Organics Ideas, Tips & Guides

The Work Projects Administration, or WPA, was a jobs and public works program, not an environmental one, I know, but among its many projects were some that focused on water conservation and parklands. So a selection of its vintage posters (such as those above, from the Library of Congress collection, and inthis popular slideshow) speak to me with contemporary-sounding messages, though they were created just before World War II.Messages about precious water, trees, and green space.Thoughts of Rachel CarsonIFOUND MYSELF paging digitally through the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale this week, too, where Rachel Carson’s papers are housed. There she

I bought the plant more than a decade ago, for the showiness of its (then) variegated red, green and yellow foliage and its touted use as a groundcover in moist shade (including plunged right in a pot in water, apparently). Certain that I had acquired a treasure, I was terribly upset when it didn’t return from underground after its first winter with me. Dead, I reported in my newspaper garden column at the time. Gone.It was another year before the chameleon turned on me again, and resurfaced. Its resurrection was cause for celebration. Not dead, not gone!I guess you know the rest of the story if you’ve ever grown an

Each Eastern tent caterpillar overwintered as part of a mass of several hundred eggs, and hatched in early spring to get ready to start eating. Fruit-tree foliage, including that of crabapples, is on their preferred diet, so I make a habit of destroying all the masses I can get to in my 10 crabapple trees, and elsewhere around the yard. I’m not going to single-handedly knock back the entire population, of course, but this simple, non-toxic tactic does reduce the damage to my trees so I can enjoy them in my landscape with leaves, instead of without.I simply use the piece of bamboo cane to remove the nest, inserting the tip into the structure and twisting gently till all the sticky, web-like bits (and the caterpillars) are on the stick. I deposit the contents on the ground near my shoe, and step on it for good measu

YES, OF COURSE I know about the more backbreaking ways to make a new bed, but lately I confess I’ve been relying more and more upon the magic of recyclables: newspaper and cardboard to be specific.

“The biggest problem I encountered was with the Phlox I planted,” Dan wrote. “The leaves developed a terrible fungus and it slowed its growth terribly. When I first spotted it, I did some research and decided to use an organic fungicide. That worked alright, but the fungus came back. Then, I tried an organic remedy I found on the internet: spraying with a milk solution. That worked less well. The poor plants were so overcome with the black fungus that they eventually withered without flowering late in the summer. I finally cut them down. Now they are starting back with strong green growth and I’m pleased, but I wondered if you had any advice for treating Phlox fungus.”One of the best non-chemical ways to deal with powdery mildew, I replied, which Phlox paniculata is so prone to in our humid summer

MY NEW SPIRITUAL PRACTICE is a moving meditation aimed at dandelions, a ritual that brings me into touch with my own powerlessness, and also my own power. Want to meditate with me?

What method of composting you use should be determined by the volume of material created in the yard (and to a lesser degree, in the kitchen, where vegetable scraps, egg shells and coffee and tea grounds can be collected for the heap, too). I create far too much raw material for a mere bin-type system, the commercially available kind made of metal or heavy plastic or mesh that are about as big as a washing machine. I have one of those, a metal one that shuts tight and thereby keeps animals out, to hold my vegetable food wastes, alternating them with layers of garden debris and a little soil or finished compost to get things activated and reduce any chance of unpleasant odors.The latest rage is all about lobster-trap-wire bins, meaning really durable even under the ocean day in and out. But my main heap is about 40 feet long and 5 or 6 feet wide, a long, open pile that in composting jargon is called a windrow. In the peak of fall cleanup and leaf raking, it gets to be about 5 feet tall, too, but as the material begins to settle, and eventually to break down, it’s usually more like 3 to 4 feet high.Whatever style of composting you choose, from a simple, small pile to a long windrow to an

TO A VEGETABLE PLANT, my apartment has to be about as foreign as outer space,” says Britta Riley, who nevertheless gardens it with a vengeance—in a vertical hydroponic system she conceived called a Windowfarm. How to get your own system—and help kickstart the success of this dynamic startup project.

A cat who goes out each night (like Jack the Demon Cat, top), and a lot of mousetraps.First order of importance: Make sure you know what you’re fighting, since seeing mounded soil or tunnel-like activity in lawns and beds doesn’t always mean moles. Know thy enemy. An interesting interview with a wildlife expert in the Seattle paper awhile back offered a test to determine whether it’s moles or voles you’ve got.“Gardens that border wild areas probably have both moles and voles,” the piece reported. “To find ou

AND THE BEAT GOES ON. If April was hectic, May is insane.

