My OG Blog

Did you know that you can purchase lady bugs to release in your organic garden? Have you tried only to have them all fly away? Here’s a quick organic gardening tip that may help keep this desirable beneficial insect around after you release it.

Thoroughly wet the area you plan to release the lady bugs into. Plan to release them in the evening and release some of them under a damp straw mulch. You may also consider spreading a sponge with some commercially made beneficial insect food (should be able to buy it where you purchased the lady bugs). These added steps may help keep your lady bugs form flying away!

To be truly successful organic gardening it is important to incorporate methods to attract beneficial insects and animals to your garden. The focus of this article is on the beneficial soldier beetle. Soldier beetles are great to have around since both the adult and the larvae are usually predators. They feed on many kinds of insects including: cucumber beetles, grasshopper eggs, caterpillars, root maggots, rootworm larvae and most soft bodied insects.

The soldier beetle resembles a firefly (they don’t glow) with its elongated body and long antennae, they are usually a brownish yellow or tan. The Pennsylvania leatherwing has a long dark spot located at the base of each wing the head and the area behind the head also have black spots. The downy leather wing is blueish gray with a fuzzy or hairy appearance, hence the name.  Adult soldier beetles range from 1/3 to 1/2 an inch in length.

You can find soldier beetles in milkweed, goldenrod, hydrangea, catnip and many other flowers will attract soldier beetles. The pupae need permanent perennial plantings where they will not be disturbed.  The Pennsylvania leatherwing is found only east of the Mississippi but many other species are found throughout the North America.

On a special note if you have had problems with cucumber beetles in the past you may want to make an extra effort to attract soldier beetles to garden. Try planting catnip or using a hydrangea or two in a border around the garden, you may also consider allowing some goldenrod or milkweed to spring up amongst your cucumbers.

In my last post I wrote about Lady Bugs I think they are probably the best known beneficial insect in an organic garden. But if you are like me when I was first getting started I knew about Lady Bugs and a few other beneficial insects but in all honesty was not aware of very many or what makes them beneficial. So I hope the next few posts will help you discover which insects are beneficial how to identify them and how to attract them and how to keep them in your organic garden.

This articles subject is the rove beetle. The rove beetle is gold and brown with short antennae and they have pinching jaws which they use to seize their prey. They move very quickly and hold the tip of their abdomen high above the ground. The rove beetle is noted for its shiny golden hairs over the abdominal tip. An adult rove beetle are from 1/10 to 1 inch in length.

Rove beetles like to hang out in dark and damp places. In compost piles, under leaves, rocks, old boards or logs. So to help insure you have rove beetles residing in your garden be sure to provide it with plenty of habitat. Using heavy layers of mulch and planting dense ground covers are excellent ways to help insure they have a great hang out. Use your imagination and make a planting using larger rocks as decoration. Who says a vegetable garden can’t be imaginative and attractive! Use old boards between raised bed rows, cover with mulch and you will create covered bridges for them to go from one happy hunting ground to another.

So now that you have a better idea of what they look like, where they like to live and what you can do to help insure they will find a home in your organic garden you might be wondering why you should want them in your garden. Rove beetles are active scavengers and will feed on whatever insect larvae or soft bodied insect they can find. They are especially good for controlling root maggots and other fly maggots. In a study of one species of rove beetles they consumed over 80% of the cabbage maggots in the test plot area.

It is important to note that while they are a desirable insect to have in your organic garden they really can pack a nasty pinch with their rather wicked looking jaws and some species can spray a nasty smelling liquid in the direction their tail is pointing. So if you spot them in your garden enjoy the fact that they are there but don’t get too close!

If you are new to organic gardening you might be wondering why lady bugs are such a welcome sight. Lady bugs also known as lady beetles and ladybird beetles are general predators of many harmful insects in your garden. They will prey on aphids, thrips, mites, mealybugs, scale and many other harmful insects. They also eat the larvae or eggs of many garden pests. Depending on the species, there are over 450 different species  in North America, they will eat as many as 50 to hundreds of aphids per day, their larvae will often eat even more!

