Reader Question: How Do I Get Rid of Slugs?
I got a great question from a reader:
"Slugs are becoming quite a problem in my vegetable garden. How can I get rid of these pests? Are there any predators that can help with my slug problem?"
Have you tried setting beer traps for the slugs? This simply involves putting a saucer of beer on the ground. The slugs are attracted to the odor of the beer, crawl in for a drink, and drown. You'll probably have to do this several times, but it does work...sometimes. Another idea for "trapping" the slugs is to set half of an orange or grapefruit rind, round side up, in your garden and leave it overnight. The slugs will gather under the rind, and you can simply pick the whole thing up to dispose of several slugs at once. This can be a hit-or-miss method, but it may be worth a try.
Another method that works well is to lay a board in the garden bed where slugs have been a problem. Check under it regularly to see if any of the slugs have taken shelter there, then just squish them.
You can also try crushing up some eggshells and sprinkling them around any plants they are eating. The sharp edges bother their slimy undersides, and they will avoid that area.
Slug predators include birds and toads. I haven't been lucky enough to have any toads in my garden yet, but American robins are wonderful for taking smallish slugs out of my garden. I have a male robin who never fails to show up when I'm digging or weeding in my garden. I toss slugs and grubs his way when I come across them, and he gobbles them right up. I think we make a pretty good team!
Do you have any tips for dealing with slugs in your garden? Please share them with us in the comments!
Photo by Colleen Vanderlinden
Ten Easy Vegetables To Direct Sow in Your Garden
Following up on my recent post about the joys of direct-sowing garden seeds, I thought I'd offer a few suggestions today for easy veggies to direct-sow. Here are my top ten favorite easy veggies:
- Leaf Lettuce. Simply scatter the seed, cover with fine layer of soil or compost, and keep moist. You'll be harvesting dainty, flavorful leaves in about three weeks. It's a good idea to sow a fresh crop every couple of weeks to ensure that you have a constant supply.
- Spinach. It is best to harvest spinach young, when the leaves are about two to three inches long. To keep it from bolting in summer heat, try planting a heat-tolerant variety like 'Bloomsdale Long Standing.' As with lettuce, sow a fresh crop every few weeks.
- Zucchini/Summer Squash. You could start these indoors, but why? These prolific plants germinate very well once the soil has warmed a bit. Direct sow them after your last frost date.
- Radishes. Sow these anytime to enjoy in salads and on crudite platters. Be sure to give them even moisture. The greens are alos edible, and, if harvested when they are about two inches long, provide a slightly pepper zing to salads and sandwiches.
- Kale. My favorite kale is 'Lacinato' also known as "dinosaur kale." While kale is usually considered to be a cold season crop, I grow it successfully throughout the summer, harvesting the largest leaves fairly regularly. Young leaves are delicious raw in salads, and mature leaves can be cooked like spinach or added to soups.
- Beets. I've mentioned before that I don't really like beet roots, but I love the greens. They're very pretty in salads, and provide a bit of sweetness when mixed with other baby greens. Grow beets in loose soil, and keep them evenly moist; beets that are allowed to dry out often develop woody roots. Which is important if you actually plan to eat your beet roots...Please note that each beet seed is actually a cluster of seeds, so you'll have to do some thinning when the greens are a couple inches long. Thin to approximately two inches apart.
- Swiss chard. This is another green that grows well all summer in my zone 6 garden. Varieties such as 'Bright Lights' are just as beautiful as they are tasty. Chard does very well in containers as well as in traditional garden beds. It can be eaten sauteed like spinach, and the stalks can be eaten raw like celery (but it's tastier than celery as far as I'm concerned!) Give chard even moisture and harvest the outer stalks regularly to keep your plant producing all summer long.
- Beans. Whether you choose pole beans or bush beans, they are super-simple to grow. You often see recommendations to treat the seed with a bit of legume innoculant to increase yields, but in all honesty I seem to end up with too many beans even when I don't add the innoculant. Plant them after soil has warmed. Pole beans should be planted about six inches apart; bush beans can be planted three to four inches apart. You will need to provide a trellis if you plan to grow pole beans, which will reach six feet tall or more. Keep them evenly moist, and harvest the beans when they are thin and tender. If you leave them too long, they will get stringy and tough. Be sure to harvest regularly. Both bush and pole beans are prolific, and you may well end up with more than you can use. Luckily, beans freeze well, and you'll be happy to enjoy their fresh taste in soups and stews when winter arrives.
- Peas. Peas need cool weather to grow well, so they're an ideal spring or fall crop. You can select snow peas, snap peas, or shell peas, but they all have the same basic requirements: cool weather, full sun, trellis or other support to climb on, and even moisture.
