When you're deciding how to manage pests in your garden and landscape, keep this in mind: First, do no harm. The vast majority of garden visitors are either helpful or harmless.
Learn to identify ladybug larvae, right. They are major aphid eaters.
As you make your first visits to the garden this year, you're sure to see a few bugs. Keep in mind that the majority of garden visitors are either helpful or harmless. Get on a first-name basis with as many of them as possible. Here are some of the "good guys" that you should know:
Ladybugs: The familiar ladybug is a well-known aphid eater. Plus, it's cute. Although ladybug larvae are far from cute, they eat even more aphids.
Lacewings: Another aphid-eater. The lacebug larvae won't win any beauty contests either, but they rival ladybug larvae in the aphid-eating department.
Caterpillars: Not all caterpillars are pests. If you like butterflies, take time to learn to identify pest caterpillars and good caterpillars, including their eggs.
Pest eaters: In addition to ladybugs, other beneficial insects that help control pest insects include dragonflies; parasitic (non-stinging) wasps; tachinid and syrphid flies; and the colorfully named damsel, assassin and big-eyed bugs.
Decomposers: Centipedes, sowbugs and ground beetles break down organic matter, helping release the nutrients to garden plants.
Pollinators: Bees, moths, butterflies, wasps and beetles all play a role in pollination, ensuring that crops are fruitful.
Toads: You'll have fewer slugs if toads are in residence.
Spiders: Spiders control aphids, caterpillars and other insect pests.
Bats: Most species consume huge numbers of insects every day, and others are important pollinators.
Birds: Most backyard birds eat a combination of seeds, berries and insects. But in late spring and early summer, birds are busy filling the mouths of their hatchlings, and baby birds like nothing better than freshly caught bugs.
I talk with urban and suburban gardeners every day and I’m impressed with how people cope with food production in small spaces. Those with decent soil and sun in the right place often plant in the ground, mixing ornamentals and food together in their small plots.
Slideshow: Small-Space Gardens To see captions, click on the image. To share comments or explore further, go to Flickr.
Grow Beds help small-space gardeners grow more in less space.
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Space-Intensive: Everything for small-space gardening, including tools, raised beds, supports, soil and fertilizer.
I talk with urban and suburban gardeners every day and I’m impressed with how people cope with food production in small spaces. Those with decent soil and sun in the right place often plant in the ground, mixing ornamentals and food together in their small plots. As I walk through neighborhoods, I see peppers, eggplants, chard, kale and tomatoes tucked into flower borders. String beans share trellises with morning glories and clamber over the tops of picket fences and along the railings of fire escapes.
Space constraints frequently lead to other creative techniques, like using food crops as ornamentals. Customers tell me about planting hedges and screens of blueberries, raspberries, dwarf fruit trees and sunflowers. I’ve encouraged homeowners to plant trellised grapes as property dividers, too, because they take up even less space than a hedge. On a trip to Portland, OR, I saw a tiny garden with a squash vine scrambling over an evergreen hedge and raspberry canes tucked into a 2 ft.-wide row between the house and the sidewalk.
Many vegetables varieties are pretty enough in their own right to grow without sacrificing ornament. Eggplants have beautiful purple stems and flowers and shiny, colorful purple, pink, white or striped fruit. Hot peppers cover themselves with fiery fruits. Lettuces offer a huge array of leaf colors, patterns, and shapes that even rival hostas. Tomatoes trained up a colorful spiral qualify as garden art. Most herbs fit easily into perennial and butterfly borders and some, such as creeping thyme and mint, can serve as ground covers. Try tall, feathery dill at the back of a border and curly parsley as edging at the front.
Last summer, I spoke with a city gardener with a postage-stamp yard who grows everything in our Grow Beds. She says that she has 14 of the 3 ft. x 3 ft. beds and she plants all her vegetables and flowers in them. The soil in her yard is poor, so she fills the raised beds with a rich mix of compost and topsoil. I've been using them for several years and love them, too.
