Window Boxes: Something Everyone Can Have

Those of us who grow vegetables are faced with many questions each year: will there be a late frost that will harm our tomatoes and peppers if we plant them on Memorial Day weekend? Is it time to harvest garlic now, since they produced their scapes early this year? When should we harvest broccoli– now, with heads still fairly small – or wait till they get bigger? Will the sun finally prevail and give all our veggies a big boost after all this rain?

 

We have seen more rain than usual – much more. Even a quick shower results in standing water in the walkways between my mounded raised beds. But in addition to the excess water, plants aren’t getting their usual allotment of sunshine. They need sun – strong, bright sun – to grow and produce fruits and leaves. The lack of sunshine is what is causing smaller veggies, yellowed leaves, and later ripening.

 

Is it time to harvest garlic yet? After the plants send up those curly stems we call “scapes”, it is generally fine to harvest garlic. Traditionally I pull mine in mid- to late-August. But it’s important to pull them at the right time, not sooner or later than needed.

 

Here’s what I do: I start by groping my garlic: I slip my  hand into the soil and feel how big the bulbs are. I don’t pull them if they’re tiny. But to be on the safe side, I pull a few and look at the skin over the cloves. I want the skins to be strong and tight for good storage. If they are breaking down (due to all the rain), I pull my garlic. If not, I let them keep growing, but check them often.

 

What about potatoes? My advice is to wait. Yes, you will have some small potatoes as soon as they have blossomed. But I wait much longer than that to harvest mine, as I want big spuds. When leaves start to yellow and die back, then I dig them all. In the meantime, I slip my hand into the soil (without disturbing the plants) and grab a few “new” potatoes for a special treat.

 

Even though a healthy broccoli plant will produce more food from its side shoots than the main head, some of my plants are small and yellowed from lack of sun. I am pulling the feeble ones and planting a late crop of lettuce by seed in the space.

 

My Brussels sprouts plants are also much smaller than normal this year. Fortunately, they will continue to grow until the end of October, or even later. If we get sunshine soon, they should recover. My normal advice is to cut the tops of the plants off on Labor Day weekend so that the plants don’t keep growing taller but instead send their energy into producing big “sprouts”. This year I’ll be lucky if they have stalks at all. So I will wait and see – and I accept that my harvest might be small or non-existent.

 

Carrots love the rain, and are growing nicely. We thinned them in early July and are keeping them well weeded. Still, little sunshine means they can’t bulk up as they would in a normal year.

 

Onions are ready to harvest when their tops flop over. Pull the onions, even if small, and allow them to dry for a week or so in a shady, breezy spot.

 

One bright spot in the garden this year is celery. I don’t usually grow it, as in the past mine has been tough to chew and a magnet for snails and slugs. This year I planted six plants, and although the stalks are not yet thick, the plants are big and so far have not seemed to attract pests. I ate a stalk, and it is tougher than store-bought. But tasty.

 

I usually grow celeriac instead of celery, and I did start some from seed indoors. Celeriac is also called celery root, and has a big bulb that grows above the soil surface. It keeps in the refrigerator for up to 6 months, and when added in a soup or stew, has the same celery flavor. This year –with little sun? The bulbs are not showing yet.

 

All this rain inspired me to grow watercress! I got seeds, and the packet says plant in wet soil, preferably in a shady area. I have that. I only did that recently, but the plants have sprouted and seem happy.

 

The Cornish Fair is always on the third weekend of August and has competitions for everything: who can throw an ax most accurately, who can produce the best strawberry jam – and much more. For me it is a time to compete in the vegetable and flower categories in the gym of the school. Tomatoes generally are ripe by then, but this year -who knows?

 

Even though I have been picking off the many yellowed leaves on my tomato plants, they are still far behind their usual selves. Do pick off the yellow leaves – they will only spread fungal disease. But only do so when the leaves are dry – if they ever are!

 

I heard that a study at Harvard found that people who eat a cup of ice cream every day live longer than those that do not. I couldn’t find this study on-line, but have my own theory: People who are happy live longer. If eating ice cream makes you happy, have some! Me? I think the study should have been focused on home-grown tomatoes and potatoes and garlic fresh from the garden. I know they keep me happy – and probably living longer than most!  

 

Henry is an organic gardener, and an optimist. He believes the summer will turn sunny with moderate rain. Reach him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net if  you want to dispute that.

