Natural powders and sprays
Products based on rapeseed oil (eg Bug Clear) suffocate smaller insect pests by blocking their breathing holes, but leave larger beneficial bugs unharmed. Fatty acids (aka liquid insecticidal soap, eg Organic Bug Free) are modern versions of old remedies for use on flowers, fruit and veg with small insect pests, including hard-to-tackle whitefly and red spider mite. Sulphur powder controls powdery mildew on flowers, veg and some fruit, and pyrethrum powders or sprays (made from chrysanthemum flowers) treat aphids, caterpillars, ants, weevils and flea beetles.
Varieties with built-in resistance
Many modern varieties of veg have been bred with built-in resistance to certain pests or diseases – these are identified in seed catalogues or on seed packets. You can find partially carrot-fly-resistant carrots, club root-resistant brassicas and courgettes that shrug off mildew or virus. Some modern potato varieties deter eelworm, potato blight and/or other common problems. Many roses are also bred with varying degrees of resistance to disease – consult rose catalogues, reference books or growers’ websites. Young plants of some tomatoes and peppers are available grafted on to rootstocks that resist the kind of root diseases often present in greenhouse soil.
Biological control
A large range of predatory and parasitic bugs is available to tackle particular pest problems, including slugs, vine weevils, greenflies, chafer grubs or leatherjackets in lawns, and red spider mites, whiteflies or mealybugs in greenhouses. There’s also a mixed pack that treats several vegetable garden soil pests as well as ants. Introduce biological control early, as soon as conditions permit, for maximum benefit – a second dose later is often recommended. It’s pricey but effective if used very precisely.
Mother nature’s pest controllersGrow old-fashioned hardy annuals and herbs to encourage a healthy population of wild beneficial insects such as hover flies and ladybirds. Also supply food and water for birds because they eat huge numbers of caterpillars and aphids in the spring. Hedgehogs, thrushes, foxes and shrews will eat snails.
This year’s Southern Spring Home Garden Show theme – “Better Living. Home. Garden. Life” – brings a new emphasis on the growing trend that finds many Americans focusing on the relationship between healthy living and enjoying a simplified lifestyle.
“One trend in home remodeling and redecorating is the emphasis we continue to see on de-cluttering, simplifying and enjoying smaller, yet higher-quality living space,” said Mardee Woodward, the show’s executive director.
She said show visitors will find lots of ideas and products on sleek storage, earth-friendly low-maintenance flooring, and homes with a smaller footprint.
For the first time, the show is running over two consecutive weekends. Celebrating its 54th consecutive year in Charlotte, the show includes more than 220,000 square feet of exhibition space in three halls and hundreds of exhibitors showcasing products and services.
Project-minded homeowners have the opportunity to talk with vendors and local contractors to discuss home improvement options, including appliances, cabinets, hardware, fixtures, granite, tile and tubs, accessories, furniture, flooring, lighting, window treatments and accents to personalize the home. Kitchen and bath products and services are among the most widely featured areas.
Visitors will see wide varieties of new composite countertop materials, heated bathroom floor applications and a move to contemporary styling, particularly in the kitchen, according to David Bengston, president of Lighthouse Construction and longtime show exhibitor. “Clean lines, moldings, under-cabinet LED lighting, contemporary tile and glass are desirable kitchen options I’m seeing more and more of,” said Bengston.
“In the bath, I’m seeing a push to re-creating a spa experience at home with multiple shower heads and steam units in oversized showers.”
Backyard gardening ideas
Home gardeners looking for ideas on everything from “smart” irrigation to organic gardening will find products and ideas. Much of the revival in home gardening is due to the growing “farm to fork” and “eat local” movements in restaurants and farmers markets all across America, Woodward said.
“This is not a trend,” she added. “Rather, it is a true lifestyle choice. Many of our cooking exhibitions will feature cooking with vegetables and herbs harvested straight from the garden.”
Fans of the popular Planet Green cable show “The Fabulous Beekman Boys” will be thrilled to know that the former city dwellers-turned-goat farmers will be on hand during the second weekend to discuss gardening and share cooking tips.
Brent Ridge, one of the Beekmans, tours dozens of garden shows annually. “I see a huge revival in backyard gardening,” said Ridge. “My advice to folks who may have only a small space to work is that they don’t have to have a large garden. Raised beds are a great way to go for smaller space…”
The show’s expanded garden showcase highlights sustainable garden approaches. Show visitors can stroll through Belgard Gardens, 20 professionally landscaped gardens and six independently styled designer rooms featuring new garden products and ideas.
Outdoor kitchens with features such as built-in grills, pizza ovens, sinks, refrigerators and breakfast bars continue to rise in popularity, said Darin Brockelbank of MetroGreenscape.
Those looking for the latest in screened porches and decks can learn the difference between pressure-treated wood, cedar and new composite material/wood alternatives being introduced to the market.
As we head into what could become an epochal drought, despite recent welcome rains, vegetable gardeners are feeling the uncertainty. Will water restrictions snuff out the salad garden, bash beans and thwart tomato dreams?
