Bug-Free Organic Gardening: Permaculture Gardener, #2
By Anna Hess
()
About this ebook
Put down those harmful sprays and pick up the tricks of natural pest control!
Are you sick and tired of pesky insects in your garden? Do you want to stay away from pesticides and harmful poisons that could be hazardous to your garden and your health? If you answered yes to both of those questions, Bug-Free Organic Gardening has all the answers to your troubles.
This expanded third edition (previously entitled The Naturally Bug-Free Garden) shows how to bring your garden ecosystem into balance so that beneficial insects and larger animals do the work of pest control for you. With more than a decade's experience growing all of her family's vegetables, Hess sums her knowledge on topics such as:
- Succession planting
- Choosing resistant plant varieties
- Shielding plants with row covers
- Timing plantings to bypass bugs
- And so much more!
Get ready to grow beautiful, organic vegetables for yourself and your family. With the help of this photo-rich text, your garden can also be naturally bug-free.
Read more from Anna Hess
Related to Bug-Free Organic Gardening
Titles in the series (3)
Homegrown Humus: Cover Crops in a No-Till Garden: Permaculture Gardener, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bug-Free Organic Gardening: Permaculture Gardener, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ultimate Guide to Soil: The Real Dirt on Cultivating Crops, Compost, and a Healthier Home: Permaculture Gardener, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related ebooks
Companion Planting - The Lazy Gardener's Guide to Organic Vegetable Gardening Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Companion Planting for the Kitchen Gardener: Tips, Advice, and Garden Plans for a Healthy Organic Garden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stay Grounded: Soil Building for Sustainable Gardens: Easy-Growing Gardening, #8 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCompanion Planting: Organic Gardening Tips and Tricks for Healthier, Happier Plants Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Basic Companion Planting for Organic Gardens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsProtecting Pollinators: How to Save the Creatures that Feed Our World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Plant Science for Gardeners: Essentials for Growing Better Plants Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secrets of Soil Building Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Living Soil Handbook: The No-Till Grower's Guide to Ecological Market Gardening Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Healthy Vegetable Garden: A natural, chemical-free approach to soil, biodiversity and managing pests and diseases Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHomegrown Humus: Cover Crops in a No-Till Garden: Permaculture Gardener, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Farming on the Wild Side: The Evolution of a Regenerative Organic Farm and Nursery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sustainable Backyard Polyculture: Designing for ecological resiliency Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Community Food Forest Handbook: How to Plan, Organize, and Nurture Edible Gathering Places Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture: Pesticide-Free Methods for Restoring Soil and Growing Nutrient-Rich, High-Yielding Crops Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Suburban Micro-Farm Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ultimate Guide to Soil: The Real Dirt on Cultivating Crops, Compost, and a Healthier Home: Permaculture Gardener, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmall-Scale No-Till Gardening Basics: The Ultimate Guide to Soil, #2 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower's Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Miraculous Abundance: One Quarter Acre, Two French Farmers, and Enough Food to Feed the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bokashi Composting: Scraps to Soil in Weeks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Intelligent Gardener: Growing Nutrient-Dense Food Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPermaculture for Beginners: Knowledge and Basics of Permaculture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Perfect Compost: The Complete Guide To Composting At Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Guide to Companion Planting: Everything You Need to Know to Make Your Garden Successful Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Gardening For You
The Lost Book of Simple Herbal Remedies: Discover over 100 herbal Medicine for all kinds of Ailment Inspired By Barbara O'Neill Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBackyard Pharmacy: Growing Medicinal Plants in Your Own Yard Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Modern Witchcraft Guide to Magickal Herbs: Your Complete Guide to the Hidden Powers of Herbs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Floriography: An Illustrated Guide to the Victorian Language of Flowers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Midwest-The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies, Unlock the Secrets of Natural Medicine at Home Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cannabis Grow Bible: The Definitive Guide to Growing Marijuana for Recreational and Medical Use Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Alchemy of Herbs - A Beginner's Guide: Healing Herbs to Know, Grow, and Use Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Your Indoor Herb Garden: Growing and Harvesting Herbs at Home Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Herbalist's Bible: John Parkinson's Lost Classic Rediscovered Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Square Foot Gardening: A Beginner's Guide to Square Foot Gardening at Home Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Houseplants 101: How to choose, style, grow and nurture your indoor plants: The Green Fingered Gardener, #4 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Floret Farm's Cut Flower Garden: Grow, Harvest, and Arrange Stunning Seasonal Blooms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Medicinal Herbal: A Practical Guide to the Healing Properties of Herbs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Self-Sufficient Backyard Homestead Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBe Your Own Herbalist: Essential Herbs for Health, Beauty, and Cooking Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSquare Foot Gardening: How To Grow Healthy Organic Vegetables The Easy Way Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Language of Flowers: A Definitive and Illustrated History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wild Witchcraft: Folk Herbalism, Garden Magic, and Foraging for Spells, Rituals, and Remedies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening: How to Grow Nutrient-Dense, Soil-Sprouted Greens in Less Than 10 days Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Book of Backyard Medicine: The Ultimate Guide to Home-Grown Herbal Remedies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelf-Sufficiency Handbook: Your Complete Guide to a Self-Sufficient Home, Garden, and Kitchen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Practical Botany for Gardeners: Over 3,000 Botanical Terms Explained and Explored Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Backyard Homesteading: A Back-to-Basics Guide to Self-Sufficiency Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Weekend Homesteader: A Twelve-Month Guide to Self-Sufficiency Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edible Wild Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Bug-Free Organic Gardening
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Bug-Free Organic Gardening - Anna Hess
Introduction
Many leaf nibblers, like this bush katydid (Scudderia sp.), are solitary and go largely unnoticed in the garden.