Container gardens allow even landless gardeners to put some of their own food on the table. Recently, a customer told me that he plants half-barrels of sweet potatoes along the sidewalk in front of his apartment building. They enjoy the heat and look terrific all summer, he says, and they provide a bumper crop of tubers in the fall. Condo balconies support self-watering containers full of salad fixings and Revolution Planters hang from porches even in the most asphalt-paved neighborhoods.
Growing in small spaces has real benefits, too: fewer weeds and pests, less maintenance time, and often, more food per square foot. Raised beds, containers, and integrated gardens fit better into our busy and demanding lifestyles than the old 20 ft. x 40 ft. rototilled gardens I grew up with. Gardening has undergone a revolution in my lifetime, and, as Martha might say, “That’s a good thing.”
—Ann Whitman
Green Goods Supervisor, Gardener's Supply
Like many who lost tomato plants to late blight last year, I'm wondering: How can I make sure it doesn't happen again this year?
Plant a diversity of tomato varieties to reduce the possibility of disease.
Like many gardeners who lost their tomato crop to late blight last year, I'm wondering: How can I make sure it doesn't happen again this year? Unfortunately, there's no silver bullet. The most important thing you can do: be alert, be prepared.
Before deciding which tomato varieties to plant this season, consider choosing one that's shown some resistance to the fungus (Phytophthora infestans), which causes late blight. Though no varieties are immune to late blight, the ones on the list below stayed healthier than others. If you can, start your own plants from seed or buy transplants from a trusted local source. You might also want to plant some varieties that mature early, such as Early Girl, so if late blight does strike, you may still get a harvest.
Resistant Varieties
The following tomato varieties show high resistance to late blight. The information comes from the University of Maine Extension.
Legend
Matt’s Wild Cherry
Santa
Ferline
Fantazzio
Sun Chief
Juliette
Red Pearl
Plum Regal
Mountain Magic
Based on customer feedback and field trials, Heather Jerrett, R&D Trials Coordinator at High Mowing Seeds in Wolcott, VT, notes that the following varieties show some degree of resistance:
San Marzano
Roma VF
Suzanne
Fortunately, the fungus that causes late blight is unlikely to survive the winter, especially if the plants were properly destroyed. The disease needs living tissue to survive, so it can't overwinter on tomato cages or supports. However, infected potatoes (the other plant that gets late blight) can carry the disease through the winter. Be sure to destroy any volunteer potato plants that come up. If you plant potatoes again, be sure to buy seed potatoes that are certified as disease-free.
If possible, avoid planting tomatoes and potatoes where you had them last year. Be sure to give plants plenty of space, based on recommendations for the variety. Maximizing airflow and light around the plants will help them resist disease. Make use of trellises and supports that will keep the vines off the ground.
Using soaker hoses or drip irrigation keep foliage dry, which makes it more difficult for late blight — and other diseases to spread. Avoid overhead watering techniques (sprinklers). Water early in the day so the foliage can dry before nightfall.
Learn to recognize the weather conditions that foster the spread of late blight. The disease spreads rapidly in cool wet weather, whereas dry weather tends to hold back the disease. Your local cooperative extension is probably monitoring disease conditions for home gardeners as well as farmers, so they may be a good source of information. Stay in touch with gardeners in your area so you'll know right away if late blight is near.
If the weather forecast calls for cool, wet weather, you might want to begin preventative spraying. The key word is preventively. Once plants are infected with late blight, it's too late to save them. Organic farmers and gardeners have had the most success with copper sprays (such as Garden Dust), and beneficial bacteria (Bacillus subtilis), as found in Serenade Garden Disease Control. Before using any of these sprays, read the label and use them accordingly. In most cases, effective protection requires that plants be sprayed as often as weekly throughout the growing season. Remember that these sprays do not prevent the disease, but they can slow its progress.
If your plants succumb to late blight, take action immediately. Pull up the plants and either seal them tightly in a trash bag, or place them under black plastic, where the sun's heat can kill the spores. Do not compost blight-infected plants. If left unattended, the disease will spread quickly from your plants to those of your neighbors and local farmers. Please, garden responsibly!
