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!
Grocery store tomatoes don’t stand a chance compared to the fresh homegrown variety. From cherry tomatoes grown in containers to heirloom and hybrid beefsteak varieties, nothing beats a tomato grown at home. That is unless you’re unlucky and find yellowing leaves on your tomato plants.
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.
The Japanese flying beetle is quite the looker. The metallic green head and shiny copper wings make it look more like a jewel than a garden-destroying invader. Since the beetle’s accidental introduction to the United States in 1916, it has spread and flourished across most of the country.
You’ve likely come across Botrytis rot, otherwise known as gray mold, on your fruits, vegetables, or other plants at some point. In cool, damp conditions, the fungus Botrytis cinerea can spread quickly and infect anything from blueberries and strawberries to eggplants, onions, carrots, beans, and artichokes. In fact, as far back as 1918, Botrytis rot was a […]
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
It’s a beautiful, early-fall day. You got ambitious a couple of years ago, and you now have three gorgeous apple trees around your garden. As you get closer, though, you notice something that had escaped you before: the tell-tale signs of cedar-apple rust!
One of the most significant issues with fungus gnats is that by the time they’re flying around and annoying you, they’re already a major problem for your plants. That’s why it’s beneficial to know how to stop fungus gnats the minute you notice them. The truth is, once they’re in the air and making you […]
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 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 […]
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.
