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Bibliography

USDA Agricultural Research Service “Honey Bees and Colony Collapse” 2013 http://

www.ars.usda.gov/news/docs.htm?docid=15572

Organic Gardening Magazine “Common Plant Diseases and Disorders” http://

www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/common-plant-diseases-and-disorders

Colorado State Beekeepers Association “Plant List for Pollinators” Pamplet. 2014.

Basic Gardening Zine Series #3

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CONTENTS

Introduction………………………………………………………..3

Best Techniques…………………………………………………...4

Good Bugs………………………………………………………..7

How to bring bugs to the garden…………………………….10

Bees and Colony Collapse………………………………………11

Common Pest Bugs……………………………..……………….13

Diseases…………………………………………………………….15

Breaking out the big guns: sprays and traps…………..16

Animals……………………………………………………………..18

The basic garden zine series is an effort to condense the boggling amount of infor-

mation relating to gardening into a simple and easily replicable booklet. Karen Seed

wrote it and drew the illustrations, unless otherwise noted. May your garden grow abun-

dant!

Other titles:

Soil & Compost

Bugs

Food Crops

Starting Seeds

Irrigation

Harvesting & Food Preservation

Seed Saving

19

or currants. Confuse them or block

them with these techniques:

1) hang up sparkly foil to reflect

bright light. They get confused and

scared and don’t come by,

2) Put up a scarecrow, or a big owl

statute. They will think there are

predators and stay away.

3) Bird netting over the berry patch

keeps them out. It can be a pain to

work with because it gets tangled, but

it’s worth it.

SQUIRRELS: These guys aren’t really a

huge deal. They tend to not go after

living veggies, but will get into your harvest if you leave it laying around.

MICE: Mice are the worst problem in the spring time, when they love to

dig up freshly planted seeds to nibble on. So much for your newly sown

pea bed! Control them by placing floating row cover over newly planted

beds, by allowing snakes to hang out in the garden, or having a cat on-

residence.

DOGS: In urban areas, often the most damaging critters are people’s

dogs. They dig and kill with impunity (depending on the dog.) Best way

to avoid them is to have a fence, and keep ‘em on a leash!

HUMANS: Watch out for these crazy creatures! Especially if the garden

is in a public area, it is at risk for people throwing trash, trampling on

plants, or stealing veggies. Having a sign explaining what the garden is

can help all of this… communication is key!

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ANIMALS IN THE GARDEN Well, everyone needs to eat. Sometimes animals get into a garden and

eat the crops, which can be quite disappointing. Here are some com-

mon pest animals and how to thwart them.

RACCOONS: these guys are notorious

for getting people’s entire crop of

sweet corn. They always seem to

know when it is most ripe! They usu-

ally strike at night, and eat all the corn

at once.

Fences aren’t effective against them,

because they climb very easily.

Lay down chicken wire below the

crops you want to protect. They will

not be able to walk over it. Planting

garlic around the area will also con-

fuse their sense of smell.

In extreme cases, you can use electric

fencing, play a radio at night, or install

red LED lights so it looks like someone

is watching them.

DEER: Deer love the tender vegetables we grow, especially lettuce, cab-

bage, and fruits like tomatoes. Deer browsing can cause significant

damage to crops.

The best way to keep deer out is to put up a fence. Barring that, you can

also use cayenne pepper and garlic to repel them. Just be aware that

you have to re-apply that stuff periodically, or after it rains.

BIRDS: Birds can cause damage to berry crops, like grapes, strawberries,

Using chicken wire to deter raccoons.

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Buggy Love! A perspective for approaching bugs in an ecological

garden.

In a natural ecosystem, there are thousands of different species of insects.

Each one eats something different and lives in a different place on the

earth—in the soil, on the plants, or in nests of their own. Many live in

colonies together, like ants and bees, and others live solitary lives. They

all have something to contribute. Together, they make a diverse ecology.

A food garden is also an ecology. Unlike the natural world, it’s highly

altered and controlled by humans. In order to grow food, we need bugs to

pollinate the plants and to make the soil, and in doing so, they need to

form complex webs of relationships. Because we have the power to add

to and monitor the soil, and then plant different plant species, we also

have great effect over all the insect families who live there. That control

is a huge responsibility, and understanding it will result is a more healthy

and productive garden.

Out of thousands of species of bugs, there are 10-20 common ones that

pose risk to the food crops that humans grow. In the past, many people

sprayed poisonous pesticides to control those bugs. They did not under-

stand that in a balanced ecology, it’s not necessary to do so, because each

bug is controlled by natural predators. Growing a healthy garden takes

time. It starts with healthy soil, which will help the plants fight infesta-

tion natural. But it can take many seasons to build healthy soil. It will

take years for perennial plants to be established and grow. And so, it can

take years for populations of beneficial predators and pollinators to stabi-

lize. Growing an ecology happens over more than one season. Be patient

and diligent!

