March Week 4

Organic Gardening Calendar
3 Weeks to frost free date in zone 6

By: Kathi

I love this time of year! A whole entire season ahead of us, and every year I just know this one will be the best. And to assure that it is one of the best, you must get your head into regular pest control management.

Things you will need:
Duster
Sprayer(s)
Bug traps

Now, not next week, is the time to really get into the pest control matter in your yard. When you use organics and mechanical methods of pest control timing is everything. You must know your pest and know exactly when and how to get to them.

There is no way that this post can cover 16 encyclopedias worth of garden pests. But what it can do is point you in the right direction. I keep going back to GardensAlive!; I’m not pushing them intentionally, but I have to confess that their catalog is one of the most informative publications you can get on pest control management. If you have not yet, go to their web site Http://www.GardensAlive.com and sign up for a free catalog. At least once a year the catalog becomes a small book. Save that one. It has everything about pest and of course what they sell to remedy the pest all in one nice neat spot.

I highly recommend that you take the catalog and mark it up. If you buy every product they advertise for every pest, you just could not afford it. But, the information is there, you just have to pay attention…but 3-4 products will take care of everything. Read those long lists of bugs and compare products.

If you get other mail order catalogs you will see that many of these same products are offered under different brand names. What you want to be sure to note on other companies is to verify that the product is organic. With GardensAlive! You do not have that worry.

Bacterial Infections: In orchards you must control the critters and diseases or you will not have a harvest fitting for anyone but the birds. One of the primary products you will need is a Fungicidal Soap. Fungicidal Soap will control almost every canker, downy and powdery mildew, mold, blights (including fire blight), and various bacterial spots. Mark up your calendar beginning NOW, to spray all your fruit trees and roses, and later your veggies with fungicidal soap every 7-10 days. If you are infested with molds, mildews and blights, do it every 7 days for the entire growing season. Next year every 10 days will be enough, and after that if everything stays under control, I’ve had success spraying every 2-3 weeks. You must cut out all damaged wood from blights, and get all infected plant material out of your garden. DO NOT PUT SICK PLANT MATERIAL IN YOUR COMPOST PILE!!! Did I stress that enough? I burn mine. You do what you gotta do for where you live. Always collect and remove diseased fallen leaves from under your fruit tress.

Japanese Beetles: Nasty critters. First things first. Purchase a can or two of “Milky Spore” you can get it at any big box garden center. Broadcast the spore according to directions. The grub phase is the weakest link in the beetle’s life cycle and therefore the most vulnerable point to introduce an infection. Milky spores in treated areas are swallowed by grubs while feeding. The Spore disease cripples the grubs, killing them within the next 7-21 days. As the grubs decompose, they release billions of new spores. Milky Spore is not harmful to beneficial insects, birds, bees, pets or humans, and will not affect wells, ponds or streams. This stuff is cheap, so use liberally.

Fleas, Weevils and Grubs: In order to fend off damage to root crops or all cabbage crops including broccoli and cauliflower, and to prevent corn earworms, you should spray the ground, a moist ground, preferable right before a rain with Beneficial Nematodes. Nematodes kill every kind of grub, including Japanese beetles, but also get the Iris borers, carrot weevils, and cutworms. Beneficial nematodes come to you in a plastic bag with a sponge and a bit of water. At first you will feel ripped off, because it looks like you bought a few tablespoons of dirty water. But in that sponge are millions of microscopic nematodes that are hungry and ready to eat your pests. These in my mind are expensive. You do not have to soak the ground with the solution, but don’t skimp either. Hosing the nematodes in after spraying is a good practice. Spray only the areas around the things you want to protect. For my irises, I spray an area of maybe 8 square inches around each tuber. Spray the plot where you intend to plant any root crop, and spray the immediate area around transplanted slips to keep off the cutworms. I spray the beneficial nematodes only once a year.

Traps: There are specialized traps that are inexpensive and easy to use that can be purchased locally. I use Japanese beetle traps and they do work. The directions on the positioning I dispute. They say put them 50 feet downwind of the crop to be protected. Silliness. I think this was written in Japanese, and translated into another language before it got translated into English. The pheromones in any trap will draw bugs from down wind. So you want to place your traps up wind of the things to be protected. But not 50 feet away either. Stick that trap right beside your roses and hollyhocks. You will catch every bug those plants attract.

Otherwise, every fruit tree has a particular bug that attacks it and those specialized traps are readily available. Trapping is actually the best most ecological and safest way to control pests. No bug can develop a resistance to glue. Replace the traps when they get full.

Remember too…Put down pre-emergent as the Forsythias bloom.

Next week: Start watching out for volunteers!