Prevent your Garden Nightmare. Bugs.

Reaching your goal of eating healthy and getting outside more, may have you dreaming of planting a small organic garden.  It’s an adventure you’ve wanted.  And then you don’t go past dreaming because you fear a nightmare.

Perhaps a friend says “Oh, I tried planting a big garden one year and the bugs just destroyed it.  It was a lot of work for nothing.”

Well, have no more fear.  

You can start the garden habit and not suffer the frustration of losing your work to the bugs.

Here’s how.

Step One: Start small.

Pick your favorite vegetable you want to grow.  Then find out which plant is a good companion for it.  For example, if you grow tomatoes, plant basil alongside.  Or if you grow squash, surround them with white icicle radishes.

You can grow tomatoes in a handy “bucket garden” like this one, making it easy to take care of any pests.

Another way to start small is pick a theme.  In February - Heart Health Month - I showed you what to plant in a garden for heart health.

Step Two:

Learn all you can about those plants your first year.  What kind of soil they like; how to prevent the pests and diseases for them.  Then the next year, add another vegetable.

Growing up, my family had a vegetable garden.  I remember harvesting and helping my mom blanch and freeze and can.  But it was definitely not organic gardening.  So, we’ve learned organic methods.  My favorite - just because it is quirky - is preventing squash bugs.

I don’t remember where I learned this trick - it is not even in my favorite bug book.

It’s duct tape. 

When we find the eggs, we put duct tape over them and rip them off.  

Garden therapy at its best!

There’s just one issue when you prevent all of the bugs from chewing up your garden.

You have more vegetables than you can eat.  But, that’s why you have freezers and friends, right?

What are you going to plant? 

Whether it is one bucket with one tomato plant with basil or a window sill of herbs, pick one and start your adventure.