For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."
when aphids get really bad—here's what to do
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Aphid season is upon us! In my region, they're affecting fruit trees particularly bad right now and I've seen a number of people in my local gardening group post pictures for help. In my own garden, I've got a small infestation of aphids on a patch of overwintered volunteer pea plants. They appeared seemingly overnight, but since the plants are far enough away from my other crops (and the peas are on their way out for the season anyway), I've left them alone. That's because the infested plants also make a good trap crop that keeps the aphids off other (more important) plants. (I talked about trap crops in last week's newsletter; you can read that post here.) If you want to keep an army of beneficial insects around, including ladybugs, you have to make sure there's enough food for them to want to stay. But what if the good bugs can't keep up? ​I've got 9 other ways you can get rid of aphids (and prevent them in the first place) right here.​ My garden had a frustratingly slow start this season due to unexpected heat spells in late spring that stalled the growth of almost all my vegetable seedlings. With ample water, shade cloth, and temps returning to normal again, however, things are picking up again. I just applied this liquid fish fertilizer over my entire garden using my new favorite tool (this hose end sprayer—what a difference it makes vs. using a watering can!) and that should hopefully give my plants a gentle boost before really hot weather sets in. (Which, for us, starts next week—and tomorrow's newsletter will cover the do's and don'ts of fertilizing in summer.) P.S. Don't wait until aphids get bad this season—learn how to control their spread first, and how to get rid of them if they do invade your garden. P.P.S. Aphids and other pests appear on different crops under different conditions from year to year, but do you have a reliable way to track it all? With my Ultimate Garden Diary, you can record what they are, where they appeared, and how you managed them. Best of all, you can track all this year after year without needing refill pages! The Ultimate Garden Diary is a printable garden journal, logbook, and recordkeeper that works for all kinds of gardens (from edible to ornamental). Just mix and match the pages you need! |
Garden Betty
For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."