Have you ever wondered what would happen after a story ends? I have. The children’s book “Blueberries for Sal” came out in 1948 and has been a hit for 75 years. If Sal was four years old in the book, she must be pushing 80. I imagine she went to the University of Maine and got a degree in teaching. She probably married her college sweetie at age 24, and taught for six years before deciding to start a family. I bet she makes a mean blueberry pie. 

 

The key to a great blueberry pie, in my opinion, is to let the blueberries dominate the flavors, not sugar. Pick a recipe, and mix the ingredients using less sugar than recommended. Maybe half, if it seems like a lot. Or if your recipe uses just a half a cup for six cups of berries, it’s probably fine. Add cinnamon, but more is not better. Sometimes I like a little cardamom.

 

The best berries for a pie are those you picked yourself. Even better are those you grew yourself. I’m picking blueberries now, and have some tips on how to get a good crop.

 

Paul Franklin and his wife Nancy own Riverbend Farm, a self-pick orchard with apples, pears, pumpkins – and 1600 blueberry plants in Plainfield, NH. Paul once told me that there are just three things to get right if you want lots of blueberries: proper soil pH, proper soil pH, and proper soil pH. That’s right, if you don’t have very acidic soil for your berries, you can still have nice bushes, but without proper soil pH, you will only get a few.

 

For most of us, a simple soil test done with a kit you buy at the garden center or hardware store will show that our soil is around 6.0 or 6.5 if not adjusted. But blueberries want a pH of 4.5 to 5.5 which is much, much more acidic than that. The scale is logarithmic, meaning each change in a number multiplies the acidity 10-fold. So a pH of 5.5 is 10 times more acidic than a pH of 6.5 and 4.5 is 100 times more acidic.  

 

How do you adjust pH? Buy soil acidifier or agricultural sulfur and sprinkle it on the surface of the soil. If you have a thick layer of mulch to keep down the weeds, pull it back, then add your acidifier. Follow the directions on the bag as to how much to add once you know your soil pH. It may take 2 to 3 years to drop the soil pH to the proper level. And doing it now won’t affect this year’s crop.

 

What else should you do? Give your bushes room to grow. I did a single row and spaced the bushes 6 to 7 feet apart. But they are a little crowded now, 20-some years later. If were doing it again, I’d space them farther apart. It’s best to run your row east-west rather than north–south to avoid one plant shading another. Full sun is best, but six hours of sun is adequate.

 

Blueberries like moisture, but don’t plant them in soggy soil. Also avoid the top of a sunny, sandy hillside. I have mine not far from my brook, and they have done very well. When planting, mix in some duff from under evergreen trees because it will help acidify the soil and will also add fungi that encourage good growth. Pine needles make a great mulch if you have some. 

 

Blueberries do not like weeds, so do a good job of pulling out the grasses and weeds in the place you plant your berries – before you plant. And then add a good thick layer of wood chips around the plants to discourage weeds in the future.

 

Blueberries are pollinated by bees. And although some varieties are labelled “self-pollinating” it’s always bests to plant several bushes and at least two different varieties.

 

There is a terrible alien pest that has arrived in most parts of New England, the spotted-winged drosophila. This is an Asian fruit fly that lays eggs in good fruit, as opposed to other fruit flies which only attack over-ripe fruit. In a matter of days, blueberries can go from healthy to mushy and full of larvae. If you cut open a berry that has been infected, you will see the small larvae. At present there is no organic method for controlling them other than covering your bushes with a fine mesh too small for the fruit flies to reach the fruit.

 

If you are planting blueberries now, choose bushes that produce their fruit early in the season and avoid plants that mature later in the summer. Why? Some growers are finding that the fruit flies don’t show up early in the summer, so they are getting crops of early blueberries before the pest shows up. And buy the biggest bushes you can find – or afford. Blueberries are relatively slow-growing in our climate.

 

Birds can be a problem, too. I no longer cover my bushes with netting – I found too many birds got caught in the mesh, so now we just share. And unless you get a flock of cedar waxwings (which are voracious berry eaters), most birds don’t seem to be greedy. Last summer I enjoyed watching bluebirds feeding their second set of chicks with my berries.

 

I bet Sal (who had a close encounter with a mother bear in that wonderful book) had three kids, two girls and a boy. By now those kids would range in age 43 to 48, so her grandkids are either teenagers or in college. But I bet they all visit her in blueberry season for her wonderful pie. Her mother’s recipe, no doubt. Pie is always a good lure for grandkids, especially blueberry pie.

