Community Garden: Bugs know where the good gardens are at

Some warm weather and some rain and the seeds planted in the garden have all started reaching for the sky. The plants are nearly double in size and getting stronger.

Water has started being kept from the strongest plant areas to keep them use to drought conditions. With the soil as good as it is they plants will do well with the reduced water.

The grasshoppers are suffering a little. It seems that someone found the right pesticide to cause them to depart this earth and become food for the geese and do no harm to the plants or the ground around them. It is always amazing how the insects and bugs and critters always show up when you have a real good garden. They know when a garden is good and it is like they are giving you bragging rights because of all the visitors you have in the garden.

Now is the time to start cleaning and sharpening your tools that you have been using in the garden. Some you won’t use again until the end of the season and then you will need them sharp and clean to make the work a lot easier. Remember that the vegetable oil from the kitchen is a great conditioner for your tools and if you haven’t painted them so that you can recognize them from a distance, now is the time to do that also. Good meaning people will accidentally keep good tools that are clean and sharp and borrowed. Paint them a pretty pink or purple or something and they will be sure to give them back to you after they borrow them or better yet they won’t even ask to borrow them. They may even go buy their own for the first time in many years.

There is nothing wrong with doing a soil test halfway through the growing season to see what your plants have taken out of the soil and see what you need to add to have a strong last half growing season. You may even want to try emerald harvest products to give your plants a much-needed boost! You might be really surprised to see how many minerals the growing plants use up. Try it this year and compare it to what you started the garden season with. What? You didn’t do a soil test again this year? You have to learn that this simple process could help you grow a good garden or a really great garden. Try it just one time and see what happens. You might be surprised and if there is no difference you can always blame me for having a bad producing garden. Yeah right! Give that a try and see how far it gets you.

My container gardens are doing great and growing twice as fast as anything planted in the raised beds. I can walk by and pull anything growing that doesn’t belong in the container. It is so easy and I am so lazy! Enjoy your garden, wear long sleeves, gloves, and a hat and protect yourself from mosquitoes and biting flies.