One amazing benefit of having a garden is the chance to cook with fresh ingredients. This gives you the rare opportunity to truly know what pesticides and herbicides have been used on your fruits, vegetables, and herbs – giving you a peace of mind that produce purchased at a supermarket can’t offer.
Growing veggie and herb gardens can present unique challenges to any gardener, but I’d like to address some special concerns that many of you may have, especially those of you who are trying to avoid the common pesticides used around the garden.
1.] Lack of space – For those of you with an apartment or a very small yard there are several options open to you for growing your own food. While you may not be able to grow row upon row of fresh veggies, you can still cultivate your own delicious goodies. Consider a planter made from a bag of soil on your balcony, or a small herb garden on a window sill for a hint of fresh in all of your cooking. Simply purchase a bag of topsoil and cut holes in the top of the package to plant your veggies or herbs in. With a little love and attention you will soon have a tiny balcony garden of your own! Be sure to cut a few small drainage slits in the bottom of the bag though, otherwise you’ll have a moldy bag of soil instead of a flourishing micro garden.
2.] Pests of the slightly larger variety – If you live in an area prone to various wildlife, you’ll soon find that bugs are the least of your pest problems. Deer, raccoons, and even adorable bunny rabbits can be a nuisance in the garden you’re trying to nurture. A mesh fence around your patch can save you no end of heartache as well as ensure that you have something left to harvest when the time comes. Another good trick is to save hair clippings and mesh pouches of them around the garden, this deters deer especially. If you’re having troubles with rodents that your fence can’t handle, then consider soaking a rag in oil of peppermint and setting it in a sheltered area. This discourages mice, rats, rabbits, and other rodents.
3.] Tiny, six-legged pests – Unfortunately, fences only keep out the pests on four legs. What about the pests with six, you might wonder? There are many chemical-free, natural ways to control pests in and around your garden, you just have to decide which work best for you, depending on the pest problems you’re having. Be careful though, because some methods will trap and kill beneficial insects along with the pests.
Here are a few of my favorites tricks for common pests:
a.] Ladybugs and Lacewings – You can attract these helpful gardener’s friends to your veggie patch by planting a row of daisies [any member of the Compositae family] and some yarrow on either side of your garden. They’ll show up and take care of aphids, mites, whiteflies, and other common pests. If you can’t attract many, they can be purchased online as well.
b.] Milky Spore – It’s a natural solution to your grub and japanese beetle problems. All you do is spread a bit on the soil [according to directions] and the spore infects and kills the grubs [and thus prevents them from growing into beetles] while leaving beneficial insects unharmed. Can be purchased online and lasts for a long time. Very cost fficient.
c.] Yellow Flypaper and Pheromone Traps – Sticky yellow flypaper is an old, but still effective trick. Just hang some around your garden on fence posts or metal stakes and watch it catch whiteflies and aphids with ease. Another great trick is to purchase a few pheromone traps at your local garden store [probably only found at larger ones] and hang them several feet outside of your garden. You don’t want to hang them too close because they attract insects, instead of repelling them. Keeping them a distance from your veggie patch will draw them away from your plants.
Cooking with your own home-grown produce is not just healthier and a good budget choice, but it makes for especially delicious meals and a sense of satisfaction when you know you’ve brought that food from seedling to the dinner table. Plus you can be sure that you and your family are eating only the healthiest and best produce! It doesn’t get much better than sitting around the dinner table and enjoying a fantastic home-cooked and home-grown meal with family and friends.
Also, keep an eye out for my next post about gardening with cooking in mind because I’m going to talk about that nagging problem many people switching to home-grown foods tend to have: what to grow!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
i love this article. very important for us to eat veges and to start it from our own garden.
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed the article.
I hope you stick around to read some of my upcoming articles, or to ask any questions you might have.
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Neat. Thanks for this!
Awesome post! You have a great blog, absolutely the best Ive read so far. I will be looking forward to your next entry. Thanks again.