- Cucumbers. Plant cucumbers once your soil has warmed in the spring. You can choose bush or vining types, slicers or pickling cucumbers. You'll need to provide a trellis for vining types, and be sure to give your cucumbers plenty of moisture, because cukes that are allowed to dry out often develop bitter fruits. Certain varieties, such as 'Bushmaster' even grow well in containers. For a different change of pace, try growing heirloom 'Lemon' cucumbers, which grow to lemon-sized yellow-striped fruits. They're delicious, and look great in a salad.
So, there you have it: ten veggies to direct-sow in your garden. In my next post, I'll have a list of annual flowers to direct sow in your garden.
Tricks for Successful Direct Sowing
As much as I love playing with all of my gardening gadgets, such as soil block makers, seedling heat mats, and grow lights, there is a certain satisfaction that comes from direct sowing seeds in my garden. I love planting pumpkin seeds with my children, and seeing those fat cotyledons seem to magically appear days later, then flourish into wild, rambling vines. And when planting corn, a good rule of thumb is to plant two for the crows, and one for the gardener. We also direct-sow many annuals, including zinnias, marigolds, calendulas, and sunflowers, every year.
But it's not a guarantee. If we direct sow too soon, we may experience the joy of germination only to be hit with the disappointment a late frost brings. Cutworms are evil incarnate. And slugs....well. Don't get me started on slugs.
There will always be weather and insect life to contend with; that is part of gardening. But we also make things difficult for ourselves at times. We don't mark where we plant, and end up pulling seedlings along with the weeds. We forget to water, and teeny tiny seedlings shrivel to nothingness. We neglect to properly prep the soil, and our seedlings don't grow as well as they should.
Sowing seeds isn't rocket science. Seeds germinate. That's what they do. But we can do our part to make their jobs a bit easier.
Do you have any questions about direct-sowing? Feel free to ask them in the comments, or visit our forum!
Bee Mimics in Your Garden
I snapped a quick photo of what I thought was a bee on my 'Cranberry' viburnum the other day. When I looked more closely at the photo later, I said to myself, "that's not a bee!"
After some checking around and posting the photo on my Facebook page, I learned that this creature is actually a bee mimic, an insect that uses Batesian Mimicry (read more about it at Deb Hadley's About.com Insects site -- really interesting!). It's not a bee at all, but a type of fly known as a syrphid fly, or, more commonly, as a hoverfly.
So, are they friends or foes?
You want these guys around, even if they aren't bees! Syrphid flies are quite effective pollinators. And their maggots are useful in the garden as well, devouring aphids, thrips, and other plant-sucking pests.
Thanks to Jeanie Davis, who identified the hoverfly for me on my Facebook page, and to About.com Insects Guide Debbie Hadley for having a site full of helpful information!
Starting a New Garden? Here are Some Articles to Get You Started!
If you've been bitten by the gardening bug, and have decided to try your hand at growing an organic garden, congratulations! If you're new to gardening, one thing is for sure: you have plenty of questions. I've pulled together some of my favorite resources to answer your gardening questions. I hope this helps get your first garden off to a great start!
Soil:
Compost:
- Composting 101
- Benefits of Composting
- Home Composting Methods (this shows a variety of compost bins and methods to try in your garden)
Making a New Garden:
Growing Organic Vegetables:
You may also be interested in signing up for my weekly newsletter, which comes out every Monday morning and includes plenty of tips and info about organic gardening. And if you have questions, feel free to either post them in my forum, or you can email me at organicgardening.guide@about.com.
Reader Question: How Long Does it Take to Get Compost from Bokashi?
I get quite a few questions about Bokashi composting, and this is one of the most common (courtesy of a reader who asked via email):
"Hi! I'm just getting informed about composting and your blogs are really helpful! I was wondering how long it takes to actually harvest your first batch of compost with Bokashi composting? Thanks."
It's a great question. Bokashi is more of a fermenting method than a composting method, at least at first. Here's the thing. The first phase of the Bokashi composting process is to fill the bucket with alternating layers of kitchen scraps and Bokashi bran. Once the bucket is full, you cover it and let it sit for about two weeks. Literally, just let it sit. You don't even need to open it if you really don't want to. This is the fermentation phase. It is the result of the the microorganisms in the Bokashi bran working on the kitchen waste in an anaerobic environment. This process helps get the composting process started by breaking down cell walls in the materials you add. The second phase, which occurs after you've let the Bokashi sit in the bucket for a couple of weeks, is the actual composting process. You add the fermented kitchen scraps to your regular outdoor compost pile or bury it directly in the soil in your garden beds. Because it has already been somewhat broken down by the fermentation process, the materials break down really quickly in garden soil or a compost pile--you literally won't see much of it after a couple of weeks. It will seem to have disappeared. This is because it got a jump start in breaking down during those two weeks, and because earthworms just love the stuff.
