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GROWING A SAFE GARDEN
by lorrain ballato
Photograph: Carole Topalian
It probably seems a miracle that anything grows at all with so much happening each season as you’re trying to maintain your landscape and grow tasty and well-formed fruits and vegetables. But the truth is that many of the flying and crawling creatures you see (and most of those you don’t) are beneficial. They prey on bad bugs, or somehow improve the plants or soil conditions. The same holds true for some diseases that attack pathogens and are harmless to all else.
It’s for this reason and a host of others—like the health of the planet and that of you, the gardener—that low-toxic approaches should be considered when treating any garden-related issue.
But let’s start at the beginning and make sure that the garden and landscape you’re dealing with is a healthy one.Nothing can take the place of healthy soil; the best thing you can do is have your soil tested (see sidebar) to be sure it’s got the right stuff for what you’re trying to grow, be it lawn, fruit, veggies, or flowers. Just like any recipe, don’t expect to get a successful result, great tomatoes for example, from soil that is short on the right nutrients. Take steps to amend the soil as indicated by the test.
You also need to be sure you’re providing the other proper conditions for what you’re trying to grow. If the plant needs full sun and you’ve put it in part shade, you’ve weakened it and made it susceptible to insects and disease. Or if the plant needs excellent drainage and you’ve got it where it holds moisture, you’ll be exposing it to a higher potential for fungal disease.
Assuming you’ve got the recipe right, then you need to treat your garden well. Monitor it regularly, inspecting and watching what goes on so you recognize when something is wrong, such as spotting, holes on leaves, or lost vigor in the plant. Scouting and early detection are critical if you need to make any intervention throughout the season.
Get an inexpensive rain gauge so that you know how much water your garden is getting and when you need to supplement the natural supply (or not, like our past summer). Avoid overhead watering whenever possible and try to water early in the day to keep moisture off leaves to prevent fungal disease. Keep a journal or jot brief notes on a calendar as to rainfall amounts, temperature, and the like. They will help unlock the mystery later on when you try to figure out why something is happening.
If smokers visit your garden, ask them to wash their hands or offer them a sanitary wipe before allowing them to touch any of your plants, to prevent the possible spread of tobacco mosaic virus.
Invest in a hand lens: a pocket-sized magnifying glass you can use in the garden to easily inspect any leaf or insect you see “up close and personal” as soon as you spot something unusual.
Lastly, know who to call on when you do identify a problem. Your local cooperative extension office or the experts at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station are two suggestions. Maybe you know an experienced gardener, or you have a local garden center or online source you trust to help you. Proper identification of what’s ailing your garden will be key to any step you take.
You have many choices in how you can manage your garden. I would strongly urge you to consider living symbiotically. Within reason, you should be able to tolerate a certain amount of insect activity and disease, accepting that it’s the natural order of things.
Following that, I would encourage you to grow a diversity of plants on your property to provide habitat for a variety of insects and bird life. For example, Tiphia wasps are harmless to people, love peonies, and are natural enemies of Japanese beetles, which eat the leaves of beans, raspberries, and about 300 other plants.
Your objective is to create a “mini-insectary” to draw good and bad insects into your garden. You can use the plants for the bad bugs as “trap plants” to draw them away from your desired plants. That way they’ll leave your desired plants alone. I did that one season with Four O’Clocks and drew the Japanese beetles to them and away from my roses. Then I hand-picked the beetles (the ones the birds didn’t eat) from the Four O’Clocks into a jar of soapy water, watching to see how many could swim. Think of this miniinsectary as your private gardener, helping you to police your garden, reducing the need for interventions, and lessening your work. There are several websites that can get you started on this path (see sidebar).
And lastly, you need to use that new hand lens and maybe a glass jar or two to trap some of these insects to find out what they are and whether or not you need to take any action.
If you decide you need to use a pesticide or fungicide, you might think that all you need do is pick up a product that is labeled “For Organic Use” and you would be OK, but this is definitely not recommended. Despite that phrase or the use of the word “organic,” just about every pesticide or herbicide is toxic to something, so you must target the specific culprit at the right time with the right product. Since insects have different life cycles, they are more susceptible to interventions at certain times than at others. Correct identification of the insect or disease is critical to successful treatment. Always read and follow the label directions: more is NOT better. If that were the case, the manufacturer would say so to be able to sell more product, right? Don’t be surprised if it takes more than one application; many insects have multiple generations.
Follow these ground rules and know the enemy, and you will be well prepared.
Stevia: How Sweet It Is
Sugar and simple carbohydrate intake is of primary importance in our household so I’ve decided to try growing stevia this year. If you haven’t heard, Stevia rebaudiana, an herb in the chrysanthemum family, is 200–300 times sweeter than sugar and has zero calories. Its leaves have been used around the world as a sweetener for hundreds of years.
The FDA hasn’t approved stevia as a sweetener although they have allowed it to be imported as a food supplement. Their position is a bit confusing, but I am convinced from my research that stevia is a non-toxic substance when used sparingly, especially when it’s grown and processed organically, which is what I intend to do. I purchased organic seeds—a Google search will yield many vendors—and started them inside in organic potting soil. I’ll grow them in a self-watering container, possibly with other food crops or maybe even with some annual flowers and herbs. In the Northeast, stevia is an annual, although I’m told it makes an acceptable houseplant. This summer and fall, I’ll update you on how this experiment is progressing and what actions I have been taking according to the season we are having, how the plants are growing, and most importantly, how I’m harvesting and using the sweetener in my kitchen. With a diabetic husband and an aging waistline that gets increasingly challenging to control, this is a worthwhile project for me.
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RESOURCES
SOIL TESTING:
MINI-INSECTARIES:
RECOMMENDED READING:
- Teaming With Microbes: A Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web, by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis (Timber Press, 2006).
- The Organic Lawn Care Manual: A Natural, Low-Maintenance System for a Beautiful, Safe Lawn, by Paul Tukey (Storey Publishing, 2007).
- Resource Guide for Organic Insect and Disease Management, by Brian Caldwell et al. (New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, 2005).
FURTHER INFORMATION:
- UConn College of Agriculture and Natural Resources: www. ladybug.uconn.edu
- The Extension Toxicology Network, a source of objective, science-based information about pesticides, written for the non-expert: www.extoxnet.orst.edu
- Department of Pesticide Regulation: www.cdpr.ca.gov
- Northeast Organic Farmers Association: www.nofa.org
- NOFA Organic Land Care: www.organiclandcare.net
- National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service (Appropriate Technology Transfer to Rural Areas): http://attra.ncat. org
- Pest Resources Online, Pest Management Information for New
- Englanders: www.pronewengland.org
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