Photo courtesy of Fiver13 at Flickr.com.

While they may not be as effective as complex chemical poisons, several simple chemical compounds are available that that any organic gardener can safely dust onto his or her plants without any worry of degrading the environment.

Copper sulfate, for example, works as a general purpose bactericide and fungicide. Lime sulfur (calcium polysulfide) also works as a bactericide and fungicide, but has an insecticide effect as well. Pure elemental sulfur is particularly effective: it kills many types of mildew and fungi, not to mention spider mites, thrips, aphids, and leafhoppers.

You should be able to get all three at a large garden center. Failing that, they’re all easily available over the Internet.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Photo courtesy of zbili at Flickr.com.

If you’ve got a large garden and are tempted to turn to a rototiller to help control weeds (as many of us do), consider using a wheel hoe instead.

A wheel hoe consists of two handles affixed to a wheel-and-stirrup arrangement to which you can attach various types of hoe and fork blades. This makes it easy to aim the hoe and control its working depth, and it’s far easier to use than a traditional hoe. Since you provide the motive power, it’s cleaner to use and much easier on the environment than a rototiller.

You can purchase a wheel hoe for as little as $200 (significantly less than a rototiller), or if you’re handy, you can make your own.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Photo courtesy of lotayada at Flickr.com.

Stop throwing away your clear plastic milk jugs and large soda bottles when they’re empty, because they’re ideal for protecting young plants from rabbits. Here’s what you do: cut off the bottom of a jug or bottle, place the top over a plant or two, and pile dirt around the edges.

Only the most intelligent and persistent of rabbits will be able to figure out how to get through or under the jugs. You can water the plant as necessary through the opening at the top. Remember, however, that you’ll have to remove the protective coverings later in the year, or the plants beneath will get overheated and shrivel up.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Photo courtesy of china_chari at Flickr.com.

Scarecrows and predator decoys have been a favorite way of keeping birds out of the garden for hundreds of years, but they eventually lose their effectiveness when the birds realize they never move.

You can get around that, and do so cheaply and effectively, by installing Mylar balloons in your garden patch. They’ll move every time the wind blows, and to birds’ eyes may resemble people moving around and bending over in the garden. They’re even more effective if they have giant scary eyes painted on the sides. If you want to do this on the cheap, put those annoying plastic grocery bags to good use: inflate them, tie off the necks, install them in the garden on tall stakes, and they’ll have the same effect as the balloons. Click here for more ideas on how to deter birds humanely and safely.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Photo courtesy of joeysplanting at Flickr.com.

Sure, compost is an excellent soil amendment, and it’s perfect for mulching, and no garden should be without it — but there’s another big reason you should have your own compost bin or heap in your backyard.

Yard waste makes up almost 20 percent of the average household’s garbage, so throwing it away makes it a real waste in more than one sense. Landfill space is always at a premium, and compostable material takes up space that could be used for real garbage. That doesn’t even take into account the resources, time, and effort spent to haul it to the landfill.

Don’t miss our wide selection of compost bins and composting equipment that will help you get started.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Photo courtesy of skippynut at Flickr.com.

If you think bloodmeal smells nasty to you, imagine how bad it smells to an animal that depends on its nose for a living. If you sprinkle a little around your plants, small rodents (including squirrels) will stay away.

To keep it from wearing away or being washed away when it rains, put a tablespoon or so into each of several margarine bowls, add a little water and a rock (to keep the bowl from blowing over) and distribute them around the garden. The powerful smell will keep most rodents away. It’ll keep you away, too, if you don’t keep the lids so you can cover up the bowls when you’re working in the garden.

Hot pepper wax also works as a good natural animal and insect repellent, and it’s available on our site.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Last week, Lars asked me if I’d like to try out the Indoor Kitchen Composter in my apartment. Since I’m curious about how well it works, I took him up on the offer. My only condition is that we document its success or failure for everyone to see. So, each week I’ll post a few pictures about how the composter is working and jot down some notes about the process.