However, our garden ecologies are rarely perfect. There are non-toxic,

homemade, and biodegradable options in the toolbox to control veggie-

eating bugs. But for organic gardeners, it’s important to keep it in per-

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spective. Remember that everyone, not just humans, deserves to eat. Is it

incredibly important that the tomatoes be completely perfect? Does a

small hole render a kale leaf inedible? Is slight damage on the crops a

signal to start a chemical war? Unless a food crop is being seriously

threatened by bugs, consider that doing nothing, and waiting to see what

happens is a valid choice. Maybe the offending bug will get eaten by

someone else. Maybe not. Wait and see, and we will find that we are just

one part of the garden food web…

BASIC TECHNIQUES For encouraging a good bug ecology

1) Take care of the soil.

Healthy soil, with lots of organic matter, will make healthy plants. It will

stimulate the food web and provide a home for earthworms, insects, fun-

gi, and microorganisms. There will be plenty for everyone to eat. If the

soil is healthy, the plants will be stronger and more able to fight off in-

festations of disease and bugs.

2) Keep your garden clean.

If there is a plant that got infested with problem bugs, or with a disease

of some kind, take that dead plant away from the garden. Put it in the

compost pile, or burn it or something. Don’t just leave it on the bed or in

the aisle, because the pest organism probably laid eggs that will survive

over the winter until it can come back next spring. Basically, hygiene. If

you have a gross cut on your foot, you clean it in the same way. Clean up

pest problems, or they WILL come back.

3) Rotate crops.

Don’t plant the same crops on the same bed over and over again. Many

pests only attack a certain type of plant. For example, corn root worm

lays its eggs in the soil in the fall, and they hatch the next spring. They

17

slugs and snails are attracted to the yeast, fall in,

and drown.

III. SPRAYS AND DUSTS

SOAP: Works on soft-bodied insects like

aphids and mealybugs. You can buy

special insecticidal soap from a garden

store, or you can just uge regular biode-

gradable soil (a good castile soap like Dr.

Bronner’s does the trick.) The soap

works by penetrating their cells and dry-

ing them up, and by suffocating them in

a thick layer that air cannot get through.

GARLIC: Garlic is super anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and very aromatic. Bugs hate it! It

doesn’t kill them, but will repel them for a long time.

DIATOMACIEOUS EARTH: This is a dust that is mined from the earth. It is fossilized

single-celled marine organisms called diatoms—no joke.

When the powder touches the body of a bug, the bug

will dry up and die. This dust can be put onto crops ex-

periencing bad flea beetle or aphid infestations. People

even eat it as part of cleansing diets. DANGER! It can

hurt dogs to inhale it, not because of a chemical but

because of the sharp microscopic edges of the powder.

NEEM: Neem oil comes from the neem tree, native to

India. This oil can be purchased in a garden store. It is a

strong pesticide, and not only kills but disrupts insects

reproductive cycles. This is organic, and it biodegrades

in 3-44 days. It’s non-toxic to humans and animals, but

because it is so harsh for insects, only use as a last re-

sort.

Easy Soap Spray! For aphids especially, or severe caterpillar infesta-

tion.

1-3 teaspoons of castile soap

1 gallon of water

Mix thoroughly and put into a spray can.

Spray it directly on the bugs.

Easy Garlic Spray!

For fungal infestations or to

repel insects

2 heads of Garlic (the more you add, the stronger it will be)

1 Gallon of water.

Crush or chop the garlic, and put with the pater into a bot. Bring to a boil, then let it sit overnight. Strain it, then put it into a spray bottle.

You can also add soap or cayenne pepper to make it more effective.

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BREAKING OUT THE BIG GUNS

(Sprays and Traps)

If you think that a pest is seriously threatening the food crops, and something must be

done, you can employ some of these organic techniques.

I. CROP BARRIERS

floating row cover. This is a lightweight, syn-

thetic material that is stretched over plants and

secured on the edges. It acts as a barrier to

keep the plants safe from insects (or animals)

coming in. It also provides more warmth for

plants on cold nights.

Plant collars. If the plant stems are getting chewed at

the base, it’s probably a slug or something that crawls

on the ground. You can make collars out of cardboard

toilet paper tubes or aluminum cans. Place the collars

around the base of the plant, and the bugs should not

be able to chew their stems.