We do know that it is typical for Central California to have great variations in annual rainfall. Our location between a wetter north and a desert south puts us at the mercy of small shifts in weather. Those of us who were living in California during the mid-’70s drought, which is about half the number of people living here now, remember the anxiety and water restrictions then. That drought did end, as did some smaller droughts later. But if climate change is under way, who knows how this one will turn out? While we can’t know what is in store, we can plan this year’s garden with care.
By all accounts, we’ve been, overall, very good at saving water in recent decades. Now it’s time to rededicate ourselves to conservation.
There are good reasons to grow your own vegetables and herbs. You can do so using much less water than the average large-scale farm; you save the Earth part of the carbon cost of transporting your food, and it will probably inspire you to eat more vegetables.
Here are some tips to help you plan a food garden in a drought:
— Start by conserving water indoors. Fix leaks, avoid running water wastefully and take advantage of whatever water-saving appliances you can obtain.
— Look to your soil. Add several inches of organic matter, compost or other amendment once or twice a year. This will greatly increase the soil’s water-holding capacity. But don’t add too much. More than 5 percent organic matter can create conditions that are not healthy for plant roots.
— Think about what and how much you will actually eat. If you gardened last year, think back to whether you wasted food that you grew, and use that as a guide to plan this year’s garden to better match your needs.
— Plant some crops in February or March to take advantage of any rain we get this season, as well as of the slower evaporation rate of cooler weather. Planting in August through November (depending on crop and location) can take advantage of cooler fall and winter temperatures and possible rainfall in the same way.
— Plant closely enough together that mature neighboring plants touch leaves.
— Apply an organic mulch, using a fine-textured material that can decay as time passes, rather than large bark chunks. Keep mulch back from plant stems to prevent their decay.
— If you choose not to plant some of your food gardening area, water it well, cover it with an organic mulch and, if allotments allow, water it well one or two more times in the summer to keep your soil alive.
— Water early or late in the day, when evaporation is at its slowest, and water at or near the ground rather than with a high, evaporation-prone spray.
— If you water by hand, once your crops are past the seedling stage, water crops deeply, then don’t water again until the top inch of soil is dry. Use a moisture meter to check soil moisture. Put a simple timer on your hose at the faucet so you can set it to turn off the hose automatically.
— If you choose drip irrigation, use a separate program for vegetables, which require more water than your drought-tolerant ornamentals. Pin drip lines to the ground to avoid water running unevenly along the lines. Provide manual shutoff valves for separate beds, so you can turn off the drip as you change crops – or to let onions or garlic dry out.
— Get a programmable irrigation timer with a rain sensor, and be sure it’s on, so you won’t waste water during a storm. Get friendly with the manual that comes with your timer, so you can reset it during the year to account for changing temperatures and day length, and know when and how to replace its battery. If you lose the manual, use the make and model to print out a replacement from the website of the manufacturer.
— Gray water, reused household water, can irrigate ornamental plantings and fruit trees, freeing clean water for your food garden vegetables, but is not recommended for use where it may contact edible parts of food. If you do consider installing a gray water system, be sure you find professional plans for doing so, as poorly planned systems can clog the plumbing almost immediately.
For more drought tips and news, go to www.sfgate.com/drought.
Pam Peirce is the author of “Golden Gate Gardening” and blogs at http://golden gategarden.typepad.com. Send garden and plant-related questions to home@sfchronicle.com.
Along with flowers and garden décor, the 2014 Arts Alive! Home Garden Show will feature a lineup of horticulture experts, each sharing information on helping landscapes survive drought restrictions.
The annual fundraiser for the Kemp Center, which also benefits a number of local nonprofit organizations, will be from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $5 in advance and for active military and $7 at the door.
Experts scheduled to present valuable gardening information Saturday include:
9:15-10:45 a.m. — “Vegetable Gardening” with Joseph Masabni, Texas AM University assistant professor and Extension vegetable specialist for the Department of Horticulture Science.
Masabni will focus on vegetable gardening in North Texas under drought-related water restrictions.
After his presentation, Masabni will answer gardeners’ questions in the area across from the Master Gardeners booth.
11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. — “Heirloom Bulbs” with Chris Wiesinger. After completing a project on bulbs while a student at Texas AM, they became a personal passion for Wiesinger. Determined to introduce hearty, often drought-tolerant heirloom bulbs to a new generation of gardeners, he and his wife, Rebecca, started The Southern Bulb Company. Copies of Wiesinger’s latest book, “The Bulb Hunter,” will be available for sale across from the Master Gardeners booth
12:30-1:45 p.m. — “Rainwater Harvesting” with Dotty Woodson, Texas AM AgriLife Extension Service program specialist for water resources. Woodson’s presentation, “Rainwater Harvesting for Landscape Irrigation,” will include information on creating an effective home rainwater harvesting system. After her presentation, Woodson will answer questions in the Extension Service’s demonstration area across from the Master Gardeners booth.
