There’s nothing more heartbreaking than losing your garden to pests and diseases. Whether it’s a rabbit stealing carrots (excuse the stereotype, not every rabbit likes carrots…sometimes they eat your lettuce too!) or hornworms gutting your tomatoes, or powdery mildew yucking up your pumpkins—it can feel like a major loss when food gardening is such a labor of love.
Companion planting is one solution to such chaos. This is the practice of pairing plants that are beneficial to each other. For example, the tomato hornworm hates basil, and some say planting basil close to tomatoes makes them taste better, so it’s a win-win!
You can also make a homemade bug spray for vegetable plants by mixing neem oil with dish soap and some water, which will keep bugs from attaching to the leaves of your plants, making it harder for them to get to your produce.
For bigger pests like deer and birds, you can throw nets over bushes, and put up fences around trees to deter them.
There is so much more to talk about when it comes to pests and diseases because there is an unlimited amount of doom coming for every vegetable garden, but that’s part of the fun, right? Still you didn’t plant a garden not to eat it, so there has to be a limit to how much one wants to undertake with their fruits and vegetables before they start heading back to the grocery store for watery fruits and limp veggies.
In the articles below, we dive into everything you need to know about repelling pests and diseases in your food garden, and you can learn even more about them in our How to Grow a Vegetable Garden: 10 Things Every Gardener Needs to Know Before Starting a Food Garden freebie. Enjoy!
If you find small, dry, round holes in your tubers, look more closely, and you may discover wireworms in potatoes. Wireworms can cause significant damage in a garden, but they especially seem drawn to potatoes, carrots, and corn. How can you tell that you have wireworms? And what should you do if you find them? […]
If you love good guacamole, you probably already know who is eating your cilantro – everybody! Cilantro is thought to be one of the first herbs enjoyed by humans, going back at least as far as 5000 BC. Well, except for the 25% of people who think it tastes like soap, but for the rest of us, cilantro is a staple in good cuisine! Then you have the bonus: their seeds—also known as the spice called coriander.
Alternaria leaf spot, sometimes called black spot, is common in Brassica crops. Symptoms of this fungal disease include small, black lesions with a yellow ring around them. In its more advanced stages, the disease spreads, and these black spots grow into concentric rings, often with holes in the center. And eventually, individual spots meet, leaving […]
I love strawberries. They’re the perfect little fruit, too. You can cool off on a hot day with a glass of strawberry lemonade. They make a wonderfully sweet addition to yogurt at breakfast. Strawberries work well in a salad with a splash of balsamic vinaigrette. And, of course, you can never go wrong with a strawberry and rhubarb pie!
I imagine at one point most gardeners have wondered how to attract ladybugs to their food garden. I know I have. These gorgeous little beetles, with their bright red wings and black spots are stunning, especially when they land on a bright yellow squash blossom. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing ladybugs are the […]
Rabbits are the most adorable little critters. They twitch their little noses and hop around, making the world around them seem like an idyllic meadow, even if you’re in an urban or suburban setting. That’s all lovely – unless they’re eating your garden
I don’t like to write about vegetable blight. Usually, when someone starts asking about it, it’s already too late. That’s especially true in smaller gardens where you may only have a few tomato plants, which could be infected before you realize it.
Every year, without fail, birds come to my garden and wreak havoc. They peck at my blueberries, poop on my lettuce, and nab my strawberries. I thought I’d tried everything to deter them. I considered getting a cat. I’ve even resorted to reading about ancient methods of bird deterrents for gardens. The two main ways […]
There may or may not be a wizard of Oz. Even the movie wasn’t entirely clear on that. And there may or may not be a Glinda, a good witch. One thing is for sure, though. There is a wicked witch! Several, actually, in the form of invasive worm species. Usually, we think of worms […]
They hide in your garden in the cold of winter, emerging in spring to feed on the stems of your young, vulnerable seedlings. They are cutworms. And if you don’t know how to stop cutworms before they get started, they can decimate your garden. Luckily, there is some defense against these quiet night-feeders. However, you […]