 

Henry is the author of 4 gardening books and is a lifelong organic gardener. Reach him by e-mail at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. 

I’ve been keeping track this year of what blooms for me, and when. So far I’ve recorded over 100 species of flowers (plus many more named varieties of the same genus) and 40 species of flowering trees and shrubs. Blooming starts with snowdrops in March and will continue on until well after frost in November with witchhazel trees blooming even after leaf drop.

 

I grow so many flowers because they give me pleasure to look at them. And even though I spend a lot of time in the garden, I spend more time indoors than out, so I cut stems of annuals, perennials and flowering woodies and arrange them in vases. I want flowers on the kitchen counter, the dining room table, the desk I write at, the bedroom, the bathroom – in fact, every flat surface in the house.

 

Let’s look at some basics of preparing and arranging flowers. When is the best time to pick flowers? Pick in the cool of the morning, especially if the day will be hot. The stems are full of water and carbohydrates and should feel full, not limp. Bring along a clean container so that as you wander around picking flowers their stems are well submerged. Instead of picking flowers just before dinner with company, try to pick them before going to work in the morning.

 

Flowers with multiple blossoms on a stem (delphinium, foxglove, for example) should have some blossoms in full bloom, others showing color and some in tight bud. This will prolong the show. Flowers that grow on individual stems should be in full bloom, or just starting to open. Peonies, for example, will often have tight buds on the same stem as an open blossoms, but it is rare for them to bloom in the vase. Daylilies only bloom for a day, but a single scape can have up to 10 buds that will bloom in sequence for a week or more.

 

It’s best to let your freshly cut flowers stay in the bucket of water for an hour before you arrange them. Cut the stems on a 45 degree angle using floral shears, or your by-pass pruners if they are sharp. Scissors made for cutting paper are not good for flowers, so you may want to buy a dedicated pair of floral shears.

 

Because of capillary action, water in hollow stems will be sucked up the stem a little as soon as you cut them. So you need to recut about ¾ of an inch of each stem and place it in a vase right away. Otherwise an air bubble may inhibit water take-up.

 

Be sure to remove all leaves or flowers that would be submersed is the vase you are using. Why? The leaves will rot and ferment; the bacteria will inhibit water uptake.

 

Florists selling fancy roses or other expensive flowers generally provide a packet of “flower preservative”. But you can buy that stuff or make your own for your homegrown flowers. In a quart of water add a teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of household bleach and 2 teaspoons of lemon or lime juice. I learned long ago to drop a couple of copper pennies in a vase with a bunch of tulips to help keep the buds closed longer and have seen it work. Failing that, just change the water every two or three days, and trim off a little of each stem.

 

The height of the vase is important. I’ve read “expert” advice recommending different ratios for the height of the vase to the length of the flowers ranging from flowers being 1.5 times the vase height, up to 3 times the vase height.

 

To my eye, a 6-inch vase will look good with 9-to12-inch flowers in it, but even 18-inch stems may look fine, especially of you place shorter flowers around the outside perimeter of the arrangement. I made an arrangement recently with six stems of beebalm in an 8-inch vase. I angled the stems to create support for a 24-inch stem of delphinium in the middle, standing straight up. That looked great to me.

 

There are devices called frogs that can be placed in a bowl or big vase to hold flowers in place. They consist of a piece of heavy metal with sharp, upward-pointing pins that allow you to stab the flower stems and hold them in place. Glass frogs also exist that have divots in a chunk of glass where a stem can be lodged.

 

What is blooming now that will look good in a vase? I love delphinium, astillbe, daylilies, roses, bee balm, phlox and Shasta daisies. All will last well in a vase, and provide plenty of height for a tall vase.

 

We just finished the peony season with the Itoh peonies lasting well past normal herbaceous peonies.  They are the result of crossing tree peonies with regular peonies. Mine, called Garden Treasure, produced 30 or more 5-inch diameter blossoms that last very well in a vase.

 

Arranging flowers is an art form we can all enjoy. You don’t need training or expertise. Just pick what you like, and arrange them in a vase, or even in a tall water glass. Give flowers to an aging uncle or a friend with a sprained knee. Everyone loves the gift of flowers. And be sure to put some on your dinner table tonight.

