecan tree makes both a great and attractive shade tree, and is the source of a delicious high oil, high protein nut perfect for human consumption. There are dozens of other choices, and one is just right for your area.

Patio gardening

Consider building a raised bed on part of your patio, or using your patio as a container garden. You can even build shelves or racks to increase available space. This is a great spot for a raised bed, or a cold frame which can also be a hot bed for extending your growing season at both ends of the calender. A pergola over the top can serve as a great arbor for fruit and vegetable vines, which brings me to my next suggestion:

Take your garden to new heights

Get out of the box, and start thinking of gardening on a different plane. Go vertical instead of just horizontal. Grow vine plants on a trellis, wire, arbor, or your fence. You can even line your wooden fence with racks and shelves for container plants. Think vertical, and grow your garden to new heights!

Find more vegetable garden information here!

I am sure you can think of other unusual ways of finding space, creating space, or making better use of available space for your gardening project, just don’t let conventionality get in the way of your healthy organic vegetable garden, and be sure to share your thoughts, ideas, tips, and suggestions on gardening in our comment section.

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One big problem for many home gardeners or small space farmers is finding enough space. You may have the knowledge, you may have the experience, you may have the tools and materials for a fantastic home garden, but if you can't find the space to get your plants planted, your garden is just a dream.

Don't let the dream disappear! There are many ways to find the space for your vegetables even if your space seems limited. You just have to think outside the box, and on more than one plane.

1. If you have a lawn, plow it under, or at least enough of it to grow your garden. Lawns use a lot of resources, so why not make that space work for you and turn part of yours into a small farm.
2. Use the space that your landscape plants now occupy. Remove those old shrubs and plant peppers, cabbages, kale, squash, sweet potatoes or other naturally decorative plants in their place.
3. Replace decorative trees with fruit trees. Fruit trees are attractive additions to home landscapes, and offer many other advantages, particularly, the fruit!
4. Build a raised bed on your patio area, or use your patio as a platform for a container garden. You can even build shelving or racks to increase available space.
5. Grow vine plants on a trellis, wire, arbor, or your fence. You can even line your wooden fence with racks and shelves for container plants. Think vertical, and grow your garden to new heights on new planes!

I am sure you can think of other unusual ways of finding space, creating space, or making better use of available space for your gardening project, just don't let traditional thinking of what a home garden or even a landscape should look like get in the way of your gardening venture.

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Plowing, planting, and growing and digging sweet potatoes can be a pretty big job, especially when done on a large scale for the market. It can be daunting for a kid when he looks down the row in both directions, and can’t see either end! Of course, they, along with all the other crops we grew paid the bills, and there were always plenty to eat.

In fact, there is one way to eat sweet potatoes which almost made the whole process worthwhile by itself. Baked sweet potatoes, with lots of butter.

You can have all the sweet potato pies, and sweet potato fries, and candied yams, just give me mine baked, hot out of the oven with a pat of butter!

I can remember walking up the long hill after school, with the fragrance of baked sweet potatoes floating in the cool autumn breeze. It was a calming influence, and meant that the crops were in, the summer heat was over, and Thanksgiving and Christmas were on the way.

How do you prepare such a delicacy? All it takes is sweet potatoes, preferably about 2 to 3 inches in diameter, foil, an oven, and patience.

This is how it’s done:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Wash the sweet potatoes.
3. Slice off a small part of the ends of each.
4. Wrap the sweet potatoes in the foil.
5. Place the foil wrapped sweet potatoes in a baking pan.
6. Place the pan in the heated oven.
7. Cook for from 30 to 70 minutes determined by size and maturity.
8. The skin will be a dark brown on the outside and blackened on the inside and the potato will be soft when done.

Some juices will probably leak out during the process. This is normal.

• Allow them to cool a little while to make working with them easy.
• Unwrap the foil, and remove the potato.
• Place it on a plate.
• Slice lengthwise.
• Add butter
• Eat

Notice that there is no spice added. Why ruin a perfectly flavored dish?

Learn to grow, cure and store sweet potatoes:

Growing Sweet Potato Slips

Curing And Storing Sweet Potatoes

Sweet Potatoes The Curing Process

For even more information on the subject of sweet potatoes see:

Sweet Potato Culture for Profit. a Full Account of the Origin, History and Botanical Characteristics of the Sweet Potato

Sweet Potato: An Untapped Food Resource

The Sweet Potato: A Handbook for the Practical Grower [ 1921 ]

Sweet Potato: Post Harvest Aspects in Food, Feed and Industry (Food Science and Technology)

Sweet potato culture. Giving full instructions from starting the plants to harvesting and storing the crop

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Native Americans, and other early agrarian and semi agrarian societies developed farming techniques based on companion planting which still make sense today. Whether these developments occurred as a result of religious beliefs, or whether the religious beliefs used to explain the method were developed as a result of the technique and a need to develop ideas to perpetuate this knowledge is a source of debate among modern thinkers, but either way, the fact that the methods exist, and work, is not in question.

