Herb from Uncasville, CT writes in for help:
“I HAVE YOUR ALL SEASON FRUIT TREE SPRAY BUT HAVE LOST THE DIRECTION ON HOW TO MIX IT UP TO SPRAY MY TREES PLEASE HELP ME”
Herb, thanks for getting in touch, but I think your best best it to look at the label on the pesticide and contact the [...]

Anyone in tune with popular media has heard that bee populations are dieing out and have been in decline for several years. In my own very diverse garden I’ve noticed a huge decline in honeybees. I use no pesticides, and I provide a diverse array of food sources for all bees. Still, this year my [...]

As a garden consultant, I hear this question a lot: What do I spray to get rid of the fruit flies in my house plants?
The first thing I try to determine is whether the pest is truly a fruit fly or is actually a fungus gnat. They’re both tiny and truly annoying. Fruit flies tend to invade our kitchens, particularly [...]

I just read that an Asian Longhorn Beetle infestation has erupted in New England. I also learned from this article that once the eggs hatch in trees there’s nothing to eradicate them. The pest has only been in the Eastern U.S. for about 10 years now, and there are no known natural predators or good methods. [...]

Plant people know that plants make their own food. The process of photosynthesis is how plants convert solar (light) energy into chemical energy. Within plants when water and carbon dioxide are in the presence of sunlight and cholorphyll, food, water and oxygen are created. An even simplier way of looking at this truly amazing phenomenon [...]

If you’re growing chard, spinach or other leafy greens in Seattle this month, you may be seeing widening lines of twirling damage running through your crops. Fall and Spring seem to be the season for the leafminer to go crazy on our food crops. And, they’re tough to remedy.
Leaf miners are small maggot creatures that live in [...]

It’s September. Our edible gardens are overflowing. Delicious, sun-ripened tomatoes and peaches and melons are filling up our counter space as we make our way through the season’s edible bounty. If you’re like me, you avoid refrigeration for these freshly harvested items (and others) to ensure they retain great texture and flavor. Sure, eventually some [...]

Here I am in Seattle at the end of August — a month noted for being dry and sunny in Seattle. From about July 5th until early September you can usually rely on having warm lovely weather here. This year? Well, as my brother-in-law warned me years ago when I asked him what the weather [...]

R. Hawkins of Olive, IL writes in with two questions:
“have red twig dog wood bushes, starting in august a blackspot covers the beautiful leaves, what caqn this be and how can i prevent it? also i hear that there is a boor(or bore?) coming my way and will kill my ash trees, help!”
Let’s start with [...]

Today’s headlines were pretty depressing…local trees have been poisoned with herbicide, mostly likely by a human who thinks s/he deserves to see some water in a lake more than the trees deserve to have life. Then I read that the FDA has okayed irradiating spinach and lettuce to reduce bacterial outbreaks.
I’ve got to wonder if [...]