Your favourite green gardening tips
Leave us a comment here with your favourite pesticide-free gardening tips, or requests for advice on how to manage your garden and lawn without pesticides.
Tags: garden, pesticides
Leave us a comment here with your favourite pesticide-free gardening tips, or requests for advice on how to manage your garden and lawn without pesticides.
Tags: garden, pesticides
June 5th, 2008 at 5:07 am
A couple of years ago I started to use a black plastic cover over my garden in the fall. Since my composters were full I left the plants in my garden and just covered the whole garden with a black plastic. This decomposed the plants and also prevented the weeds from growing as long as you do not remove the plastic until planting time. It also keeps the ground warm. (needed for tomatoes) My garden is approximately 12′ square so this was no problem.
I have not used any pesticides in my garden for years. Only manure and compost. The same with my flower beds.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:45 am
One of my all time favourite pest control strategies is to send my kids around the garden to look for slugs. They then can collect the slugs and in their individual containers do some scientific experiments, determing what type of leaves the slugs like to eat, if they require water, can they climb out of a pail, will birds eat them, determine if there are different kinds of slugs…the list goes on and on. While the kids are busy learning about slugs my plants are free to grow slug free - or more slug free anyway.
Mary Jo
June 5th, 2008 at 6:01 am
I thought I was doing OK, until a ground hog showed up. I put out some mothballs to fend him away and a couple of pinwheels (groundhogs don’t like the constant movement of the pinwheels)
Now I’m wondering if the mothballs are full of chemicals…any ideas?
Thanks
Beth
June 5th, 2008 at 6:23 am
please help!! My lawn is full of dandelions and looks like I will have to give in to social pressure and use pesticide because on my street all lawns are pristine pesticide-lawns . Are there tips to get rid of dandelions ? I don’t want to use pesticide.
Thanks
June 5th, 2008 at 7:50 am
We used those big clear plastic clamshell containers that grapes and strawberries come in to start our seedlings. They are like mini greenhouses and they worked great. If you know anyone that buys apples in those clear apple shaped containers…..you can use those to start seeds too. Good way to re-use something that you might not be able to recycle.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Re dandelions: I love dandelions - they feed my birds! However, if you really need to reduce your population, I suggest getting a “water weeder”. They attach to the end of the hose, and you just insert it along side each plant while depressing the handle. Then you can just pull the dandelion out. It uses surprisingly little water if you do it right, and works especially well in flower beds, as it does little damage to flowers. Pat
June 5th, 2008 at 8:00 am
I use companion planting to keep some bugs at bay and it also helps some things grow.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:05 am
My fruit trees, especially the cherry, get covered aphids. I tried insecticidal soap, but I had spray constantly and it never got rid of them completely.
I now have found an effective, low maintenance solution. Wrap a band of masking tape around the trunk of the tree and cover with Tanglefoot (or another sticky substance). Put it on in the early spring when the bugs start emerging and change once or twice in the summer when the ants and other bugs find a non-sticky path through it.
We did that and planted garlic around the base of tree and they are aphid free and beautiful now.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:32 am
At our house, NOTHING keeps rodents away from our garden like Old English Sheepdog hair clippings… if you DON’T have an Old English Sheepdog, most long-haired breed hair clippings will suffice…
June 5th, 2008 at 8:57 am
My favourite gardening tip for getting rid of cutworms is to cover the soil with coffee grounds. It either kills them or droves them away. No more lost transplants to these critters.
June 5th, 2008 at 10:03 am
I have to run dehumidifers in my basement all spring/summer. I use the water they collect to water my window boxes. Combined with soaker hoses in the main garden I have cut back on water usage for my gardens.
June 5th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Savitri, have you seen the dandelion tool tip from Tones? It’s here: http://naturechallenge.org/2008/05/green-wedding-tip/
June 5th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Jennifer Smith of Winnipeg, Manitoba sent in this Natural Weed Killer recipe:
4 cups white vinegar
1/4 cup table salt
2 tsp dish detergent
Mix into a spray bottle
Spray on weeds when hot and sunny.
