QuickTips Index

Pest Control in the Vegetable Garden
Another organic control has been added to the vegetable gardener’s arsenal with new studies that show adding worm compost can cut down on damage by sucking and chewing insects like aphids, caterpillars and mealy bugs.

What Can’t I Plant Under a Black Walnut Tree?
Black walnuts (Juglans nigra L.)are valuable landscape and lumber trees, but black walnut trees are not always good companions for other plants. They produce a chemical called "juglone", which can be allelopathic to many common plants. Here are some tips for gardening near a black walnut tree.

Preventing Weeds
A better idea than pulling weeds is to keep them out of your garden in the first place. You can't stop every bird from dropping a weed seed here and there, but there are several things you can do to limit the amount of weeds brought into your garden and prevent weeds from getting out of control.

Controlling Weeds - Annual versus Perennial Weeds
If there’s a bare spot in your garden, a weed seed will find it. Some weeds are easily removed by hand and others are persistent about growing back and become more and more difficult to eradicate the longer they are left to establish themselves and spread. Knowing whether a weed is an annual and will die this season or a perennial weed that will just keep growing, will help you control the weeds in your garden.

Baking Soda Recipe for Controlling Powdery Mildew on Plants
Powdery mildew and other fungus diseases of plants have long been successfully controlled with a mixture of baking soda, water and and oil or soap to help it spread.

Bagworms - How to Get Rid of Them without Climbing
If you have bagworms in your landscape, you’ve probably been told there’s not much you can do but cut them out of the tree and destroy them. New studies show promise that planting members of the Aster family, like daisies and gazania, near and/or around the susceptible tree will attract a natural predator of bagworm.