Share my passion for all things gardening!
I have exciting news to share with you! I have written a new book, The Vegetable Garden Pest Handbook, which will be published by Cool Springs Press in April 2021. It’s been hard keeping this a secret but now that it’s up on Amazon (*) for pre-orders, I can finally spill the beans. Do you deal with insects in your […]
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This year, I’ve been growing annual poppies. Oh my, they are so lovely! That’s the topic of today’s garden column, which you can read in The Spokesman-Review. Poppies are poppin’ up everywhere, add beauty to gardens. (or you can read it at the bottom of this blog post if you’re unable to view it online at Spokesman.com) As I explain […]
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I know there are a lot of brand-new vegetable gardeners out there this year. I thought it would be helpful to write a garden column about insects you might find in the vegetable garden. And even more importantly, how to deal with them organically. You can read it in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Bugs with benefits. Or you can […]
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You might recall that Bill and I created a pollinator garden last spring. What an adventure it has been! That’s the topic of this week’s garden column, which you can read in The Spokesman-Review. Pollinator project comes with lots of unexpected learning opportunities. (you can also read my column below the videos in this post) In it, I discuss how […]
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Since there has been so much interest in growing vegetables this year, I’ve been focusing my columns on that topic. Today’s column is about how easy it is to grow beet family crops. Here’s a link to it in The Spokesman-Review: Grow beet family crops, and cover them to keep pests away. (or you can read my column lower in […]
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For this week’s column, I wrote about how to grow cabbage family crops. This includes broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, radishes and rutabagas, just for starters. Here is link to it in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Netting helps keep pests away from cabbage family crops. (or you can read my column lower in this post) My current […]
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Today is a milestone because it marks the beginning of my weekly garden columns for the 2020 growing season! This first column is a season introduction. Here is a link to it in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Dig into learning. (or you can read my column lower in this post) In it, I mentioned how dreadful earwigs were in […]
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This post might seem a bit premature but it could affect your seed-starting or seedling-purchasing plans. That’s why I wanted to mention it now. This has to do with squash bugs. They are horribly destructive insects that attack members of the Cucurbit family (cucumbers, melons, summer and winter squash). While I’ve never had squash bugs in my garden, I know […]
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The Pollinator Victory Garden: Win the War on Pollinator Decline with Ecological Gardening by Kim Eierman (Quarto Publishing, 2020, 160 pp., $26.99) As soon as I heard about Kim Eierman’s brand-new book, The Pollinator Victory Garden, I was anxious to learn what I can be doing to help pollinators within my own garden. According to the book’s subtitle, it is […]
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Do you bring in plants that were outdoors during the spring and summer months? And do suddenly end up with tiny flies indoors that drive you insane? Well, those are fungus gnats. And yes, they used to drive us nuts… that is, until I discovered a simple, organic solution to the problem. Last winter, I had brought my hanging baskets […]
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