II. TRAPS

Sticky Traps: some insects are attracted to

certain colors. These traps are basically just

different colors of cardstock coated with a

stick material. Bugs are attracted to them,

and cannot break free. Yellow will capture

whiteflies and fungus gnats, while blue will

capture thrips and shoreflies. You can get

them at a garden store.

Beer traps: For slugs and snails. Place a dish filled with beer in the affected area. The

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only eat corn roots, and can kill entire fields of baby corn seedlings. If

there is no corn, they die. If you plant corn there again and again, the root

worms will only get stronger. If you plant broccoli there instead, they

will grow weak. Therefore, planting crops in different places will con-

fuse and break up populations of pest bugs.

4) Strive for Diversity!

Bugs tend to “zero-in” on specific food crops. Don’t put all your eggs in

one basket. Intermingle crops, if you can, within the same bed. Plant non

-food stuff! It may seem counter-intuitive to plant non-vegetable crops.

But planting lots of different flowers and aromatic plants will bring more

beneficial bugs and keep pest populations in check. Plants that provide

pollen and nectar are very important for attracting all kinds of bugs. Dif-

ferent flowers bloom at different times of the year, so having a lot of

flowers will provide habitat year-round. Strongly aromatic herbs like gar-

lic and onions, and flowers like marigold, will repel bugs, so plant them

throughout the garden in strategic places.

5) OBSERVATION!

Proper identification of bugs and diseases is the name of the game. And,

if you catch a crop-damaging infestation early on, you have a better

chance of taking care of it with little ill effects. Pay attention to what’s

happening in the garden—if a plant has bite marks on it, make note of

how big they are and what they look like. Try to find the offending bug

in the act. If a plant’s leaves are curling or looking discolored, look clos-

er. You can’t treat a problem if you don’t know what it is.

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This is the general life cycle of many insects.

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Garden Diseases Diseases of plants in the garden are caused by either fungi or bacteria.

Sometimes they can be hard to identify. Here are some common ones and how to deal with them:

Blights: Blights are caused by either bacteria or fungi. Blights generally affect the leaves, causing branches to suddenly wilt, whither, turn black, and die. Later, the dead branches can rot. Control it by planting blight-resistant varieties, and by pruning affect-ed plant matter as soon as you can. Burn the diseased plants so that the disease doesn’t spread. Types of blight include Fireblight, which affects fruit trees and roses, Early Blight and Late Blight. Wilts: Naturally, plants wilt when they don’t have enough water. Wilt diseases attack and clog the water-conducting system of a plant, causing it to wilt, turn yellow, and die.. Often they can be confused with blight. Includes Stewart’s Wilt (affects corn), Fusari-um Wilt, and Verticillium Wilt. Rusts: Rusts are a specific type of fungal disease. It appears as a reddish powdery coat-ing on the plant. They often need two different plant species to complete their life cycle. Rust can be controlled by neem oil, which kills the spores. Garlic sprays will also help. Includes Asparagus Rust and Mildew: Fungal diseases that generally grow on the plant’s leaves. Downy mildew and Powdery Mildew are quite common. It can be controlled by allowing enough air circu-lation, and/or spraying with an anti-fungal like garlic or neem. Damping off: caused by a variety of soil fungi. Seeds rot before they germinate, or seedlings rot at the soil line. Avoid it by keeping the soil moist but not waterlogged.

Basic techniques to avoid disease:

Rotate your crops because diseases often attack specific plants, and can over-winter in the soil.

Remove and destroy diseased plant material immediately, either by burning or hot-composting.

Make sure the soil has good drainage. Diseases often thrive in water-logged environments.

Make sure the plants are spaced for enough air circulation. When they are overcrowded, the disease spreads more easily.

If you’ve had issues with a disease, don’t replant there. Take precau-tions to disinfect tools and other materials.

Stronger plants will be more able to fight off disease. Poor soil makes weak plants, so take care of the soil by feeding it lots of organic mat-

ter.

Plant disease-resistant cultivars. If you are buying plants from a

greenhouse, inspect them for disease first!

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Leaf-eating Catterpillars:

includes cabbage worms,

loopers, inchworms, tomato

hornworms, etc. They eat

holes in the leaves of plants.

Their natural predators are

wasps and tachinid flies,

and they can also be con-

trolled by hand-picking,

because they are fairly large

as pests go.

Flea Beetles: They are small black insects that

make little bite marks on the leaves of green vege-

tables like kale and lettuces. Their natural predators

are wasps and nematodes. They are very mobile, so

you can’t spray them easily and therefore they can be

hard to control. However, they can be repelled by di-

atomaceous earth, and by floating row covers as

well.