First things first - allow me to introduce the Indoor Kitchen Composter. It’s about the size of a 10 gallon bucket, and is made of black, heavy duty plastic. There’s a spigot on one side for extracting the compost tea, and a sifting tray to keep solid waste from clogging the spigot. The composter has an airtight lid that makes it perfect for indoor use. It also came with a bag of Bokashi - a microorganism rich mix of molasses and wheat bran. The bacteria in this mix will survive in the absense of oxygen and break down a wide variety of organic matter, including waste paper, kitchen scraps, fruit rinds, and even meat.

At least, that’s what the people who make the Bokashi composter say. I have some doubts - after all, most of the articles I’ve read about composting encourage you to keep your compost well aerated and warn that anaerobic bacteria are a very, very bad thing. I’ve also been told that putting meat into a compost pile is asking for trouble. This anaerobic composter seems to do everything that the experts warned me not to do - I like it already.

I’m also a little bit afraid. If I fill this up with compost and it starts to smell, my girlfriend is going to KILL me.

So, I tear off the plastic wrap and unpack everything. Following the instructions, I tear open the resealable Bokashi mix and sprinkle some into the bottom of the composter. Then, I add some kitchen scraps and pour another layer of Bokashi on top. After everything is well covered, I carefully press down the lid and find a place to store the composter. Total setup took about 5 minutes and most of the time was spent clearing some space by the door.

The Bokashi mix itself has a pleasant, faintly exotic scent. It reminds me of garlic Terriyaki sauce. The mix is easy to pour and has about the consistency of sawdust.

After setting up the composter, I double checked that the spigot at the bottom was tightly closed. I also noticed that even though the lid is easy to close, the areas near the handle need special attention. It’s easy to overlook them while sealing the lid, and that would probably disrupt the anaerobic composting process.

So far, here’s what I’ve put in the composter:
Some paper napkins
3 pumpkins worth of pumpkin goo (left over from a Halloween carving)
A pint glass full of old cherries
2 pear pits
About 1/6 of the bag of Bokashi

Here’s what the composter has produced:
No compost tea (since it just started)
No unpleasant smells.

Click here to see how Week 2 went…

The Indoor Kitchen Composter is available for sale on the Clean Air Gardening web site. $69.99 including the composter and 2 pounds of Bokashi mix.

Click here to see it.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Photo courtesy of shimmertje at Flickr.com.

Oyster shell has a lot going for it as a soil amendment, especially if it’s finely crushed before it’s added to the soil. Since it’s mostly calcium carbonate (lime), it’s ideal for de-acidifying soils, and can help loosen clays. It can also help speed drainage.

Be sure it’s well washed before you add it to the soil, however, or you may end up contaminating your garden with salt. Also, be sure it’s obtained only from commercial shell dredging or oyster-farming operations.

In North America, some oyster shell is taken from ancient coastal shell middens. A midden is a prehistoric garbage dump that was built up over hundreds or thousands of years by native peoples; it can provide archeologists with a wealth of information on how those people lived and what they ate. Every shell midden deserves to be examined by archeologists before it’s destroyed forever.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Photo courtesy of FunnyFace Jessica at Flickr.com.

Water features like ponds and fountains add character to a garden, but they also offer refuge for algae, which can degrade both their beauty and structural integrity if left unchallenged. If you’d prefer not to poison the environment with chemical algaecides, there are some natural options you can employ to maintain the health of your pond.

Toss in a few goldfish; they won’t be able to control algae by themselves, but they can contribute to the cause. So can Japanese black snails. Tadpoles can also help, and like the fish, they’ll scavenge small insect larvae, too. Most of these critters can be obtained at your nearest aquatic pet store.

Popularity: 5% [?]

A friend of mine in North Carolina recently moved to a rural area, and guess what she found in an old shed near the tobacco barns close to her home, built in 1915.

That’s right, it’s an antique wearable gardening stool, almost just like the version that we sell at Clean Air Gardening.

Pretty cool, huh? It has a wooden seat instead of plastic, and it has leather straps instead of nylon, but it is otherwise remarkably similar. Blair says that it might say “Bristol” across the top, but she’s not sure. That’s a picture of the shed where she found the stool.

You’d have a hard time finding another antique wearable gardening stool like this, but ours is available and in stock! $49.99

Click here to see it.

Thanks, Blair!

Popularity: 7% [?]