Do not use on grass as it will kill grass.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
I use the leaves of my rhubarb to clear unwanted weeds in a selected area. The natural toxins from the rhubarb leaves kills the weeds. (Don’t put rhubarb leaves in your composter - it kills the bacterial action.)
To combat black spot on my rose bushes - I use a tomato leaf tea. Use one cup of chopped tomato leaves mixed with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil then turn down and simmer for 10 minutes. Then let it cool, pour through cheese cloth to get a liquid, put in a spray bottle and spray the roses. Will stay fresh for 2 weeks in the fridge. I have never used pesticides in my gardens. Instead I have my grandfathers garden journal from the early 1900’s with lots of old fashioned cures.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Regarding the natural week killer recipe above, I read that vinegar solutions kill the weed above ground, but not the root. Salt solutions will kill the whole weed, but also will change the soil’s ph level and prevent other plants from growing there.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Beth - we have a groundhog too. I gave up trying to scare him away. Instead I moved all the plants he liked to eat to another area and left him things he does not like. It’s taken 3 years to change over a large cottage garden from a groundhog salad bar to something he just travels through. And yes - moth balls are full of bad toxins. Not at all natural.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Does anyone know a nature-friendly way to clear mature weeds (dandelions, quackgrass, etc.) from a former parking spot where crushed limestone had been laid? We’re wondering if we have to get a bobcat to scrape away a foot of soil…
June 5th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Hint for faster growth of root crop.
Take your spent egg shells and wash, grind them in your coffee grinder when dry. The powdered shell will supply a bit extra calcium, leached into
the soil which will spur growth. This trick has been used for centuries in Northern Latitudes wher the growing season is not long. Try it and you
will be amazed !
June 5th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Whenever I cycle the water in my aquarium I keep the water in buckets and use it to water the garden. The fish wastes are phenomenal fertilizer and the flowers love it! I just make sure to avoid pouring it on herbs or anything I might eat and I wash things well when I harvest them… which should be done anyway.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Hello,
I live in South Australia and had trouble keeping grass from around my shrubs until I put our Guinea Pig cage on the area for a few days. I move my Guinea pigs around where I don’t wand the weeds to grow and have the added bonus of manure left around my plants as well as feeding my pets. I hate the use of chemicals of any kind, even so-called friendly ones, so this really works for me. The other thing I do is place an old rug or piece of steel on weeds to kill them, and again just move it around where needed. This works particularly well in hot weather as it cooks the plants and should answer Jeannine’s question on June 4th.
June 6th, 2008 at 11:40 am
I also use rhubarb leaves to make a liquid earwig killer.
Just put your leaves in a container, cover with water, mush up a bit and leave for about a week.
Spray on any earwigs and they keel over!
June 6th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
I fed my roses epsom salts and within days noticed the aphids had fled. I My roses have never looked better. My tomato plants and peppers were next and I continue to experiment. I have read the only plant that will not tolerate epsom salt is sage.
I DO NEED HELP…I have poison oak growing into my garden under the fence from a neighbor behind me. Unfortunately my raspberies also have this spot. My husband has been suiting up in his “haz mat” gear and trying to pull it all out. He takes it very seriously having suffered the consequences of this very very nasty plant. The neighbors who “own” the plant are not in the least bit interested in joining our effort. Does anyone have a solution? Much appreciated by us and our raspberries who have suffered as a result of our fruitless attack on this plant!
June 7th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
1)use ground egg shells in a ring around plants where you want to keep the slugs away.
2) I was told this one but have not tried — use coffee grounds to keep insects away from vegetables such as turnips.