Aphids: These small, soft-bodied green

insects suck the sap from leaves. They have

many natural enemies—ladybugs, wasps,

lacewings, and more— but nevertheless

they often colonize host plants in mass

numbers. There are many types of aphids

with different hosts; the most common in

Colorado are brassica aphids who eat Broc-

colli, Kale, Cabbage, and such. They can be con-

trolled by a strong spray of water, or, if that doesn’t

work, by a solution of soap and water.

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GOOD BUGS!!! These bugs are our friends, because they further our cause of growing food! They

should be loved and cared for wherever they go! Two basic types of good bugs: Pollina-

tors, and Predators.

Pollinators

Many plants need to be pollinated with a flower from another plant of the same species.

This is accomplished either with the wind (Corn is wind-pollinated) or with insects

(Squashes like pumpkins, cucumbers, and zucchini, fruit trees and many other fruiting

plants.)

BEES: Nature’s natural pollinators, bees are well-

adapted to the task. Wild bees are often solitary and do

not live in hives, while honey bees live together in

colonies. Bees are considered the most important polli-

nators of flowering plants. (more info on bees and col-

ony collapse later on)

HOVERFLIES:

Syrphid flies, such

as hoverflies and drone flies, are an extremely varia-

ble family of flies that range from large, bulky, and

hairy to the small, slender, and shiny. Many larvae of

hoverflies species are important controls of aphids

while adult hoverflies feed on nectar and pollen. Hov-

erflies are important pollinators of flowering plants worldwide. Often hoverflies are

considered to be the second most important pollinators after wild bees.

BUTTERFLIES and MOTHS: these insects have more

specialized relationships with specific flowers and plants,

they don’t pollinate every-

thing indiscriminately like

bees and hoverflies. They are

considered very important

for wild flowers especially.

**There are some moths who are actually pest species—not the adults, but the larva (caterpillars).

The Large White Moth, AKA the Cabbage Moth or Cabbage Butterfly, has caterpillars that feed

heavily on plants in the brassica (cabbage) family.

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Honeybee

Hoverfly

Viceroy Butterly

Large White Moth

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BEETLES: Because of their sheer numbers, beetles are the largest group of pollina-

tors. They usually pollinate white, yellow and green flowers with a strong smell. They

either eat the pollen or the flowers, and often attract mates on the flowers.

Predators Predatory bugs are bugs that eat pests. There are lots, but here are a few of the most important:

GREEN LACEWINGS : Green lacewings is a general predator. As soon as the green lacewing eggs hatch the hungry larvae will eat aphids, mealybugs, scale, spider mites, thrips, whiteflies and other slow moving insects. There are over 1,300 species of green lacewings!

LADYBUGS: Ladybugs are capable of consuming up to 50 to 60 aphids per day but will also eat a variety of other insects and larvae including scales, mealy bugs, leaf hoppers, mites, and various types of soft-bodied insects. Ladybugs, also called lady beetles or ladybird beetles, are a very beneficial group of insects. They are predatory in both their larval and adult stage, so double whammy. GO!

TRICHOGRAMMA WASPS: are tiny parasites that attack the eggs of over 200 species of moths and caterpilars. They are extremely small - 4 or 5 will fit on the head of a pin. Trichogramma lays its eggs inside the eggs of moths preventing the moth egg from hatching into a caterpillar. This prevents the damage caused by the feeding caterpillars, and also breaks the life cycle of the pest, effectively preventing the pest from reproducing. In some species of moth up to 5 parasite eggs may be laid in each moth egg. As the parasite develops within the egg, it turns black, and after about 10 days, an adult Trichogramma emerges. Adult Trichogramma can live up to 14 days after emergence. Some of the common pests Trichogramma combat are: Cabbage-worm, Tomato Hornworm, Corn Earworm, Codling Moth, Cutworm, Armyworm,

Green Lacewing Larva

(left) and Adult (right)

Yellow-shouldered lady-bug eating an aphid

Ladybug Larva

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BAD BUGS!!

Bad bugs are the ones who eat and infest our food crops. There are a lot

of different ones. Proper identification will help immensely in knowing

how to treat them, and unfortunately this small zine is not big enough to

go into all the ID for different bugs. However, Here is a short list of com-

mon culprits and how to combat them.

Slugs and Snails: these guys love wetness and hu-

midity, and they make holes in tender ripe fruits like

tomatoes, cabbage, or other leaves and stems. They

hate salt, and are dried up by any contact with salt,

but you shouldn’t put salt onto your garden, as

plants hate it too. Slugs and snails can be

trapped by placing a pan of beer in the garden

(they love yeast, and will fall in and drown.)