 

Henry is the author of 4 gardening books and is a gardening consultant. Reach him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net.

For me, July has started off wet: rains, heavy at times, three days a week and going on for weeks. Although I like not having to water my new plantings in the vegetable garden and flower beds, some plants are having a tough time- they need sunshine!

 

It’s fortunate that I make raised beds in my vegetable garden which is near our stream. Hoeing up the earth from the pathways and adding compost has helped me considerably. Even though the beds are only six inches above the walkways, it helps to drain soggy soil. Of course it’s too late to do that if you have already planted on the flat of the garden – but remember for next year, as we may see these conditions again.

 

If you haven’t thinned your carrots, beets and other root crops yet, now is the time to do so. I try to get that done by July 4^th, but later is okay. You can thin to one inch if you want to thin them again to two inches in a few weeks, or you can just thin to two inch spacing now. The advantage to thinning twice is that your carrots will be big enough to eat when you thin them the second time.

 

Carrots are heavy feeders, so you may want to side-dress the rows with a little slow-release organic fertilizer like Pro-Gro or Espoma Garden Tone. Just sprinkle a thin line of fertilizer alongside the carrots, and then use a hand tool to work it in a little.

 

I recently finished mulching my pathways and around bigger plants like tomatoes. I put down a layer of newspaper – four sheets or more – and cover it with straw. This does a good job of keeping down the weeds. Hay is cheaper, of course, but has seeds which can grow.

 

For onions, carrots and other things planted close together in straight rows I tear strips of newspapers and cover them with grass clippings or, better still, chopped leaves from last fall. FYI: newspapers rip well from top to bottom, but not across the page.

 

I did lots of staking of peonies in June, as many of them have such heavy blossoms that they bend over and land on the ground, particularly after a rain. Tall fall asters and goldenrod and even phlox will fall over later on as they get too tall to stand up to rains and wind.

 

I have lots of 4-foot and 5-foot quarter-inch diameter iron rods I had custom-made for me for holding up these fall beauties. The iron rods go deep into the soil more easily than thin bamboo stakes, and are stronger. To avoid getting poked in the eye when bending over, I put a wine cork on the top of each one. I drill a quarter inch hole into the cork and slide it on. They are a good excuse to buy a nice bottle or French red from time to time with a real cork!

 

It’s getting late in the season to cut back tall flowers to keep them shorter, but you might try cutting back some phlox or asters now if they haven’t start making flower buds yet. Traditionally this is called the “Chelsea Chop” and is named after the Chelsea Flower Show in London, which occurs in late May each year. After the Chelsea show English gardeners prune back big tall plants. They bloom later, are shorter, and often have many more blossoms. Good candidates for hard pruning include asters, Boltonia, purple cone flower, Joe Pye weed, sneezeweed (Helenium), bee balm, Russian sage, phlox, obedient plant, Rudbeckias of all sorts and Culver’s root.

 

Not all flowers respond well to the Chelsea Chop. Do not do this with lady’s mantle, columbine, goats beard, astillbe, delphinium, gas plant (Dictamus), fox glove, geraniums, daylilies, hostas, iris, lupines or oriental poppies, among others. You can find lists of which to cut and which to leave alone in Tracy DiSabato-Aust’s fine book, “The Well-Tended Perennial Garden”s. Everyone should have a copy of it.

 

Weeding flower beds is loved by a few gardeners, but avoided by many. I am so lucky that both my wife Cindy and I like to weed. Cindy is a formidable weeder, even better than me – and she has much more endurance than I do. If you don’t enjoy weeding, set a goal: work for half an hour. Work until this small bed is weed free. Weed every morning or evening for 15 minutes. Small efforts done every day really make a huge difference.

 

My advice? Get a good weeding tool that you like, one that will get under the roots so that you can lift from below and pull from above. For us, that is the CobraHead weeder (www.CobraHead.com). It’s made like a curved finger with just a single tine. I can tease out roots that, if broken, would re-sprout. It’s important to get the entire root system out so you don’t have to pull the same weed over and over.

 

We use ground fall leaves in the flower beds, or lacking enough, we buy double-ground bark mulch. But be careful: if you use too much, you can starve your plants of water from light rains. An inch and a half is what I strive for. Anything less than an inch looks good, but won’t do much to deter weeds. And if there are roots from things like goutweed or Japanese knotweed, no amount of mulch will deter those culprits.