June 9th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Diana Robson of Winnipeg, Manitoba writes:
A lot of gardening magazines and books will tell you to “throw out” potting soil from containers after a year because it is no longer fertile. What an awful thing to tell people - it is a waste of good peat moss! I simply replace the top half of my container potting soil with fresh soil and then mix the old potting soil into my flower and vegetable garden because even if it doesn’t have a lot of nutrients in it, it is still valuable organic matter that will help improve the texture of your soil, regardless of whether it is clay or sand. Old potting soil can also be composted. When mixed with high nitrogen kitchen scraps, old potting soil (which is high in carbon) will make great compost.
June 9th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Another comment on gardening with eggshells, from PC, also of Winnipeg:
Mix up your egg shells into your soil of your garden by breaking the shells into small pieces. Even if you don’t do anything else, just walk up to it each and every day to look things over. The power of nature is awesome.
June 9th, 2008 at 10:51 am
From Althea Rowe of Vancouver, BC:
I don’t get it…wot’s the big deal…I have NEVER used pesticides on garden or lawn…and I have had some fairly big lawns …you get down on all fours…and dig out the dandelions or whatever….my gardens over the years have provided a few vegetables…the biggest pest (literally) has been the
occasional bear (when we lived on the Sunshine Coast) who liked to eat my strawberries…a wonderful thing to watch, as he (or she) turned over each plant delicately to eat the berry…and altho’ he or she tramped over all the plants to my chagrin, as (I watched from the window) there was not a
sign of damage afterwards (except for the missing berries)…..Now I grow vegetables in containers on the deck in the city. And hasn’t anyone heard of soapy water to thwart the progress of aphids on the roses andsuch…c’mon…get with it.!!
June 9th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Here are two tips from Liz Walker of Surrey, BC:
1. The large red leaf maple tree (in my front yard, south exposure) had such an infestation of small green caterpillars one summer that all that could be seen in the canopy was the veins of the leaves…no leaf just the vein of the leaf attached to the branch. I thought the birds should be taking care of these but then it occurred to me that the bird feeders that I had been filling all fall and winter were in the north side of my yard (the rear yard). That fall I moved the feeders to the part of the yard where the maple tree was and I fed the birds right into spring…since then the caterpillars have been under control. As the birds line up for the feeders they hang out in the trees gleaning the bugs out of the trees. So lesson learned: invite the birds into the area and they will help keep the pests under control.
An amusing sight this spring…a chickadee flew into my rear yard with a small green caterpillar in his beak that he had brought from the front yard. He chirped to the two other chickadees sitting under one of the feeders (with all the deforestation in Surrey I’ve doubled my feeders so they are throughout my yard now) and flew toward the front yard with the other two following. Seemed to me he was showing them the tasty morsel he’d found.
2. A rhododendron in my yard is not only dwarfed by lack of light but has been invaded by a leaf chewing pest that hides in and on the soil during the day and climbs the plant to forage throughout the night. A friend actually took the time in their garden to inspect their shrubs every night (with a headlamp) and kill the pest but I don’t keep aschedule that allows for such dedication. I found an easier solution was to coat the base of the rhodo with a 1″ band of vaseline…the leaf chewing seems to have abated and the rhodo is in full bloom this year.
I have also used the vaseline to keep the ants away from our mason bee home. Apparently the green caterpillars that munch on the maple tree are from a moth whose life cycle fits a pattern of: Moth leaves the cocoon in ground to climb the tree; lays eggs on the branches/leaves of the tree; eggs hatch out to caterpillar;caterpillar drops down from tree canopy on a silk and into the ground. Next spring before the moth leaves the ground to head up the tree I am going to put a band of vaseline on the maple tree to see if I can stop the moth…although it does appear to be a good food source for the song birds that need the protein for their young.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:47 am
More on coffee grounds from Pamela Wootton of Victoria, BC:
Coffee grounds can be used to keep away carrot flies. Just spread them around the carrots. The smell confuses the flies - they don’t want coffee!