Lady bugs are easily recognized by their oval dome shaped body, they will  come in a variety of colors from red, orange, yellow or beige and many have black spots. The larvae are dark with orange or yellow marks and have six legs. They are sometimes called alligators because they look like miniature alligators. The pupae are usually dark with orange marks.

Attracting beneficial insects is an important aspect of organic gardening. These wonderful little creatures do the job of of pesticides without all of the harmful chemicals which is exactly what we are trying to achieve! To help insure you have ladybugs and other beneficial insects it is important to intermingle or plant borders of plants that attract these helpful friends.

Some of the herbs ladybugs are attracted by are: Angelica, Anise, Dill and Fennel.

Perennials: Hardy Marguerite, all types of daisies, goldenrod, scented geraniums and Yarrows

Annuals: Bachelor Buttons, Gazania, Zinnias and Dwarf Morning Glories

Some of the common weeds and wildflowers which attract ladybugs are: Dandelions, Oxeye Daisy and Queen-Anne’s-lace.

You will also find them on alfalfa which is a great cover crop!

An important note to keep in mind is if you use pest controls even organic sprays and soaps you will also harm the beneficials in your garden. Please remember that while we consider aphids a pest ladybugs see them as lunch! If you completely eliminate them the ladybugs will go somewhere else to find lunch. So while you want to control the number of pests in your organic garden to minimize the damage they do, you need some of them around to create balance. If you eliminate all of the pests away many of the beneficials will leave as well. So don’t be to quick to pick up an organic pesticide I would only use them if they are clearly getting out of control and then only with great caution. Balance is the key! If you can achieve a balance of nature in your organic garden you will have great success!

I know it’s January and in many parts of the country about the last thing you are thinking of is growing an organic garden. But really this is the time to start planning your garden.  The seed catalogs are coming out and some of them are running great deals to try and get a head start on the seasons sales. So why not take advantage of the deals and start planning now what you want to grow in this years garden.

Not only is it a good time to get deals on the things you want to plant, but it is wise to carefully plan your garden ahead of time. Its also a great time to read some organic gardening books to help you plan. Because we are talking about organic gardening it is important to know what to plant together and where to plant. Some of the most successful organic gardeners use the idea of companion planting and crop rotations. Since we are avoiding the use of chemicals these two ideas are essential to the success of your organic garden. I like to take the idea of companion planting one step further to companion gardening which is a method that not only uses the idea of planting plants together that complement each other but also the idea of using plants and structures that encourage beneficial insects and wildlife to become a part of the garden. I highly recommend reading “Great Garden Companions” by Sally Jean Cunningham if this sounds like something you would like to try.

I know it may be really cold outside but it really is time to start thinking about and planning for your organic garden!

Click here for some great winter sales on gardening supplies!

As I have become more and more interested in organic gardening a question that kept coming up was what exactly is  a heirloom plant or seed. Well I thought the power of the internet would come in handy and I would easily find an explanation to my question. Wrong!! There doesn’t seem to be an exact definition of an heirloom plant or seed. In fact there is quite a controversy over what criteria should determine whether a plant variety is a heirloom or not.

However one common theme always used in the definition is that a heirloom variety plant must be an open pollinator. What does it mean to be an open pollinator? An open pollinator produces seeds which if harvested and stored correctly will produce a plant which is for all practical purposes exactly like the parent plant. Hybrids on the other hand are cross bred plants and the seeds they produce may be sterile or they may produce plants which take after one of the varieties in its cultivation more than the other. As seasons pass and the seeds are collected from a hybrid it will start to take on more and more of the characteristics of one of the parent plants.

So why is the preservation of heirloom plants so important? The need to preserve these little wonders is their sustainablility. If we were to experience some type of blight or disease that was particulariy hard on a variety of plant we would stand to lose the entire species. By planting and collecting seeds from these plants we insure the continuety of our food supply. I don’t know about you but I can’t imagine a world without tomatoes! All the delicious foods that use tomatoes no longer an option.

Another reason to perserve heirloom plants is quite simply most people prefer the flavor of the heirloom varieties and they have been shown to be more nutritious than either the hybrid and especially the GMO varieties. Some studies suggest the human body doesn’t even recognize GMO’s as being food. So when you think you are eating healthier by consuming more fruits and vegetables if it is a GMO,  as far as your body is concerned they are empty calories.

