As I have mentioned before, I toil at organic gardening. So I figured I would share some of my garden pictures and a few organic gardening tips I have found this year.
1)
Neem oil
I use this to help with the bugs that like to munch on my plants and veggies. It smells funky, but does seem to help.
2) Milk. I use this to help with powdery mildew. I mix it 50/50 and spray it on my plants at the first signs of mildew. If you look closely at the pictures of my squash you can see powdery mildew. We had a ton of rain while I was on vacation and it got on some of the plants pretty bad. I am going to treat it tomorrow with the milk solution and hope for the best. Every time I have tried to spray them, it has rained recently.
3) Coffee grounds and crushed egg shells help combat slugs. I have had horrible slug issues with my cucumbers. Typically the cucumbers do the best of anything except tomatoes and this year I have only gotten one lonely cucumber. The slugs are decimating the leaves. And speaking of killing slugs (and snails), beer works amazingly. Pour an entire can of el cheapo beer of your choice in this
plate. It is deep enough that they can't get out. I did this last night and had probably 30 dead slugs/snails when I got home from work this afternoon.
4) Pine straw and weed fabric has made all the difference in the world in controlling weeds. I will do this every year (although I might possibly try newspaper next year so I don't have to pull up the fabric at the end of the year.
5) I buy
organic fertilizer from Lowe's or Home Depot. I know it is a lot cheaper to make your own from bone/blood meal, but I just don't have the time.
And now some pics. Like I said it is a work in progress. With working full time and then going on vacation for two weeks and having a crazy two year old, there is a lot of work still needing to be done. My tomatoes were all leaned up on a trellis my hubby built, but we had a big storm and they all fell off it and are now growing on the ground. That is on the docket for this weekend, fix the tomatoes.
Share your favorite organic gardening tips or tricks!
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| Green peppers and a lot of weeds with a possible garlic plant |
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| Watermelon and cantaloupe that will never have fruit before frost at this rate |
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| Fallen down tomatoes |
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| Raspberries. A friend had his house foreclosed on and dug up a bunch of plants. This one not only survived, but thrived. |
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| Poor sad slug eaten cucumbers. Notice the coffee grounds everywhere? |
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| My beautiful squash plants. There is one zucchini plant in the mix, but the others all died off from squash borers. |
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