Insects are one of the worst problems facing many organic fruit and vegetable growers, and I was certainly no exception at the beginning of my homesteading career. For the last eight years, my husband and I have grown most of our own food, and some days I was ready to throw in the towel. Our squash plants melted into puddles of wilted leaves just before they set fruit (vine borers at work), tiny grubs defoliated our asparagus fronds (asparagus beetles chowing down), and mysterious insects arrived in the night to eat our Swiss-chard leaves (striped blister beetles being bad). Our broccoli was so covered in cabbageworms that it seemed easier to toss the food than to eat it, and Japanese beetles dripped from our grapevines.
Our neighbors told us to spray, but even seemingly safe pesticides like Bt and neem oil gave me the willies. Wasn't there a way to grow our food without any chemical inputs at all?
The answer was yes, but only once we learned to bend a little to nature's whims. A garden ecosystem is always going to be at least slightly out of balance because humans have manipulated the soil and landscape to promote productivity, but we can still do our best to bring natural forces to bear against insect pests. My husband and I beat squash vine borers with variety selection and succession planting, we waited for natural predators to defeat the asparagus and blister beetles, we learned to plant our broccoli at a time when cabbage moths were dormant, and we switched over to a variety of grape that Japanese beetles don't enjoy. With these and other techniques, we eventually learned to keep pest insects in check without spraying anything at all. Using the tips in this book, you can do the same in your own garden!
(As a final side note before you delve into the meat of natural insect control, I wanted to alert you to the presence of a glossary in the back of this book. Now and then I'll use a term like permaculture
or Bt
and will assume you know what I'm talking about. If you do—great! If not, just flip to the glossary for a quick refresher course on these advanced homesteading topics.)
––––––––
What is a Naturally Bug-Free Garden?
A praying mantis moved into a bed of buggy beans in search of a high-protein snack.
Is a naturally bug-free garden a spot where no creepy crawlies of any sort reside? Far from it! In fact, if you follow my lead and use the bug-control methods outlined in this book, you'll soon be seeing bees on your squash flowers and mantises in your beans. Beneficials will be everywhere.
And your garden won't even really be free of pest invertebrates. It's necessary to keep the bad guys around in low numbers in order to attract the good guys, so you'll still see the occasional slug and cucumber beetle. On the other hand, you'll no longer find plants so overcome by the bad bugs that they can't hold their heads up high, so you might stop noticing the pests entirely as nature takes over the job of keeping bad-bug populations in check.
When it comes right down to it, the only thing a naturally bug-free garden is really free of is the gardener's need to wage war against pests. It's the gardener, not the garden, who is set free. And that freedom is what we were really looking for all along, isn't it?
Part 1: The Garden Ecosystem
The presence of centipedes and other predators is a sign your garden is in balance.
Chapter 1: Identifying Your Bugs
I was concerned when I first noticed these dark scales on dead asparagus stalks, but I soon realized they were simply the eggs of the innocuous katydid that sings me to sleep on autumn nights.
––––––––
Many new gardeners assume that every bug is a bad bug, but the truth is that a significant number of the creepy crawlies you'll find on your vegetables are either random passers-by, are beneficial pollinators, or are predators of leaf nibblers. The trick is to know the difference, and to understand how larger animals fit into the complex web of garden life.
Since it's so easy to mistake good bugs for bad bugs, my first rule when dealing with garden insects is to identify everything I see. Bug-Free Organic Gardening is too short to introduce every garden character, but this chapter will at least give you a frame of reference to fit unidentified bugs into, along with an idea of key identification resources. Between the identification tips found here and the profiles in later chapters of common garden friends and foes, you should soon be able to put a name to most critters that show up in your yard.
––––––––
Types of Invertebrates
The most common types of invertebrates visible to the naked eye in a garden are annelids (worms), molluscs (snails and slugs), myriapods (centipedes and millipedes), arachnids (spiders and mites), crustaceans (woodlice and crayfish), and insects.
––––––––
Your first step when you find an unknown bug should be to figure out which large categories the animal fits into. Starting at the top, nearly all garden bugs are known as invertebrates because they have no backbone. (I incorrectly call them bugs
throughout this book when I'm not feeling very scientific.)
The chart above shows the wide range