IF YOU ARE STILL USING any synthetic chemicals on your lawn, I hope you will stop. So does Paul Tukey. When he founded SafeLawns in 2006, Paul says, “It didn’t occur to people that their lawns could be dangerous.”“The sad reality is that we know that a lot of the chemicals used to grow the lawn (the fertilizers), or the chemicals used to control weeds or insects or fungal diseases—all  of these chemicals are designed to kill things, and they can make us very sick, and they make the water very sick, and the soil very sick, and the air very unhealthy.”Giving up chemicals doesn’t mean you have to pave over your front yard.“We will have lawns long after all these chemicals are banned in the United States, as they have been banned in Canada,” says Paul—explaining that more than 80 percent of Canadians cannot use weed and feed products, or glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide) because they are

“It’s like sheet mulching or lasagna gardening,” says Dave Whitinger of the National Gardening Association, who regularly lectures on the subject, but in hugelkultur, “wood is the first level of your sheet-mulched bed.” That’s his robust hugelkultur onion bed up top.Read along as you listen to the April 22, 2013 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).my hugelkultur q&a with dave whitingerFOR DAVE (above), the idea of this style of recycling came from a w

I replied:“Good idea…I will put it on my to-do list. Meantime my favorite lawn resources are Safe Lawns (a non-profit promoting organic care), and Cornell Cooperative Extension (assuming you are in a northern region like mine). The Cornell site includes chemical and non-chemical options; you know where

“Gardening Without Work,” Ruth Stout’s wonderful 1961 work, is one of my most treasured vintage gardening books, published when she was 76 years old. Though I am a couple of decades shy, the subtitle running up the right side of the cover cries out: “For the Aging, the Busy & the Indolent.”Guilty on all counts at the moment, Ruth. Mea culpa.It is more the spirit of the book than anything that I love, an attitude brought to life in a series of videos of her that I am thrilled to have just found (ask your library if they have them for rent; one sample is embedded from YouTube farther down this page). Written a year before Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” came out, Stout’s funny

The numbers on a fertilizer bag are the so-called N-P-K ratio, the percent of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash (or potassium, chemical symbol K) inside the bag. Simply speaking, nitrogen is for green growth; phosphorus is for roots, flowers, and fruit; potash is for general vigor and disease resistance. A so-called balanced fertilizer, often recommended in books, is one that has equal percentages of each element.With chemical fertilizers, the numbers are much higher than with organic formulations. A standard is 10-10-10 or 5-10-5, meaning there are those percentages of each element in the bag (the rest is filler). You won’t find those totals in any organic formulation. In fact, if the total of the three numbers on a so-called organic or natural bag adds up to more than 15, I’m suspicious. Unless blood meal—an organic material very high i

Come spring, several weeks before I plan to plant each area, I’ll cut or mow or pull the grain and legume combination down, depending on which pair I used and where they’re located, then turn under the remains. It’s like composting in place, with the foliage and underlying root system decomposing to improve soil texture and fertility.Cover crops can serve other purposes: Some specialized ones, like various Brassicas, can also provide not just biomass but other benefits including pest and disease control (more on that from Cornell). The subject is much wider than this simple explanation, but stated most simply:Grasses (like rye, sorghum-sudangrass crosses, and wheat) add organic matter to the soil very effectively. Note that I don’t list buckwheat

LIKE CLOCKWORK THEY START TO APPEAR ABOUT NOW: A first harvest of cucumbers, and also one of Japanese beetles. Into separate and quite different “brines” they go as fast as they develop, one a vinegar-salt formula, the latter a bit bubbly.

ONE SQUASH SLEPT ON THE WINDOWSILL, another in the cabinet beneath the sink. Both stayed firm (and presumably delicious) all winter long, and then some—far into the next year. Lia Babitch and Ian Robb, co-managers of Turtle Tree Seed in Copake, New York, may store their ‘Butternut’ differently, but the greater mission they’re part of is the same: to offer biodynamic, open-pollinated seed to gardeners and farmers that’s been selected to be the very best it can…which if you’re a winter squash means sticking around a good long while. Meet these gifted gardeners and more of their very special seed varieties.