 

Henry is a lifelong organic gardener and the author of 4 gardening books. Reach him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net.

Do you remember your Grammy’s favorite rose? If you do, you probably remember how fragrant it was. For me, one of my grandmother’s favorite plants was the peony named ‘Festiva Maxima’. It is a double white with a drop of red in the middle. It’s in bloom now, with a fragrance so pleasant it almost makes me swoon. And even though she passed away in 1953, her peony has been divided and shared, and I have a piece of it, which I treasure.

 

My friend Nelia Sargent of Claremont, NH is an excellent gardener, growing trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals. She specializes in plants with fragrant flowers because she has been blind since she lost her sight while in college decades ago. I called her recently to see what flowers please her the most in spring, summer and fall. Let’s take a look.

 

Spring: Early each spring one of Nelia’s first bloomers is a witchhazel named ‘Arnold’s Promise’. Even though it is a Zone 5 plant (hardy to minus 20 degrees) and we are in a Zone 4 area, her home is within a mile of the Connecticut River, which tempers winters a bit. Arnold’s Promise blooms for her in April and, she said, one stem will fill a room with fragrance for up to two weeks in a vase.

 

Another favorite of hers is February daphne (Daphne mezereum), which blooms here in late march into April. It is a small shrub that is relatively slow-growing and short lived. She says they are good for 10 years, but I’ve had one for 20. It is very fragrant and has lovely lavender flowers. All daphnes are fragrant and she also like Daphne burkwoodii, which blooms in May.

 

Viburnums are also fragrant shrubs grown by Nelia. She particularly like Viburnum judii and V. carlessii. The first, also called Judd’s viburnum, has semi-snowball bloom clusters that are pink in bud and white when open. It grows in full sun or part shade, as does Korean spice viburnum (V. carlessiii). Both prefer well drained rich soil in sun and stay a tidy 6- to 8- foot height and width. I grow the second and have had mixed luck with it: it is not always very generous with its blossoms, and does develop dead branches at maturity.

 

Summer: This is the season that has the most kinds of fragrant blossoms. Nelia has developed such a keen sense of smell that she was once invited to “smell test” and rate the lilacs at the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard.

 

Nelia told me that there are about 20 different fragrances from lilacs, each distinct. Her favorite lilacs are called ‘Sister Justina’, ‘Gertrude Lesley’, and ‘Miss Kim’. Miss Kim is often sold as a miniature, but it is really just slow-growing. Mine, now 25 years old, is about 12 feet tall and wide. The fragrance is lovely – I can smell it from 20 feet away, and on a sunny day it is loaded with butterflies and bees.

 

Then there are peonies. Properly planted, peonies last forever. And, as Nelia said, ”You can plant peonies for your heirs, but they yield immediately.” Purchase your peonies now, while in bloom at the garden center so you can see if they are fragrant –not all are – and see what they look like. Just don’t plant them so deep that their nibs or growing points are covered with more than an inch of soil, or they will not bloom in the future.

 

Nelia’s favorite peonies are Dawn Glow, Madame Deveronvale, Edulalis Superba (a very early deep pink), Festiva Maxima, Duchess De Nemours, and Carnation Bouquet (spicy, with a “carnation appearance”).

 

Mock orange (Philadelphus spp.) is a group of shrubs composed of about 20 species that are very fragrant. But they are a bit unruly and not suited for prime real estate in the garden. Nelia suggest planting them a bit away from the house, and letting them naturalize. I’ve never grown it myself due to its spreading behavior.

 

Late Summer and Fall: Many fall flowers are big, tall, bright – but not very fragrant. Here are few she likes.

 

Clethra: A nice shrub that likes moist places. She particularly likes ‘Ruby Spice’, which is a reddish one.

 

Cohosh (formerly Cimicifuga spp., now included in the genus Actea): This plant has tall flower spikes that display drooping bottlebrush flowers. Bees absolutely love it. There is a black-leafed species that is quite distinctive called Hillside Black Beauty.

 

Seven Sons-Flower Tree (Heptacodium miconioides) starts blooming in September and may continue into October unless there is a bad frost. The blossoms are small and white, and delicately fragrant. I grow it for the bark as well, which is exfoliating and interesting all winter.

 

So, if you like fragrant flowers, try some of Nelia Sargent’s favorites. All are wonderful.

