15 Steps for Disease Prevention in Your Garden
April 23, 2009 by admin
Filed under Featured, Knowledge Drop
You have fewer tools for fighting diseases in your garden than for eliminating pests. You get a pest, you pick it off, hit it with insecticidal soap, go after it with natural elimination methods. With diseases, in many instances, your best bet is to to destroy the individual diseased plant. There are very few practical and effective methods to control of plant disease on an individual plant; however, removal of the diseased plant is effective control for your garden as an entirety.
Your first step in disease control is being able to recognize the disease and determine the identity of the pestilence. Always keep in mind that many fungal problems are not fatal and do not harm the production of the plant. Don’t panic at the first sight of yellow spots or a single yellow leaf on your plant. Look at the overall health of the plant. If it looks hearty and vigorous, let it sit for a spell. If your plant is withering and deteriorating very rapidly, you have a viral of bacterial pestilence and the plant should be destroyed.
In order to control disease in your garden, you must spend time with your garden. Look at your plants and notice changes in their appearance. Most problems with your plants will be caused by insects and not diseases. By doing research, paying attention, and gaining experience, you will learn the difference. Unfortunately, experience is another word for dying plants. I was listening to the radio the other day and the host of the garden show opined that you are not a gardener until you have killed a hundred plants. That is how you gain experience. So don’t worry, don’t be afraid, and start growing.
Unfortunately, not every disease has a unique set of symptoms. Many symptoms are causes by more than on plant plant disease. In any event, plant diseases can be divided into five broad categories: environmental, fungal, bacterial, viral, and nematode. The insidious diseases make things difficult for you because the symptoms that you see cannot be easily segregated by category. You will learn to distinguish between the diseases because some are more common than others and your experience from previous years will inform your response to the outbreak. You won’t get the necessary experience unless you get started. So while there is some overlap in the symptoms from the categories, don’t worry about it too much. Each type of pestilence mentioned above can be recognized by is symptom set.
If you are just getting started gardening, look to be beset by environmental diseases first. Those will be followed by fungal diseases. Bacterial, viral, and nematode disease are the least frequent visitors to your little plot of heaven.
Symptom identification is the most important step in combating plant disease in your garden. You have to recognize the symptom in order to diagnose and treat the problem. A common disease symptom that you should look for is yellowing of the leaves. Make sure that you observe which leaves are yellowing: all of them, just the young ones, leaf edges, between the veins of the leaf, old leaves only, irregular spots on the leaves, round spots on the leaves, dots, or mosaic patterns. Next check for brown areas on your leaves: the edges, the tips, brown spots on all leaves, brown sections on the leaves, or brown on the edge and in the middle. The other symptoms to look for are water soaked appearance, greasy appearance, plant mysteriously and unexpectedly up and dies, rotten leaves, rotten fruit, abnormal growth, wilting plant, and defoliation. In order to protect your plants from disease, you have to spend time with them. Get out in your garden and get your hands dirty.
While this article is too short to provide specific detail on on all diseases and their prevention and treatment, I can provide you with fifteen steps to help prevent disease in your garden plot. Remember that an ounce of prevention is a pound of cure. In order to have the healthiest garden possible, you should 1) build healthy soil, 2) use compost, 3)Plant disease resistant varieties of your plants, 4) Rotate your crops, 5) Use foliar spray, 6) Use Mulch, 7) Get rid of the transmission method, 
Water plants before noon, 9)Properly clean out your garden in the fall, 10) Sterilize your soil with solarization, 11) Use drip irrigation to prevent fungal infestation, 12) Keep your tools clean, 13) In order to avoid fungal disease spread, don’t work with your plants when they are wet, 14) Mow under your fruit trees and remove the clippings and fruit tree leaves to the compost pile, 15) Go outside, pay attention to your plants, garden, gain experience, and keep a garden journal!
If you have any tips, I’d love to hear from you!
Organic Tomato Success Kits…More Stuff We Love…
April 22, 2009 by John
Filed under Our Favorite Products
I used to have an earth box. This looks like an pretty version of that. I am a big fan of anything that helps people get into gardening and have success. This is just the ticket…
The Organic Tomato Success Kit in Terra Cotta. The Gardner’s Supply Company’s Our Tomato Success Kits have helped thousands of gardeners from beginners to experts grow big crops of delicious tomatoes. They recently improved the kits by using all organic growing medium and fertilizer. Field tests prove that tomatoes grown in these success kits out-produce garden-grown plants by 30% or more, with fewer disease and pest problems. The kits include everything you need for a bumper crop. The heart of the system is our patented self-watering planter with a 4-gallon reservoir that lets you enjoy self-watering convenience, while your plants receive a steady flow of water and nutrients all season long. A strong, rust-resistant steel support cage clips on to prevent plants from toppling. Also included are 40 quarts of OMRI-certified Organic Self-Watering Container Mix, 1 lb. of our Organic Tomato Fertilizer, and a sheet of red plastic mulch to speed ripening and help boost yields.
Organic Tomato Success Kit, Terra Cotta
Use the special noted previously and save money! Eat fresh organic tomatoes!
Heirloom Tomatoes – Great Tasting and Easy To Grow
April 22, 2009 by admin
Filed under Knowledge Drop
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| What’s an Heirloom? Modern supermarket “hybrids,” are bred for their long shelf-life, but classic “heirloom” varieties are picked for their superior flavors.  There are hundreds of varieties of heirlooms that gardeners aroundthe world have carefully selected and preserved for generations, so you’ll find much more than just red tomatoes – you’ll discover green, yellow, orange, purple, and even black ones (man say these tastes best). Some will be sweet, some spicy and others smokey; they’ll range in size from tiny cherries to giant fruit that weigh over two pounds. |
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How
Do I Pick?  With so many heirloom varieties, nurseries and chain stores are only able to carry a limited selection, so small gardeners have been stuck with just a few options. Recently though, specialty farms have begun shipping sturdy young plants direct to gardeners. Some even offer themed collections made up of popular varieties, so picking which plants to grow is easy. You can find these collections and a huge selection of individual varieties through websites like the online gardening center, Windowbox.com. They offer a range of packs, each with a different theme, including: beefsteak tomatoes container growers, high yeild plants, huge fruit plants, Italian paste & sauce, weather tolerant, cherry tomatoes, and more. |
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| From UPS to BLT Once you’ve got the right plants for you, it’s just a matter of raising them. Thankfully, heirlooms are hardy (they have to be to have lasted so long), and they’re easy to grow. Most heirlooms are “indeterminate,” which means they grow like a vine, and they’ll produce fruit all season long – until the first frost. “Determinate” plants are more like a bush, and they typically produce all their tomatoes in one batch. Depending on which you’ve selected, they’ll require slightly different care. Basically though, with sun, water, a little fertilizer and pruning, you’ll be enjoying delicious tomatoes all summer long. |
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Where
Do I get Help?  Many tomato growers share their knowledge on the web, and this increased communication has helped the heirloom community expand significantly. Many sites feature growing hints and tips as well as discussion forums. Windowbox.com offers a detailed tomato growing guide (download here) that is a great help throughout the season, and if that’s not enough, their group of online experts shares basic growing tips and answers specific questions. |
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Mole and Vole Control
April 21, 2009 by admin
Filed under Featured, Knowledge Drop
Natural Deer Repellent
April 21, 2009 by John
Filed under Featured, Knowledge Drop
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