Photo courtesy of "M" Pearl at Flickr.com.

If the aphids on your trees and garden plants don’t respond to the old “spray ‘em off with the water hose” method, give them a little homemade lemonade. Like ants, their occasional herders, aphids abhor citric acid, which is a key ingredient in the makeup of lemons, oranges, grapefruits, and other citric fruit.

Lemon peel is especially strong, so grate a teaspoon of it and steep it in a pint of hot water overnight. Then strain it through a coffee filter or cheesecloth, add three drops of insecticidal soap (to make it stick), and put into a spray bottle. The mixture may end up smelling pleasant to you as you spray it on your plants, but it’ll send those bugs packing in no time.

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Photo courtesy of jciv at Flickr.com.

While they’re not as damaging as grasshoppers and locusts, leafhoppers do suck their sustenance from leaves, and have been implicated in causing a disease called “yellows” that sometimes shows up in lettuce.

To stop leafhoppers in their tracks, grease up some yellow plastic cups with Vaseline or a similar tacky material and attach them upside down to short stakes in the lettuce patch. The leafhoppers will be attracted to the cups, will hop onto them, and won’t be able to hop away. This won’t catch every one of them, but it’ll do a good job of triggering an abrupt population decline.

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Photo courtesy of sherrylwebb at Flickr.com.

If squirrels have been nibbling on your vegetables, take a look at exactly what they’re eating. If they’re chewing on items that typically have a high moisture content, like tomatoes and melons, this may mean that they’re just having trouble finding water.

You may be able to placate them by scattering a few birdbaths around your garden, where they can sip at their leisure (your feathered friends will happily use them, too). It won’t stop the little beggars from stealing your bird seed, but it may improve the nibbling issue. If you do put up a few new water sources, remember to take precautions against mosquito larvae.

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It’s been rainy and wet outside this last week, so I’m glad that I haven’t been out there turning a compost heap. My Indoor Kitchen composter, on the other hand, is snug and dry, sitting in my entry hallway.

What’s in my composter? (new items are marked in bold):
Some paper napkins
3 pumpkins worth of pumpkin goo
A pint of old cherries
2 pear pits
About 1/4 of the bag of Bokashi (I added a lot this time)
2 Corn husks
The rinds of 5 oranges
3 Grapefruit husks
About 3 cups of vegetable scraps
A lot of tea bags (more than a dozen)
A cup of soy bean husks
More scrap paper from direct mail

The composter is about about as full now as it was last week. Since I added more stuff, that means it must have settled a bit.

Composter output:
About 1/3 cup of compost tea
No unpleasant smells.

Did you miss the start of this crazy experiment?
Previous Week…
Next Week

Where to buy it:
Indoor Kitchen Composter, Click here!
$69.99, including the bin and extra bokashi.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Photo courtesy of lelisa at Flickr.com.

Planting sunflowers is a great way to provide 100% natural, living bird feeders for your avian visitors for part of the year.

While most of us think of sunflowers as huge and unwieldy, the truth is that there are about 70 different species in the sunflower family, and some are compact enough for any garden. Be sure to plant several sunflowers together, however, since they rely upon cross-fertilization for the best yields. And don’t worry– if the seeds aren’t ripe enough for them, the birds won’t bother. But when they come due in the late summer, watch out!

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Photo courtesy of turtlemom4bacon at Flickr.com.

Houseplants not only beautify your home, they also improve indoor air quality — so you don’t want to give up their benefits just because your cat seems determined to destroy every one you introduce to his or her territory.

While cats have been known to eat the occasional plant, most of the damage they do is caused by digging in the soil the plants are potted in. You can discourage this by filling the space between the soil surface and top of the planter with rocks or shells — the bigger the better, at least up to about six inches across. The cat won’t be able to get at the soil through the shield. Plus, it’s porous enough to let water through, and the additional weight helps stabilize taller plants.

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Photo courtesy of ss700220 at Flickr.com.

Ladies, are you wondering what the heck you’ll do with that left-over pumpkin after you’ve baked all your pies? Don’t just throw it on the compost heap: pumpkin happens to be the ideal base ingredient for several skin-care products, including both a facial mask and a spiced scrub. Not only will both help slough off dead cells, they’ll also nourish your skin with a healthy dose of antioxidants like vitamins A and C, along with alpha-hydroxy acids and zinc. If the pumpkin’s not already cooked, cook it and puree it first, then follow the pumpkin recipes here.

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Photo courtesy of sisudave at Flickr.com.

At the end of the year, you may be tempted to leave the plant clutter in your garden until next spring; after all, it’ll add to the fertility of the soil, right? Maybe, maybe not — but one thing it’ll definitely do is provide places where plant diseases and animal pests can hide and even flourish over the winter.

Instead of leaving plant debris lying there, clean it up and compost it at the end of the season. You’ll also need to remove old mulches and replace them with new material.

Don’t think you’re immune because you’re a container gardener: if you don’t clean up your pots between uses, you run the risk of diseases and pests jumping from one generation of plants to the next.

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Photo courtesy of tcummin3 at Flickr.com.

It’s always a good idea to invest for your future, but did you know that you can invest for the planet’s future at the same time?

As more and more people have become aware of the need for ecological sustainability, brokerage houses have responded by offering up “green” options — investment funds dedicated to socially responsible investing in fields like organic food production, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and green building. At the moment, there are more than 500 actively traded “green” companies, up from a few dozen in 2003, so green investments are clearly becoming more viable all the time.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Photo courtesy of Chimpola at Flickr.com.

One way to get rid of weeds (at least for a while) is to break up your soil about two weeks before you intend to plant, and then give it a good watering. The weed seeds in the soil will be encouraged to sprout.

Give them a week or so, and remove the weed seedlings by hand or by hoeing before planting your intended crops. This will give your crop seedlings fewer competitors, and it’ll make it less likely that mistaken identity or a casual sweep of the hoe will wipe them out.

Given the level of effort required, this method is most suitable for the smaller garden.

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