So make sure that you experiment with a few of these wonderful plants and collect a few seeds to plant and to share.They are beautiful and nutritious and will help make sure we always have fruits and vegetables to plant in our organic gardens for generations to come!

Container gardening is the perfect solution for the Urban Gardener who is short on space. Container gardening doesn’t take much room and they are simple to care for. Much of the difficult work associated with gardening has to do with weeding and tilling. Weeds rob important nutrients and water from the plants in your garden. With a container garden weeds are almost nonexistant especially if you use a good sterile organic potting soil to start with! Since the soil is in a container your not walking on it and packing it down so there is no need to till. Just make sure it has at least six hours of sunlight and water regularily. You will be enjoying fresh organic fruits and vegetables before you know it!

The choices of what to grow in a container garden are not nearly as limited as you might think.  Some of the more obvious choices are tomatoes, peppers, stawberries and herbs. Pole beans and cucumbers grow nicely in a container, just train them to grow on a trellis, the leaf variety of lettuce also does well in a container even in a sunny window where it will keep you in fresh delicious salads all year round.

What you want to grow in a container is really only limited by your imagination, be creative and you can find a way to grow most of the fresh vegetables you love in a container. Admittedly there are a few vegetables such as corn that are not very practical to grow in a container since the yield per plant is poor in comparison to its size but there is still an abundance of choice! So don’t let a lack of space keep you from growing your own organic vegetables start a container garden today!

Cover crops, sometimes called green manure or living mulch, are one of the best ways to improve the soil in your organic garden and they are also one of the most under utilized methods of improvement. Alfalfa is a great cover crop since it is a perennial legume it will make your soil more nutrient rich. It also has very deep tap roots and will improve soil drainage while it is bringing up the nutrients from deep in the ground. Alfalfa is also a favorite of many beneficial insects who are attracted to its pretty purple flowers.

Alfalfa is a great cover crop to plant in an area for future gardening, or in areas where you want to give a rest. It is best to plant it in spring or late summer and you should plan to let it grow for a year or more. When it is done flowering (before it has gone to seed) I would suggest mowing it. The high nitrogen content of green alfalfa will heat up your compost and cutting it will also encourage more growth (deeper roots).  You can also work the clippings directly into the soil of the active areas of your garden, or use it for a mulch.

Roses love alfalfa so mix some of the cuttings into the soil around your roses or use it to mulch around the base. Another helpful tip is to let some of it dry really well in the sun, chop it up very fine  and store it in a cloth bags large enough to hold a couple of ounces of dried alfalfa. Later when your garden needs an added boost of energy just throw a bag of alfalfa into a five gallon bucket of fresh clean water let it sit in the sun for a couple of days and waa laa you have alfalfa sun tea a refreshing drink your plants will love!

When organic gardening soil is one of the most important factors for success.  Healthy soil will promote healthy plants which are much more resistant to pests and disease. If you live in a cold region annual rye grass is one of the few choices you will have for fall cover crops. Rye grass can germinate and make some growth before it is killed by frost. Rye grass can help block weeds depending on how thickly it is planted. Rye grass will also prevent soil erosion. Plant annual rye grass in early fall, sowing 3 – 5 ounces per 100 sq. ft. of garden. The heavier you plant it the better it will block the growth of weeds.

Make sure to till it in early enough in the spring, before it gets to tall for you to manage. You can cut it first and use it for  for a great organic mulch also. Cover crops are a great way to improve the soil in your organic garden.  You might want to give it a try!

The fourth fundamental of organic gardening is planting cover crops.  Cover crops have more benefits than just just covering the soil. They can be used in several ways: to cover soil in unused parts of the garden, to protect beds over winter, to a help block weeds under fruit and vegetable plants (living mulch),  and to help block the growth of weeds in new beds. Cover crops will improve drainage , help prevent erosion, attract beneficial animals and insects, when you mow or cut a cover crop it is like an instant supply of mulch for other parts of the garden! Cover crops preserve nutrients which otherwise may leach out of the soil.

Stay tuned I will be starting a new section of posts on the different types of cover crops highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each!