2-3:15 p.m. — Mark Bullitt, senior project manager for the Dallas Arboretum, presents “What’s Up at the Dallas Arboretum.” Bullitt, a Wichita Falls native, earned a degree in landscape architecture from Texas Tech University in 2008. He supervises landscape development projects and manages the design process for each garden transition at the nationally renowned horticultural center. He will discuss what’s working for the arboretum and what’s being tested this year.
After a long and dreary winter, WSU Extension’s Spring Garden Day, planned March 8, offers a cure for local gardeners with spring fever. This daylong educational gardening program will kick off with two terrific presentations.
David James will start Spring Garden Day with his presentation on butterflies. At the young age of 8, James was a budding entomologist who was fascinated by butterflies and began rearing them at his English home. After studying zoology in college, he migrated to Australia, where he did his graduate research on the winter biology of Monarch butterflies.
James came to Washington State University in 1999 and is stationed at the WSU Prosser Research Station, where he is researching biological control of insect and mite pests in vineyards and other irrigated crops. He also directs the WSU “Vineyard Beauty with Benefits” project that involves using native plants to both beautify and attract beneficial insects to commercial vineyards.
As busy as that keeps him, he still finds time to study butterflies, including his favorite, the Monarch butterfly. He recently coauthored a beautifully illustrated book on the caterpillars of Northwest butterflies titled Life Histories of Cascadia Butterflies. James has been quoted as saying that ” a world without butterflies would be a very sad place.” His presentation will include butterfly biology as well as how to protect and encourage butterflies.
Steve Sheppard, chairman of the Entomology Department at WSU in Pullman, will give the second presentation about honeybees. Sheppard’s bee story also begins as a young boy with a great-grandfather who had more than a hundred hives along the Savannah River in the southeast. However, Sheppard didn’t become a beekeeper until after taking a beekeeping class in college. After that, he went on to study bee genetics in graduate school.
Sheppard is also head of the Apis Molecular Systematics Laboratory at WSU. They focus on honeybee colony health in the Northwest. Pesticides are just one of the things that threaten honeybee populations across the country. At Spring Garden Day, Sheppard will talk about the fascinating honeybee and how gardeners can protect this valuable pollinating resource.
The presentations will be followed by a variety of classes for backyard gardeners. Presented by gardeners and other local experts, the scheduled classes are Raised Beds and Container Gardening, Drip Irrigation for the Home Garden, Gardening in Miniature, Managing Fruit Tree Insect Pests, Backyard Greenhouses, Growing Perennial Flowers, Basic Rose Care and Tools to Make Gardening Easier.
The cost of the program is $20 per person if you pre-register or $25 at the door. More information and a registration brochure can be found on the Benton Franklin WSU Master Gardener Facebook page at www.facebook.com/wsumastergardeners. You can also call 735-3551 for information and a registration brochure.
Spring Garden Day
What: A daylong gardening workshop
When: March 8 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Where: The Gallery, Bethel Church, 600 Shockley Road, Richland
Cost: $20 per person in advance, $25 at the door
Registration: Get form at www.facebook.com/wsumastergardeners. Or call 735-3551.
— Marianne C. Ophardt is a horticulturist for Washington State University Benton County Extension.
By Katie Marks
Networx.com
Posted Feb. 20, 2014 @ 9:39 am
Updated at 9:40 AM
Question: My daughter and her 5-year-old sleep in a bedroom with a hardwood floor, filled with clothing and stuffed animals. She recently added a small table-top air filter and a humidifier that she activates every night, putting a half-gallon of water into the air in a 12-hour period.
I already have a whole-house humidifier on the furnace, and I am concerned that she is going to cause a mold or mildew problem in the room, in addition to the unfinished attic and possibly adjoining bedrooms.
Answer: What motivated your daughter to add the humidifier and filter if you already had a whole-house humidifier, which, if properly maintained, does a fine job adding moisture in the driest of seasons indoors?
Relative humidity indoors in winter should be between 40 percent and 60 percent, depending on the outdoor temperature. The indoor temperature, in this reckoning, is 70 degrees.
The lower the outdoor temperature, the lower the humidity indoors. For example, if the outside temperature is 20 to 40 degrees, humidity indoors should not be more than 40 percent. If the outdoor temperature is lower than 20 below zero, inside humidity should not be more than 15 percent.
I doubt that what your daughter is doing, for whatever reason — typically dry air and the sinus congestion that can result — will cause mold and mildew to form at this time of year, especially if the house is properly ventilated.
The Environmental Protection Agency says that maintaining relative humidity between 30 percent and 60 percent will help control mold. Houses around Philadelphia just don’t get more humid than that during the winter.
Perhaps the whole-house humidifier is not doing its job properly, and your daughter and grandchild are suffering because of it. You may need to keep adjusting it as the outdoor temperature rises and falls.
That’s what I have done since we traded an antique heating system that required room humidifiers for a modern heating and cooling system in our home of 12 years.
Questions? Email Alan J. Heavens at aheavens@phillynews.com or write him at The Inquirer, P.O. Box 8263, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101.
Volume prohibits individual replies.