Brian Moore likes big plants and he knows how to grow them. In 2007, his record-breaking amaranth topped 23 ft. Want to grow your own giant plants? Learn how Brian does it.
Brian Moore with a row of giant sunflowers; the tallest sunflower is about 16 ft. The seeds came from a grower in the United Kingdom.
One of my three-year-old twin daughters standing in front of a row of corn and amaranth that's more than 20 ft. tall.
Inspecting a self-sown sunflower growing on the edge of a patch of giant Jala maize (corn) from Mexico.
A mix of different English vegetable marrows. Marrows are very similar in taste to zucchini when cut under 12″. Marrows are not grown much in the U.S., but they're common in the United Kingdom. Some varieties can grow to over 200 lbs.
Picture of Mercer County, N.J., Weights and Measures, measuring my 23 ft 2″ tall amaranth, which is listed in the 2009 Guinness Book of World Records as the world's tallest amaranthus. More: Video of the amaranth being measured
Centaurea rothrockii is a hard-to-find biennial that produces enormous blooms on plants that are generally 4-5 ft., but I've had them over 7 ft.
Brian Moore likes big plants and he knows how to grow them. In 2007, his record-breaking amaranth grew to 23 ft. 2″. Want to grow your own giant plants? Here's how Brian does it:
How tall are the sunflowers in your photos? Any record-setters?
Most of the sunflowers in my pictures are around 14 to 16 feet. The world record is a little over 25 feet; so there are no record-breakers. I had a world record for amaranth in 2007 at 23 ft. 2″, breaking the previous world record of 15 ft. 1″. The record is listed in the 2009 Guinness Book of World Records. My record was then broken by a 27 ft. 10″ plant from someone in I sent seeds to in upstate New York. Hopefully, I will get the record back this year. Last year, my tallest amaranth was 24 ft. 4″, so I'm getting closer.
What's the key to getting extra-large plants?
No matter how great of a gardener you are, if your plants do not have the proper genetics then you will never get a large plant. When growing sunflowers I use varieties that I trade with other giant-vegetable growers. Those seeds usually produce the tallest plants. I then grow them and save the seeds to the best plants. Most sunflower varieities from commercial seed companies do not produce plants as large.
When growing tall corn, look for tropical varieties from Mexico, Columbia or Ecuador. When I first started growing corn, I used a type called Mexican June and it grew about 15 ft. on average. Now I grow a variety called Tehua, and this year it averaged about 25 ft.
What are some of the gardening techniques you use?
Proper spacing is one of the best ways to get plants tall. If you plant them too close, the plants will not reach their ultimate height. However, if you plant them too far apart, they don't compete for sunlight. In the case of some plants, such as giant amaranth, they will bush out instead of growing up. I also find that controlled competition is good for my plants. I'll plant a row of sunflowers and I will get various weeds and self-sown plants from my garden growing alongside the sunflowers. I let them compete to a degree, but as the sunflower gets taller and the root zone extends outward, I cut down or pull out the competitors. The competition for sun and resources speeds up growth so I can get more growth into a season.
Do you start seeds indoors?
The only time I start the sunflowers indoors is if I have a limited amount of seed and I want to guarantee to get a plant. Sunflowers do not transplant well. There are some seeds that I always start indoors. For instance, giant amaranth (Amaranthus australis) is much more sensitive to day length; so the longer the season the taller they grow. I start them in pots in January. I've been able to get those amaranth to 21 feet direct-sown (planting outdoors), but the season is too short to get them much taller.
What about staking and support?
Many of my sunflowers were grown without any stakes. If you do not stake your plants, be prepared to lose some of your crop by the end of the season. I think it makes the growing season rather exciting by not staking plants. It's much more challenging to grow these plants without stakes. If I think a plant has a shot at a world record, I will get serious with staking. When I had my world-record amaranth I used a 21-ft. aluminum flagpole to secure the plant. When I grow plants along my house I use twine to tie them up from inside my second story window. I also find that if you just tie plants to one another, they all help keep one another up.