For those who grow their own (or shop the farmer’s market), there can be spuds in a range of colors from blue to white to red and yellow. They come small as your thumb (fingerlings such as ‘Austrian Crescent’ are great for potato salad, or for roasting). Others are as large as a pound-and-a-half meal (‘Nooksack’, a whopping russet-skinned type that could support a whole container of sour cream). Best: You can harvest baby potatoes and eat them minutes later, which is one of vegetable gardening’s greatest rewards, right up there with the first ripe tomato.Choose not just for size and color but also for texture, since potatoes may be mealy or smooth. It likewise makes sense to stagger the h

Facing the overstuffed, impossible-to-manage reality of my 40-by-6-by-8-foot heap, I raked the top 2-foot layer (the still-whole stuff, like last fall’s leaves, in the photo below) onto the ground beside the pile, removed any enormous or woody pieces, got out the tractor, and performed my first act of hit-and-run composting. Wow. What a difference a drive-by makes.In no time I had reduced the dry stuff formerly on top by probably 75 percent in volume, creating what will make a great (free) mulch (bottom photo) for rough areas like the vegetable and cutting rows. And I had gained access to the enormous volume of finished compost beneath it. (Next step: to screen that for use.)Drive-by composting is my new favori

Besides drowning Japanese beetles in bowls of soapy water, I have my eye on some rabbits who seem to be working their way through the place. Wish my neighbor, Herb, who has a knack for trapping every manner of thing, hadn’t gone to Maine for the summer. Herb? Oh, Herb?With the Japanese beetles, I’m long past the beetle-bag phase of my gardening career. I think that those l

WHILE YOU’RE AT IT TUCKING IN THE GARDEN, the compost pile could use some TLC, too. Perhaps sticks and stones won’t break your bones, but they need to be screened from finished compost before you incorporate it into beds (that’s my wheelbarrow-top compost screen, left).

THANK YOU DEB PERELMAN OF SMITTEN KITCHEN, who cooks up a giant food blog from her tiny, 42-square-foot New York City kitchen. Just in time for peak pickling season, Deb unlocked the riddle that had been puzzling her (and me) for years: why recipes come out too salty sometimes and not others. Turns out that not all brands of Kosher salt (shown above, in my Grandma’s glass salt cellar) are created equal. The scoop from Deb (thank you, thank you).WANT TO USE LESS CHEMICALS in and around the home and garden? Who doesn’t? Beyond Pesticides dot org is an essential resource to help in the plight. Just look at this list of factsheets (each a PDF). I love the one on “Reading Your Lawn Weeds,” for instance, a tactic that will really help you think before dumping on some needless toxin; you can find it partway down this page of theirs, at the link

CEDAR APPLE RUST is having a banner year here. So what do you do when you live with warring roommates? In the case of the back-and-forth rounds of battle between the towering Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) in my front yard and all apples and apple relatives around the place, nothing.Well, I do watch in fascination, especially at the stage of cedar apple rust above (a few weeks ago), when orange, almost gelatinous “telial horns” are developing where the cedar galls were last fall and winter. I don’t intervene, despite the havoc this fungus causes, particularly foliar damage and defoliation of apple relatives (the reason my shadbush, or Amelanchier, and my oldest of apples lose their leaves so early each year; the reason I don’t even try to grow hawthorns).Quince, crabapple and pear are some of the other plants similarly affected.

SO IS COPPER SULFATE a chemical? I am not a chemist, but a gardener, so here is what I know with help from more expert sources:Pure copper sulfate is an inorganic compound that does occur naturally, but is more

UNLIKE MANY VEGETABLE CROPS we grow to eat—which are typically picked young and tender, and therefore grown for a shorter time—the same plant cultivated for a seed harvest must be grown to a much older age, requiring much more water, fertilizer, and chemical controls against pests and diseases.Seed crops are coddled, and regulations on chemical usage when raising them is also looser than on growing the same vegetable for the food market.Besides the pollution and waste of resources this results in, it fails to do something else really important: It yields seed strains that “expect “ this kind of pampering—not ones that are well-adapted to organic growing conditions in our home gardens, where we (hopefully!) don’t rush in with a chemical at every turn of events, or prop things up on synthetics instead of diligent care for our soil.Read More:

Prepping a bed without turning or tilling may actually help reduce the number of weed seeds that sprout, so in many situations, it’s my tactic of choice. If a sunny patch of lawn is destined to house a crop of summer tomatoes or a fall-planted bulb garden, or an existing border needs some smothering of weeds. how to make a bed with cardboardTHE EXPLANATION below assumes the underlying soil is fairly decent, neither bog nor wasteland nor highly compacted, and that the vegetation growing in it is mostly herbaceous (like lawn, not a thicket of blackberries or po