Similar practices have existed in other cultures, along with the pairing of foods that compliment each other in ways that science now understands as being necessary for the utilization of plant nutrients for the human body. Whether these combination came about for religious reasons, nutritional reasons, or agricultural reasons, or a combination of all may be a matter for cultural anthropology, but whatever the reason, the modern gardener can benefit from the practice in the same manner as his agrarian predecessors.

A Native American practice for home gardens

A common companion planting example is the method known as the “3 Sisters” technique. We are not able to assign a precise age to this practice, or an exact time period when the terminology, and religious significance came into being, but it seems to have been widespread in a variety of native American cultures since very early times.

Complimentary planting with the 3 Sisters method

The 3 Sister concept is very simple. Corn or maize is planted in a block for the purpose of self pollination. Vine, or pole beans are planted between the stalks, using the stalks for support, and squash are mixed into the garden providing a living mulch.

• All the normal methods for soil preparation, like adding and incorporating organic matter should be done in advance.
• Planting should begin after the danger of frost is past, and when night time low temperatures exceed 50 degrees.

The practice consists of:

1. Planting the corn in mounds, or “hills” about 5 feet apart. 4 seed per hill is the standard.
2. When the corn reaches a height of about 4 inches, the entire plot should be weeded carefully, and the beans should be planted, 4 per hill around the corn stalks.
3. The squash should be planted at the same time as the beans, but centered between the hills of corn and beans, with 4 seeds per hill. The squash will need to be thinned to 2 per hill after they developed leaves.

Note that this 4 seed planting process is similar to the old folk saying; (my father still used it as a rule of thumb when I was young) “one for the mouse, one for the crow, one to wilt, and one to grow” or some of the hundreds of variations of the saying.

Ideally, the Corn will develop ahead of the beans, providing a natural trellis for the beans to grow onto. The beans, being legumes, will “fix” nitrogen into the soil for use by the other crops, and the squash, after they reach maturity, will provide ground cover, or shading to help prevent the growth of unwanted grass and weeds.

Companion nutrition

Nutritionally, the food from this garden is complementary as well, most notably, providing protein from the beans, complex carbohydrates from the grain, and mineral nutrients and oils from the squash for a balanced meal. Companion planting, and companion nutrition work well together.

See also: http://HomeAndGardenPress.info

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Grapes can be grown in most areas of these United States, but you will need to choose your varieties based on your region.

What you will need:

Growing area

A place to grow the grapes. Ideally, this would be an area that has full sunlight, southern exposure, and fertile, deep, well drained soil. The first two, full sunlight, and southern exposure, are a must. As for the soil, you can modify it to suit your needs. The soil should be cultivated to a depth of 1 to 2 feet (the deeper the better), and should have plenty of organic matter to help it drain well.

Support

The support that I am talking about is not the moral or physical support that you may need to get your grape growing underway, although that too can help from time to time. The support that I am talking about is a system to support your vines to keep them off the ground. This is, of course, a trellis. Some systems are better than others, but the basic trellis can be something as simple as a couple of t-posts driven into the ground with a wire stretched between them, or as complicated as a classic arbor.

Grape vines what type?

You will, of course, have to have grape vines. The varieties you choose are largely a function of your specific region, so you are going to have to do a little research here. There are a number of books, and periodicals on the subject, and the internet has hundreds of articles about growing grapes. There is also one of the most underused resources in the country no more than a phone call away. Your area agriculture extension agent. These guys are wealth of information, and can offer some guidance on other grape growing issues as well. There is another resource available which can help you in every single aspect of growing grapes, and I will give you that information at the end of this article.

Grape vines how to get them

After you have decided what grows well in your area, you can choose from those varieties. Now, how do you acquire the grape vines you need? You can often find rooted cuttings or potted plants at your local nursery. There are nurseries online who will probably have what you need, or if you want to really get involved in the whole experience, you can locate vines of your chosen type and take cuttings. The best time of the year to extract cuttings is just after the grape vines enter dormancy. You will need a cutting with four buds. Make a smooth, clean angled cut about a quarter inch from the bottom bud. If the buds angle does not give a clear indication of which end is the basal end, you may want to mark the basal end so you know which end goes into the ground. Make the top cut angled as well, and an inch or so from the highest bud. Plant these in a potting soil mix which drains well and keep them watered regularly. The cutting should be planted to a depth to cover the bottom two buds.