What's your fertilizing routine?
I fertilize once or twice a day with small amounts of high-nitrogen, water-soluble fertilizer. However, the average gardener can still grow giants with little fertilizing. Every year I grow sunflowers at my wife's parents house. I throw down some Espoma Garden-Tone when I turn the ground in the spring. With this approach, I've had them grow to almost 15 feet.
How does a person get started growing giant vegetables?
You have to do some research online. That means going on a search engine and type in "tallest sunflower" or "largest sunflower head". There are communities of giant-vegetable growers on the internet. They usually deal with giant pumpkins, but those same people also grow other giants as well. Another good resource: your local county fair. Get to know some of the growers and try to get some seeds from them. Many growers are willing to help out someone new with some seeds and advice.
Gardener's Supply staffer Debbie Page goes to Nicaragua with a few packets of seeds and the goal of starting a garden.
Rudi and I planted a garden in a cement box that was part of the hospital ruins.
Nurses from the Miskito villages along the Rio Coco in northwestern Nicaragua choose seeds to plant.
Local children are curious about the garden. I hope they will care for it, too.
During Vermont's winter months, our stores (where I work) get pretty quiet, so it's a good time to get away. This year I traveled to Nicaragua with Dr. Karen Burke from Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington. Three Spanish-speaking college students accompanied us.
Our destination was the town of Wespan in northeastern Nicaragua, which is on the Rio Coco, near the country's border with Honduras. We visited the Miskito villages surrounding the town and brought them medicine and medical supplies, sheets, towels, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, books as well as seeds from Gardener's Supply. We lead workshops in the different villages, where we discussed nutrition, hygiene, composting and planting. We gave seeds to the lead nurse in each village so he or she could distribute them. The seeds and the headache medicine were the biggest hits.
Our home base was a medical clinic on the grounds of a hospital that was burned by the Sandinistas in 1981. Some lovely browalia still grow and bloom among the concrete ruins of hospital's foundations. Dr. Burke asked me to plant a garden with Rudi, the clinic's groundskeeper.
We chose an open cement box that was 10 ft. x 5 ft. and 4 ft. tall. It had been the water filter for the hospital's cistern, but was now filled with weeds and sand. Growing in a contained, elevated planter would give the plants some protection from being trampled or munched by the cows, horses, pigs, goats and chickens that roam free. The garden would also be within sight of the clinic, so it might get some ongoing attention. We removed the weeds from the planter and topped it with 3-4″ of compost from the pile Burke created on her visit a year ago.
Rudi and the clinic's cook, Vilma, looked over the seeds we'd brought down, and decided what they would like to plant. They chose plants they knew would grow well in their climate: tomatoes, melons, green beans, peppers and carrots. We also planted sunflowers, Swiss chard and marigolds. The Swiss chard was to add some greens to their diet, which is mainly rice and beans. The marigolds were to repel bugs and the sunflowers were for the birds. To make planting easy and keep things organized, we divided the surface of the garden into a grid of 12″ squares, just as we recommend in our Kitchen Garden Planner. Wespan gets at least a little bit of rain every day. As soon as it stops raining, the sun beams down. No wonder the seeds were already sprouting just four days after planting.
We also planted lots of flower seeds in front of the clinic. I am not as hopeful about this garden because it is within the drip line of the roof and doesn't get much rain. Maybe the nurses will remember to water it. The "weeds" Rudi removed to clear the area contained some pretty pink-tinged caladiums.
The area is part of a pine savannah, and most of the soil is sandy and acidic. Pine trees and palm trees provide some shade around people's living areas. A few people make compost, "tierra negra," but most of the animal manure is left where it's deposited. Children run through when playing — we saw a child's bare footprint in one of the cow plops.