She is someone I have often heard called a mentor and inspiration by some of my most respected garden friends, especially in the Pacific Northwest. No wonder, because Corvallis, Oregon-based Carol Deppe–also the author of the popular book “The Resilient Gardener”–is pragmatic, but also scientific in her approach, armed not only with precisely the right hoe for the job but also with a PhD in biology from Harvard and a long background in plant breeding.Read along as you listen to the March 30, 2015 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here). We talked about choosing vegetables to grow in combination (and when some crops are most productive and easiest grown alone); about strategic steps to avoid late blight

These non-native “ladybugs,” introduced by the Department of Agriculture to help combat certain agricultural pests, have made themselves right at home in America—and in my house, too. In fall, the south-facing side of the exterior can be teeming with patches of them, as they look for places to tuck into and overwinter. The USDA imported lady beetles from Japan as early as 1916 as a beneficial insect, to gobble up unwanted pests on forest and orchard trees, but it was probably later releases, in the late 1970s and early 80s in the Southeast, that took hold. Today, multicolored Asian lady beetles have made themselves completely at home around the United States, easily adapting to regions as diverse as Louisiana, Oregon, and mine in New York State.

Eliminate hiding places. Wilted or slightly decaying foliage left in the garden can provide perfect hiding places, as it often bends to touch the ground. This week, now that things have dried a bit so I can get into the beds, a more ruthless approach to cutbacks than normal is scheduled, since the extreme rains caused so much excess, often floppy, growth.Don’t over-mulch. One to perhaps 2½ inches of mulch is desirable; layering on thicker amounts than about 3 inches just invites damp conditions that slugs love, plus it provides a great place to hide.Set out safe baits or traps. There are self-described “nontoxic” slug baits these days (though research institutions like Cornell use the term “low-toxicity,” which is probably

By choosing seed farmed in conditions like my own–without chemicals, and if possible, in a geographically similar environment–I can contribute less to the pollution caused by conventional seed growing, and also make a happy “match” between the seeds and my garden. Read the “New York Times” story, and if you feel inclined, share it. My latest public-radio show, produced with Robin Hood Radio, digs into the subject, too.Categoriesedible plants from seed organics vegetables.

I first heard about “Bird Songs Bible: The Complete, Illustrated Reference for North American Birds,” edited by Les Beletsky, featuring sound from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and published by Chronicle Books, in this NPR segment last month. One caveat: The book-cum-boombox (birdbox?) ain’t cheap (cheep?) at $125.‘Millions Against Monsanto’ CampaignIWON’T ELABORATE OR START SHOUTING, but rather leave it at this: One of the things that scares me most is GMO crops, whether in the field or in our food. The Organic Consumers Union offers education, and also an advocacy program (aimed squarely at Monsanto, of course, whom they label “the biotech bully”) to make it easy for us all to add our names to the fight.

In a series of emails and Skype calls since I began A Way to Garden in 2008, Gayla and I have found so much shared turf:We two longtime organic gardeners can get riled up—over topics ranging from the environment, to chemical companies and the “business” of gardening in general, to dyed mulch and more (her most recent rant on offcolor mulch is way down in this post). We both overdo it—on plants, work, and a major inclination to cart home lots of rusty buckets and other “vintage” metal stuff from tag sales. We both live in the garden offseason crammed into spaces where in many rooms, the plants get a majority of the square footage. (And why not?) In addition to the usual tools, you’ll find us both with a camera in the garden, though Gayla is a professional ph

I HAVE ISSUES with mulch–and what is, and is not, qualified to be used as this most important of all garden “tools.” Yes, I am fussy on this score, very fussy–as doodler Andre Jordan knows. Want to know just how fussy? My popular Mulch FAQ Page will answer that (and all your mulching questions, from which material to how deep to apply it and much, much more).

Note I used the word “shred,” because on my radio show and podcast, Mike and I talked about shredding, and how the right strategy along with the best shredding device can make all the difference in making mulch and compost from those brilliant leaves you’ve been piling up.Read along as you listen to the Nov. 23, 2015 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).my leaf-processing q&a with mike mcgrathQ. Congratulations, I should say first, on 17 years of “You Bet Your Garden.”A. Isn’t it amazing? People remember me still to this day from “Organic Gardening” magazine, a

IHAVE KNOWN KEN DRUSE FOR MORE YEARS than either of us cares to admit to, so it was great fun recently to be invited to talk about one of our shared favorite topics–seeds–with him on his weekly ‘Real Dirt’ podcast. Like to listen in? Perhaps afterward you’ll want to read the related stories about why I’m ordering from catalogs whose seed is produced sustainably or organically, and how worked up I’ve been getting about genetically modified seed.