 

Henry is the author of 4 gardening books and a gardening consultant. He lives and gardens in Cornish Flat, NH. Reach him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net.

All gardeners have to contend with a variety of insects and other small pests in the garden – those that attack our plants and those that bite us. Mosquitoes? I can live with them. But ticks? That is another story.

 

I’ve tried every kind of spray to repel ticks and prevent bites. I haven’t found any that are 100% effective. There are lots of “all natural” ones out there, but it is hard to tell how effective they are. I don’t like sprays with Deet in them, but believe they probably are better at repelling ticks than the herbal applications. But I don’t rely just on repellents.

 

When I am working in brushy areas I wear long pants: lightweight quick-dry nylon. Then I either tuck the pants into my socks or wear some special tick gaiters. The ones I use are called Lymeez. According to their advertising, they are a mesh treated with EPA-registered micro-encapsulated permethrin tick repellent and closed with Velcro. LL Bean and other suppliers also sell clothing treated with permethrin to kill or repel ticks, mosquitoes and other insects.

 

From what I have read, permethrin not only repels ticks, it kills them. I have read about “tick tubes” treated with permethrin to kill the ticks on mice – a vector for Lyme. These little tubes contain treated cotton balls that mice bring to their nests, where the permethrin kills the ticks. I plan to get some for my woodpile.

 

Slugs and shell-covered small snails are always a problem in my garden. I usually keep a jar of soapy water in the garden near my lettuce, which is the preferred treat for these nasty critters. Pick and drown works.

 

Another garden pest is the Colorado potato beetle. This striped beetle can decimate the leaves of potatoes if you don’t control them early, even killing the plant or reducing your crop. The beetles are yellowish with black stripes, the larvae are beige to red with rows of black dots. The eggs are orange and generally found on the underneath side of the leaves. It is important to pick these pests early as they mature quickly and each female lays many eggs – multiplying their impact quickly if not controlled.

 

If you have too many potato plants to hand pick them all, there is a biological control called Bt. It is a bacterium that is diluted in water and sprayed on the plants. It is not a contact poison, it needs to be consumed by the larvae when they are young. They sicken, stop eating and die. But you may need to use it for a few years to really solve the problem. There are several different Bt formulas, so be sure you get one labeled for potatoes.

 

Striped cucumber beetles look a bit like potato beetles, but they are smaller and fast moving. They can strip all the leaves off your vine crops in a single night if they are present in the soil when your cukes or squash-family plants first germinate. You can cover the crops with row covers to keep them away, but they may already be present in the soil. Me? I start my vine crops indoors and only plant them when they have at least a six-inch long vine and can’t be killed by the beetles.

 

My least favorite pest is the tomato hornworm. Big, up to four inches long, they are aggressive when you pick them up. There is a natural predator, a parasitic wasp that lays eggs in them. So if you see what looks like grains of rice on them, just remove them to a faraway part of the garden. Those “grains of rice” are larvae that will suck them dry and keep them from reproducing. You can make or buy houses for these wasps and other good wasps and hang it on your shed. These are simply a collection of hollow bamboo pieces they can use to for shelter.

 

A good reason NOT to use insecticides is that they will inadvertently kill good bugs like lady beetles, spiders, praying mantises and more. You’ve probably never seen an assassin bug, but they are relentless killers of bad bugs, sucking them dry.

 

Many of us grew up thinking that most bugs, beetles, moths and other insects are harmful. For a long time my first inclination on seeing an insect in the garden was to squish it. Not anymore. Mother Nature tries to create a balance that keeps pests from taking over. Unless you know an insect is a pest – think Japanese beetle, rose chafer, striped cucumber beetle – leave it be. It might be the critter that controls others from decimating your garden.

 

If you want to learn about the bugs you see, you might want to pick up a copy of a nice small paperback called, “Good Bug, Bad Bug: Who’s Who, What They Do, and How to Manage Them Organically” by Jessica Walliser. It is well illustrated and also tells you how you can attract good ones– or even purchase them.

 

 Being an organic gardener means you have to pay attention. Watch for problem pests and try to control them before they can ruin your flowers or veggies. And never use a chemical pesticide as it will throw everything out of balance.

 

Henry is a lifelong organic gardener, and a 20-year veteran of the UNH Master Gardener program. He is the author of 4 gardening books and a gardening consultant. Reach him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net.