I had a wonderful experience in Nicaragua and was happy to share the seeds and some of my gardening experience. But who were we to tell these folks how to plant a garden? They have been planting beans and rice since their ancestors the Mayans were living there. As a gardener, I'm always eager to discover new gardening techniques. My hope is that maybe I left behind a few new ideas for them to experiment with.
—Debbie Page
Williston Store Sales Associate, Gardener's Supply
Craving a little garden-fresh crunch? Sprouts deliver! Start a “kitchen garden” on your windowsill and discover a new source of fresh, locally grown vegetables and greens.
Pea and bean seeds sprout in just a few days and add flavor and crunch to stir-fries and salads.
The Sprout Growing Kit's stacked trays hold different seed mixes and take little space on the kitchen counter.
“Kitchen garden” took on a new meaning for my family this winter when we discovered a new source of fresh, locally grown vegetables and greens. Our own kitchen counter and windowsill are as local as it gets and the food goes from harvest to table in five minutes. But the best part is the flavor. By midwinter I crave the garden-fresh crunch and intense aroma and taste of fresh food. Sprouts deliver!
We received the Sprout Growing Kit for Christmas that included a set of small, stacked trays and a couple bags of organic seed mixes. The instructions said to soak a few tablespoons of the seeds for 8 to 12 hours in a clean jar of water, rinsing once after 4 to 6 hours. After their overnight bath, the seeds had more than doubled in volume. I gave them a thorough rinse and poured them into the trays and set them into a warm corner to germinate.
The only maintenance for the next three days is regular rinsing. It’s very important to thoroughly rinse the sprouting seeds several times a day to keep them clean and moist.
After several days, the protein powerhouse blend of dark red adzuki, creamy garbanzo, and green mung beans and snow peas was ready for a stir-fry. I added the sprouts to a mix of carrots, shrimp, garlic and onions and the results were fantastic. The fresh sprouts gave the dish just the right amount of intense pea flavor and crunch. I also sprouted a bean salad mix of lentils, mung, adzuki, and radish seeds. We tossed these into a salad of lettuce, cabbage, carrots, walnuts and dried cranberries.
My family will be eating a lot more sprouts this winter and next summer, too. It’s the cheapest, freshest, and most local food on our menu.
—Ann Whitman
Green Goods Supervisor, Gardener's Supply
If you haven't tried starting your own plants from seed, make this be the year you give it a try. Sweet peas are among the easiest.
Sweet peas are easy to grow. The variety above, Painted Lady, is from Renee's Seeds.
The Easiest
The following annual flowers are especially easy to start from seed:
Sweet pea
Marigold
Zinnia
Nasturtium
Cosmos
Sunflowers
If you haven't tried starting your own plants from seed, make this be the year you give it a try. Sweet peas are among the easiest. The large seeds are easy to manage and most varieties germinate readily. Plus, the resulting blooms are gorgeous and sweetly scented.
Sweet peas thrive in the cool temperatures of spring, so it's important to start early. The vines grow quickly and produce lots of flowers — especially if you cut them regularly for bouquets. Once summer's heat and humidity arrive, the vines are likely to wither and turn brown — giving you room for something new.
Sweet peas come in a huge array of colors and patterns. Most will grow to 5 or 6 feet, but there are shorter varieties "bush type" that are well-suited to containers. To extend the blooming season, choose a few different types. Read the seed packets to find varieties that bloom early (“short-day”) and late (“long day”). Although most sweet peas are annuals, you can also get perennial sweet peas (Lathyrus latifolia).
The Garden Crusader Awards were created by Gardener's Supply to honor individuals who are improving the world through gardening. These enthusiastic men and women are planting trees and flowers, growing food, creating new green spaces, and teaching their friends and neighbors about the rewards of gardening.
To learn more about the people and programs that have received Garden Crusader Awards, see our Garden Crusader page.
Do you grow what you eat? Check out our slideshow of gardeners who've taken the Grow What You Eat pledge. To see captions and full-size images, go to Flickr.
Gardener's Supply company is made up of several businesses. They are:
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