June 9th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Kathleen of Ottawa, Ontario writes about her alternative lawn:
Our front lawn (small) is creeping thyme (beautiful purple flower) for the lawn and perenial geraniums for the flowers. They are all drought resistant perenials so there is no watering or grass cutting required. The thyme is so thick that once it’s established, there is no weeding either. The result has been a beautiful purple garden in the front yard.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Penelope Hallet of Sydney, NSW, Australia feeds her garden:
My tip to get nutrients back in the soil is to save the water you use to boil vegetables in, and use that the water the garden once it has cooled.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Susan Walma of Orillia, Ontario, writes:
I spent 10 years growing 13 acres of vegetables with a group of people near Orangeville Ontario, completely organically. Not only were we organic, we were biodynamic (the height of “organic”). I was a late starter in that when I began I was shocked to learn that potatoes grew underground!!!!! In other words, I have learned a lot over the years, self taught. I now have two garden plots, about 14 x 20 each, and grow an assortment of veggies, all organically. My husband and I have a leaf bin and a compost bin which we tend and use on the garden as well as sheep manure.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Roberta Meehan in Powell River, BC sends this tip for plentiful peas:
When it comes to planting peas, forget about the two spindley rows stretching down the length of the garden bed. Plant a pair of stakes at either end of a 3 foot wide x 30 foot long raised bed. Take a bag of soup peas and soak them overnight. The next day, sprinkle them down the length of the bed, covering most of the surface of the bed. Rake them in. Water well and leave them to sprout. As they grow, they will hold each other up. All you need to do is to run a line of string around the outside of all four stakes at one foot levels (keeps the gale winds from tipping them over). Once they start flowering, you can start picking by the gallon. They seem to ripen pretty much all at once. This is a lot cheaper method and a lot less labour than buying packages of 30 seeds at a time! Planting them intensively lets you skip out on all but the edge-weeding, too.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Here’s a list of tips from Rebecca Rubenhold of South Australia:
1. Plant native plants that are indigenous to your area
2. Keep a bowl of water and seeds or a bird bath to reintroduce birds and native species into your garden
3. Don’t use pesticides
4. Only use water
5. Beer in a cup attracts slugs - only a small amount- eco friendly way to get rid of slugs that won’t harm any other animals on your garden. Another way to get rid of unwanted slugs: put salt on them
June 9th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Eric Davies writes:
Any gardener will tell you: its all a matter of compost, and you can never have enough compost.
As a single guy, I don’t really produce enough vegetable waste to feed my composter. However, some folks on Salt Spring Island gave me a tip. Places that sell fruit juice produce a lot of fruit/vegetable pulp. I now pick up a rough tote box of vegetable pulp every week from one such place, preventing it from going into the landfill as well as enriching my garden.
June 9th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
This from Regan M:
I live in an apartment, and started my “garden” this year. I have tomato plants, peas, salad greens and cilantro all growing in containers on my balcony. (And some flowers too!) I have not used any chemicals on my plants - when I planted the seed I mixed in some compost from my worm composting bin, and the plants seem very very happy! I can’t wait to see the “fruits” of my labour!
June 9th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Kirk, from Surrey BC, writes:
Recently, my wife and I have been spending a lot of my time in the yard, mending the lawn, planting vegetables, and growing flowers….mostly without the use of any sort of chemical, pesticide or herbicide (I’m always trying to learn more about the so-called “harmless chemicals” that aren’t always so harmless). To deal with a major weed problem I had in the lawn, I just removed the sod, put in new soil, and seeded it….I’ve tried to let nature water it as much as I can until germination, and so far, the new grass is doing fine.
Ridding myself of the old sod, however, was a hassle. Composting facilities don’t accept it, you can’t leave it with yard waste at the curb, and dumping it in the forest is frowned upon for many good reasons, so I won’t even go there….but what to do with it? I don’t want to see it trucked all the way to Cache Creek, so the best I could come up with was taking it right to the landfill where it will actually remain and not be trucked overland. At least here, it goes back to nature….if you can call the dump “nature”!
