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Pests & Diseases

10 Helpful Plants for Bug Control in Your Kitchen Garden

The joy of growing a kitchen garden in your yard is imagining the delicious recipes and meals you’ll create using your home-grown herbs and vegetables. Do you know what gets in the way of that joy? Bugs. Gross, invasive, plant-eating, vegetable-killing bugs! I’m looking at you, Tomato Hornworm! I’ll never forget the first time I grew a large crop of tomatoes. I would pop outside to check on my kitchen garden and see that some of my tomatoes had been chewed, and others were missing leaves or stems were completely bare.

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Pests & Diseases

How to Treat & Prevent 5 Common Vegetable Diseases

As gardeners, there’s no shortage of disappointments out there waiting to swoop in and ruin the enjoyment of your garden. Rabbits may eat your strawberries, seeds may never germinate, and your nosy neighbor might tell you all the ways he thinks you’re planting your cucumbers wrong. But vegetable diseases are on another level. 

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Pests & Diseases

How to Make an Invisible Deer Fence for Garden Protection

I love deer. They’re beautiful, graceful, serene animals. I also hate deer. They eat the apples from my tree, munch on my kale, and eat my strawberries. How do I reconcile these feelings? Invisible deer fence, of course! If you’re new to the idea of an invisible deer fence, it’s not the work of wizards […]

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Pests & Diseases

The Best Organic DIY Insecticide for Indoor and Hydroponic Food Gardens

I love my indoor garden for several reasons, but mostly because I don’t love outdoor garden pests. Well, maybe except for those cute rabbits that I always plant a little extra for in my outdoor garden. I also don’t love using harsh chemicals on my vegetables. It’s beyond me how they can kill insects yet be perfectly benign otherwise. Granted, I’m not a chemist, and maybe I’ve watched a few too many episodes of X-Files, but I prefer the DIY insecticide approach. 

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Pests & Diseases

7 Causes of Hydroponic Root Rot and 7 Solutions

Hydroponic gardens come with plenty of benefits. You can grow year-round, no matter where you live. You may enjoy higher yields, and hydroponic systems usually require less water than traditional gardens. But hydroponic planting is not problem-free, and one of the biggest of those problems is hydroponic root rot.  The pathogen that causes both terrestrial […]

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Pests & Diseases

How to Prevent Squash Bugs from Overwintering

First you notice yellow or brown spots on the leaves of your squash and zucchini plants. Then the plant begins to wilt. Your established plants begin to lose runners. Younger plants die. It must be the arch nemesis of cucurbits: the squash bug.  When it comes to these garden pests, your best bet is to […]

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Pests & Diseases

How to Prevent Indoor Garden Pests During the Winter

My most eventful experience with indoor garden pests happened a few winters ago. One of my neighbors handed over a gorgeous basil plant that had spent the summer outside in the sunshine. She didn’t have room for it in her home, so I was the lucky recipient.  Thinking how awesome it would be to have […]

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Pests & Diseases

5 Reasons to Try Soil Solarization This Year (and 3 Reasons Not To)

Ta-da! That’s what my daughter says when she presents a magic trick. Pull a coin from behind my ear, and you’ll soon hear “ta-da!” A rabbit pulled from a hat is accompanied by expansive gestures and, of course, a hearty “ta-da!” So what’s that got to do with soil solarization? Well, it’s kind of like […]

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Pests & Diseases

What Are These White Tiny Bugs on Plants in my Garden?

Gardening is a truly fascinating hobby. It’s biology, nature, outside time, and a little bit of zen all mixed together. And the results end up on your dinner table. Not bad. How cool is it that a handful of tiny little seeds will give you an abundance of vegetables and herbs a few months after you plant them? Except, sometimes gardening is a confusing and frustrating experience. Like when your formerly thriving garden now has white tiny bugs on plants from tomatoes to cucumbers to eggplants. And they’re eating away at what was supposed to be your dinner.

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Pests & Diseases

10 Pest Repelling Plants That Keep Bugs Away Naturally

My first garden was a success…almost. I remember watching the tomato leaves develop little buds that soon turned into tiny little green tomato babies. My zucchini was just starting to blossom. And the cucumbers! There were so many cucumbers! What I didn’t have in my garden, however, was a variety of pest repelling plants. And because I found out too late that I needed some of those plants, my garden soon turned into a very disappointing learning experience.