Let them grow that way until the following years planting season before planting them in the prepared rows.

For further information

What I have given here is a basic outline of the grape growing process. There is a lot of information needed to fill in the gaps. Rather than reinventing the wheel, we decided to make available the most comprehensive grape growing system available today, from an expert in the field.

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More natural, and native style gardens may offer answers to some of the difficulties facing the homeowner. Traditional lawns require a lot of resources like extra water, fertilizer and pesticides to keep them looking the way we have grown accustomed to seeing them.

Good landscape planning using native trees, shrubs and ground covers may produce more efficient results. Perhaps even backyard wildlife habitats will become the gardens of the future as we head toward predicted times of more water use restrictions for lawns. The cost associated with traditional lawn irrigation can be expensive as well. Having a huge lawn and not having the water available to irrigate it could become a big brown ugly fact of life in many states.

If lawn care costs are getting you down, you might consider this idea from the “green” community: To be more green, have less green! By less green, we mean less turf covered area. Turf grasses are pretty efficient at cycling water and nutrients if they are fed and watered properly, and they do a good job of providing clean oxygen, but most of them are not native to our area, no, not even Bermuda grass, and they require more nutrients, and more water than other types of plants in order to maintain that lush green color we all love! They also require an inordinate amount of pesticides compared to trees, shrubs, and ground covers.

This extra cost and attention results from the need to modify the environment to allow a non native species to thrive in it. Sometimes the modifications can be relatively small, but in many cases they become nearly all consuming.

Planting native trees and shrubs can be a nice alternative, and offer a little relief for your pocketbook in these tough times. There are even some pest control benefits if you plant the right combination. If birds are attracted to your yard, they will handle a lot of your pest control for you!

You don’t even have to suffer the ravages of massive lawn and landscape renovation projects to accomplish this. Renovation can occur over a long period of time, gradually allowing and encouraging a more native habitat to take over the non native habitat. The results can be amazing.

Native habitat advantages

Natural, garden like habitats are:

• Less thirsty for water beyond what the weather in an are naturaly provides.
• Less hungry for extra nutrients.
• Less likely to suffer from weather conditions in your area.
• Less likely to be destroyed by pests.
• Less likely to attract pests.
• Less likely to attract non native predators.
• Less likely to cause biodiversity problems.
• More likely to thrive.
• More likely to attract native species which eat pests.
• They will not escape into the wild and displace other natives.

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Garden Shed Uses Garden Shed Placement

Portable buildings, that is, the common buildings used for outdoor storage, can serve many practical functions around the home, and even in the workplace. There is one spot around the home where work and home life meet on a regular basis and that place is the home lawn and garden. Garden sheds are versatile, and can be used as tool sheds, potting sheds, material storage sheds and more. Garden shed placement is important for your convenience, and for the good of your lawn and garden.

Garden shed uses

Garden buildings can be great for getting your tools and materials organized to make the work a lot easier and less stressful. Garden sheds can be set up with racks to hold tools, shelves to hold materials, ramps for driving or pushing lawn and garden equipment inside, and benches for garden work like potting plants, or sharpening tools.

Garden shed placement and precautions

When setting up your garden building, caution should be used to avoid creating new problems during placement. It would be a sad irony to create more work for yourself by trying to make your work more convenient.

Outdoor sheds and irrigation

Garden sheds should be set up properly to avoid causing problems. If the garden building is placed inside the irrigated area of the yard, the building will block irrigation somewhere, which will prevent a part of your lawn from receiving water. In such cases your irrigation will need to be adjusted to accommodate.

Backyard sheds and lawn layout

The outdoor shed will also change the layout of your lawn, and you will need to decide before placement whether you need it a little closer to the fence or a little further away to accommodate your mowing and trimming.

Garden sheds effects on shade and heat

The new garden shed will also pose a few potential problems that may be less obvious. The building will provide shade over an area that was not shaded before, and it will also intensify the heat from the sun in other places. This can be a problem for shade loving plants which might suffer from the added heat of the sunny side.

Conclusion:

Be sure to plan carefully for available space, making sure everything will fit. Keep in mind that the irrigation, and shade and light situation will change, and make any adjustments in the irrigation system and placement, as well as plant placement in the landscape which might be needed to avoid shade and heat problems related to your garden shed placement.

Garden sheds keep your tools safe and more

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