Sod is heavy, and the landfill charges by weight (as well as some other regulations…but appears to be mostly by weight). All the vehicles at the (Vancouver) landfill - the growing mountain in Delta - beside me were filled with lightweight plastics, patio furniture, etc., all of which makes me sick to my stomach to see in the pile, but regardless, when it came time to pay for our respective loads….I can only imagine who got hit harder, the guy with the chemical free sod, or the guy with the mountain of carpet and plastic furniture.
Any better ideas are always welcome, as I’m always trying to change my ways, one simple step at a time.
June 9th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
The City of Vancouver, as I’m sure you already know, Kirk, suggests all sod should be composted on private property. I think your solution of taking it to the landfill (and paying!) is perhaps the only way to actually remove it from your property.
For an upcoming issue of David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge newsletter, we interviewed organic gardening expert Lisa Atkins of the Cultivated Gardeners, who is also a director of SOUL (Society for Organic Urban Lawn Care - http://www.organiclandcare.org).
Lisa suggests using sod for sheet mulching (also called sheet composting), where you put a layer of cardboard (or any other clean material that will decompose) down on the ground as a weed barrier, then lay the sod, root side up, on top and cover it with leaves, twigs, compost, etc. In a few months, the pile will have decomposed into soil and your old soil will be a beneficial addition to your garden.
You can look up more details on sheet mulching online, or watch for our upcoming interview with Lisa.
June 9th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Here’s garden wisdom from Deborah Webb of Penticton, BC:
Here are my gardening tips for using kitchen waste for fertilizers and pest control:
1. Once a week, hand wash dishes in a sink of soapy water instead of using the dishwasher. Save the washing water to pour around tomatoes, carrots, onions and potatoes to repel cutworms and maggots that attack these vegetables. A bio-degradable dish detergent is best but any dish detergent will work.
2. Roses love a scoop of coffee grounds (about 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup) around the base of the plant, once a month (from drip or espresso makers, roses aren’t fussy). Roses also like a couple of tablespoons of Epsom salts every 2 months.
3. Indoor or outdoor acid-loving plants such as begonias, rhododendrons, ferns, azaleas and camellias all love water from spent tea bags, tea leaves or herbal tea bags. Break up the tea bags, add the spent herbal or black tea leaves and add some water, then pour this weak tea onto plants. The leftover leafy material can also be placed on the soil around the plants. It will not smell and will decompose slowly.
4. Evergreens like a bit of white vinegar in their water. About 1/4 cup of vinegar for every 3 feet of tree height, diluted in a 6 litre watering can is the amount to use. Or, use leftover black tea leaves and broken-up tea bags (about 1/2 cup tea leaves per watering can).
5. If you steam or boil veggies, and cannot use up the leftover water in a soup or sauce, let it cool and use it to water any indoor or outdoor plant to give them the dissolved vitamins and minerals.
6. Wash and save your empty eggshells, dry them, then crush with a mortar or stem end of a wooden spoon, and collect in a jar. Use crushed shells to prevent calcium deficiency in tomatoes (those white undeveloped centres) by putting about 2 tablespoons of shell in the hole before planting or under the soil in a ring around the plant if they are already planted.
June 9th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Michelle J. Nakano of Kwantlen College’s School of Horticulture in Langley, BC tells us about their Bug Garden:
I am delighted that the garden contest provides people with opportunities to learn about pesticide free methods of gardening. One initiative that has been quite successful here at Kwantlen’s School of Horticulture is our Bug Garden. Located on the Langley campus, the garden is an example of conservation biological. It is designed to provide habitat requirements to attract and retain beneficial insects like lady bird beetles and syrphid flies that in turn suppress insect pests like aphids. In our first year of monitoring we were able to observe natural suppression in action! We designed and planted the garden using drought tolerant and pest tolerant plants that attract and help maintain natural populations of beneficial insects. The goal of our bug garden is to be attractive, use less water and energy inputs, and provide visitors with an alternative to plant protection products.
