Posts tagged as:

Garden Maintenance

Fall Leaves: Leave ‘Em and Weep

by Genevieve on December 5, 2009

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Once upon a time some newbie garden writer thought it’d be a great idea to encourage people to leave their fall leaves on the ground. Hey, it’s got all the qualities of a great article for the masses; it tells folks what they want to hear (stay in your jammies on Saturday and don’t bother with all that raking!), and it sounds vaguely earth-friendly, which generally goes over well.

The problem with this well-intended advice? [Click here to continue reading…]

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Post image for How to Treat Rose and Flower Pests Naturally: Intro

Roses can be tough to grow organically, because they’ve been so over-bred for their honking big flowers that often, breeders paid little attention to disease-resistance. So you end up with these great frankenflowers that look fantastic – until midsummer when the black spot, caterpillars, and aphids move in.

But – I admit it – I love roses too! There’s nothing like a deep red rose (grown from home, so it’s fragrant!) to mark a romantic occasion, or a spray of cheery pink roses tucked in a bouquet. So what’s a good organic gardener to do?

No worries, dude. While growing roses can be a pain because so many varieties do get insects and diseases, there are a number of very effective things you can do to prevent rose pests and treat them organically if they do arrive. These treatments work for other flowers that get diseases, too.

Click the links below to find out how to:

Prevent rose pests such as aphids and powdery mildew by using good preventive gardening practices.

Kill pests and eliminate diseases naturally using organic and biological (beast-eat-beast) controls.

Read about some sturdy, disease-resistant roses that will bloom well for you in the damp Pacific Northwest

Learn practical tips on how to love your garden as it is – bugs and all.

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Gardening Basics: How to Water

June 21, 2009
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Watering seems like one of those bonehead tasks that everyone should get right on their first try, right? I wish! The truth is, I see more gardens that are sick and unhealthy due to water stress than any other single issue. Luckily, watering properly isn’t complicated once you know a few simple things.

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Organic Gardening 101: How to Begin Gardening Naturally and Have Happier Plants

May 31, 2009
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I’ve been asked a lot lately about organics in the garden. “How do I kill snails around my vegetable starts?” is a common question. “Does anything organic really work on roses?”
I even spoke with one gardener who felt chained to her Miracle-Gro routine – having to laboriously water it in every two weeks. It was [...]

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How to Weed Without Strain: Effortless Gardening with Feldenkrais Practitioner Cathy Butler (Video)

May 6, 2009
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I don’t know about you, but when I garden for hours at a time (which for me is every day), even though I enjoy myself, I do feel sore and tired. Even a gentle and soothing task like weeding often leaves me stooped and tuckered at the end of the day.

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Lookin’ Sharp – How to Keep Your Garden Tools Clean and Sharpened (Video)

May 3, 2009
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Wrapping up our series on the hand tools we use most in gardening, I want to show you my favorite sharpening tool, the Speedy Sharp, and how to use it to sharpen your pruning shears and your soil knife or hori-hori:

Now, if you prefer to use a file to sharpen your shears, Fine Gardening has [...]

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Organic Weed Control – How to Kill Weeds Without Harmful Chemicals

March 28, 2009
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As a garden coach, I’m often asked if there are any organic ways of getting rid of weeds that actually work. Nobody wants to spray harmful chemicals in their garden.
The good news is that there are a lot of organic alternatives. The bad news is, the alternatives are more labor-intensive, and can be pricier than [...]

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February Garden Maintenance for the Pacific Northwest

February 4, 2009

February feels like the eye of the storm for us gardeners – there’s just enough time between the winter pruning rush and the flurry of spring to take a deep breath, and begin thinking back on what worked especially well last year and what projects we might like to tackle this year.
Most of my February [...]

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In Other Words: Winter Pruning Guides from Around the Web

January 27, 2009

I’ve found some wonderful tutorials on pruning in the last few weeks, with easy-to-understand photos and step by step advice. Pruning can be intimidating for beginners, but these guides break it down and have an encouraging tone – they don’t make things more complicated than they have to be.
Here are the articles I’ve liked the [...]

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Stupid Thorns, Tasty Berries: How To Prune Raspberries (It’s Easy)

January 23, 2009

So every time I open up my pruning book to the raspberry page, I get deep unhappy furrows in my brow. Raspberries are a simple plant. Why do they have to make it so complicated?
There’s the summer-fruiting kind (with a short fruiting season), which fruit best on one year old wood. Ideally with these, you [...]

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