There are several reasons you may decide to go with Bokashi. If you have problems with animals raiding your compost, or ordinances against the outdoor composting of food matter, you can use the Bokashi buckets to ferment the waste first--it's barely recognizable as "food" after that, and I can't think of a mammal alive that would actually eat it. If you typically send your kitchen waste to your vermicomposting bin, you might want to have a Bokashi bucket around as a back-up system for those times you have more kitchen waste than your worms can eat.
There is another reward to Bokashi. You can use the Bokashi "juice"--the liquid that accumulates in the bottom of the bucket--to fertilize your plants. The "juice" can also be poured down your drain to keep them clear.
Thanks for the great question. If anyone has any other advice for Gabriella regarding Bokashi, please feel free to share it in the comments!
Newest Articles on About.com Organic Gardening:
Use Your Dandelions
The dandelions are in full bloom in my garden. I actually kind of like dandelions. They are a valuable food source for beneficial insects, including lady bugs, and there are actually several useful things you can do with just about every part of the plant. I wrote a post a while back about using dandelions, and I saw that About Herb Gardens guide Amy Jeanroy posted a great list of things you can do with dandelions. I'm definitely going to try her recipe for Dandelion Jelly.
Speaking of recipes, a quick check around the About.com Food department yielded several very tasty looking recipes. If you have a bountiful harvest of dandelions (whether you wanted them or not!) why not give one of these recipes a try?
- About Southern Food guide Diana Rattray offers a delicious Dandelion Greens recipe.
- Here's one I haven't tried before. About Home Cooking guide Peggy Trowbridge Filippone has a recipe for Dandelion Honey--I bet it's very tasty on toast.
- About Nutrition guide Shereen Jegtvig gives us the lowdown on the nutritional benefits of dandelion greens, and offers a few healthy recipes as well.
- The traditional Greek boiled greens dish Horta Vrasta can be made from a variety of greens, including dandelion greens. Here is About Greek Food guide Nancy Gaifyllia's recipe.
See, there are several great uses for dandelions. Next time you're out in the garden, in 80+ degree weather, with a dandelion digger in your hand, just remind yourself: "I'm not weeding...I'm foraging!"
Do you use dandelion greens in your kitchen? Share your ideas in the comments!
Sneaky Composting -- Worm Tube in the Garden
I've mentioned before that I have to be somewhat sneaky in my composting practices because we're not allowed to compost food where I live -- we are only allowed to compost lawn and garden refuse. I started my sneaky food composting by composting in a plastic storage container, then a trash can. I dig and drop my food scraps right in my garden beds, and I have a worm bin. But we eat a lot of fruits and veggies especially during the growing season, and these systems do eventually become overloaded.
So when I saw the worm tube composting method over at the National Gardening Association's web site, I knew I had to try it. Basically, the idea is that you install a large (6 inch diameter) tube or pipe directly into your garden bed, and drop your food scraps into it. Pests can't get into it, but the worms from the garden can. They'll eat the goodies you leave, wiggle back out into your garden soil, and leave some goodies of their own in the form of vermicastings. I am definitely trying this, and I'll report back to tell you how it goes. If anyone else wants to try along with me, we can compare notes.
Have you tried a system like this? Tell us about it!
When to Start Fertilizing Seedlings
I've gotten this question about fifteen times in the last couple of weeks in my email, so I figured it's something that many of you may be wondering about. Seeds don't need any fertilizer to germinate. Everything they need is right there in the makeup of each seed. However, once they've got their first true leaves (as opposed to the "seed leaves" or cotyledons that appear first) they will start needing nutrients for strong growth.
Fertilizers for Seedlings
The best fertilizers for young seedlings are fish emulsion (which can be smelly, but very effective, and you can find "deodorized" fish emulsion in many garden centers), vermicompost tea, or sea kelp.
How To Fertilize Seedlings
You'll want to feed your seedlings weekly, at a very weak solution. I usually mix up a solution that's about 1/4 strength of what is recommended on the label. Regular, gentle feeding will provide your seedlings with the nutrients they need for steady, sturdy growth.
I hope that helps! If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask me!
Latest Articles on About.com Organic Gardening:
Spring Lawn Maintenance
With the warm weather we've been having, it's time to start thinking about springtime lawn care. It's still too early for mowing (though this is a very good time to have your mower tuned up and get that blade sharpened) but this is the perfect time to clean up your lawn and take care of a few routine tasks.
- Rake up any dead leaves, grass, twigs and other debris.
- Top dress the entire lawn with compost.
- Collect samples and get your soil tested if you haven't done so already.
For more lawn care ideas, take a look at my article, Five Steps to Growing an Organic Lawn.