June 9th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Janet Dysart of North Vancouver, BC writes:
I live in large forested strata, and for the last 3 years we have had a mission statement that declares we will preserve our area in its natural state and try not to use any chemicals or pesticides anywhere on the grounds. There have been issues with rodents, wasps, hornets and invasive plants and occasionally management has had to resort to localized pest control on all but the invasives. Our lawns are pesticide free. For those invasive plants we are now trying to pull them, or use lasagna gardening (sheet mulching) and plant native perennial plants only. A huge task! Owners are allowed to plant annuals to give some colour during summer (which we have yet to see!). Compliance with our mission statement is somewhat difficult but we are using education and demonstration only as tools to meet our goals.
We are also discussing starting a community garden, but that is still only talk!
June 10th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Swept Away!
That’s what we did with or tomato plants last year.
I’m an artist and have an assortment of paint brushes in my studio by the backyard garden. We took the flat (broom-like) paint brushes and just brushed them off. The kids loved doing this and it really worked! For extra measure we would dip the brushes in a potent mix of garlic juice, we kept in a bottle, and did double duty by brushing away the aphids and “painting” the tomato plant to make it less palatable (to the bugs).
Best Gardening Tip Ever:
Audio Books. “Reading” and gardening at the same time is true bliss!
June 10th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
In response to the composting sod query, Fraser Richmond Soil & Fibre facilities do compost sod. Their compost system is different from the Vancouver-Delta system. As one of the employees explained to me, the debris left at the Fraser Richmond dump sites is dried on a screen, allowing fine particles of soil to fall away. It is this soil that clogs the Vancouver-Delta compost chipper/grinders, and prevents that resource from accepting sod.
In Vancouver, Lawnboy accepts sod.
Both Fraser Richmond S&F and Lawnboy charge for accepting sod.
June 16th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
I have a tradgic weed problem; saw grass, burdocks, dandeloins, thistles, elephant ears (that’s what I call them), just about every weed that grows in southwest Wisconsin. I not only detest using harsh chemical herbicides and pesticides, couldn’t use them if I wanted to, my garden is on an eighty acre organic farm. Does anyone have any suggestions for combating my weeds, simply weeding is not enough.
June 17th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I found your blog via Google while searching for gardening magazine online and your post regarding Your favourite green gardening tips looks very interesting to me. I was impressed by your site and offerings. I was looking at some of the articles and it really impressed me. All I can say is congratulations on creating this site and what took you so long? I look forward to returning.
June 24th, 2008 at 11:13 am
In my earlier comment about sheet mulching, I misquoted Lisa Atkins (now president of Soul (Society for Organic Urban Lawn Care - http://www.organiclandcare.org). Here’s Lisa’ correction:
“We don’t dig up the sod and use it for sheet composting. We actually put the cardboard on the sod still planted in the ground. A fine layer of compost goes between the sod and the cardboard, and then many layers of compost and leaves go on top of the cardboard. This method saves doing all that digging, and ultimately, the turf becomes a source of food for the plants.
This method requires some planning as it takes six months to one year for the sod to decompose. Make sure the cardboard is free of wax or chemicals (ie. non-organic fruit or vegetable boxes may have pesticide residue). The cardboard will decompose too.
There is no need to dig up the sod. The cardboard goes on top of the sod to smother it. Then organic matter goes on top of the sod. No digging. That’s the beauty!”
That’s why we call in the experts! Thanks, Lisa.
July 9th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
How can I stop the ants getting into my house in a health way?
September 6th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Great Green Blog. Check out my green tips blog http://www.cipacs.org
October 1st, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Dandelions…
An environmentally friendly way to get rid of them is putting a bit of salt in the middle of the plant. I was told it screws up the Ph level of the plant and kills it within days…