They are a favorite snack of chickens and ducks.

You can also collect them by placing cardboard

onto the ground—they will flock to the moist

cardboard, where you can pick them up and dis-

pose of them.

Grasshoppers: These buggers love

to take bites of leaves, especially

young, tender ones. This can be es-

pecially damaging when the plant in

question is a little seedling. They are

hard to control for because they are

so mobile, and the source of the grass-

hopper population is usually areas of unman-

aged land outside the garden. Their natural

predators are birds, and chickens love them.

You can also protect plants from grasshop-

pers with light fabric such as re-may.

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Season Annuals Perennials Shrubs/Trees

Spring Alyssum Baby Blue Eyes Bird’s Eyes CA Bluebells CA Poppies Candytuft Catchfly Chinese Houses Clarkia Five Spot Globe Gilia Sweet Mignonette

Basket of Gold Catnip Cleome Creeping Phlox Dandelion Mahonia Pasque Flower Poppy

Shrubs: American Plum Choke Cherry Forsythia Lilacs Pussy Willow Trees: All fruit trees Black Locust Linden Maple

Summer Bachelor Button Balsam Basil Borage Calendula Clasping Coneflow-er Cornflower Cosmos Indian Basket Plains Coreopsis Snapdragon Sweet Pea Sunflowers

Echinacea Gaillardia Lavender Liatris Lupine Milkweed Monarda Penstemon Prairie Clover Rudbeckia Scabiosa

Shrubs: False Indigo Golden Currant Serviceberry Trees: Catalpa Redbud Russian Olive

Fall Aster Coreopsis Cosmos Forget-Me-Not Lacy Phacelia Morning Glory Nasturtium Sunflower Sweet Alyssum Zinnia

All herbs/Mints Asters Goldenrod Joe Pyeweed Mums Salvia Sedum Spring Bulbs Stone Crop Yarrow

Shrubs: Apache Plume Blue Mist Spirea Rabbit Brush Russian Sage

COMMON GARDEN NECTAR PLANTS

Borage officinalis Echinacea purpurea Catnip (Nepeta cataria)

Calendula spp. Apple Blossoms

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Webworm, Cabbage Looper, Corn Borer, Fruitworms, and Cane Borers.

PRAYING MANTIS: Mantises are some of the most fierce bugs in the garden. They feast on any-thing they can, even other predators. When they are small, they eat smaller insets like mealybugs, aphids, and scales—but when they get older, they have been known to eat scorpions, small lizards, or even rodents. Don’t get on their bad side….

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GROUND BEETLES: The dark-colored adults often have a metallic sheen, but it's really the larvae that do the dirty work of pest control. Ground beetle larvae develop in the soil, and prey on slugs, root maggots, cutworms, and other pests on the ground. A few species will venture up a plant stem and hunt for caterpillars or insect eggs.

SPIDERS: Spiders are non-discriminate preda-tors, meaning they eat anything they can catch in their webs. They often will roam the garden in search of prey. Spi-ders will not only keep pest bugs under control, but they will eat nuiscance bugs like flies and mosqui-tos. Although they look scary, they are one of the best bugs for your garden. In North America, the only common poisonous spiders are the Brown Recluse and the Black Widow, which should be avoided.

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Adult beetle (top) and beetle larva

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Trichogramma wasp life cycle.

They are so small that they are

almost microscopic.

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Bringing in the bugs!

How can you bring beneficial bugs into the garden? Well, in most cases,

those guys already live in your environment. You just need to find a way

to bring them into YOUR garden. In some cases, you can special order

beneficial (like ladybugs or mantises) from a garden center. This can

help short-term with pest issues, but most of the time, if you don’t have

anywhere for them to live, they will leave.

Beneficial bugs in the garden need two things: FOOD and HABITAT. If

you provide these things, they will come and they will stick around.

FOOD

Pollinator bugs need sources of nectar. Nectar is the sugar substance

that is produced by plants in order to lure insects to pollinate them.

Nectar is an important food for many insects. Some insects feed primari-

ly on nectar, like bees, and others, like wasps, eat both nectar and other

insects. Here is a table of plants species that provide nectar all-year:

As far as other bugs for the predators to eat, In a garden with lots of

plants, and a compost, This shouldn’t be a problem, unless you have

been using pesticides. If so, cease use of pesticides immediately!

HABITAT.

Beneficial bugs often live through the winter, so they need a place to

hide and hibernate through harsh weather. This habitat can be provided

by a designated area of perennial shrubs and plants in the garden, which

doesn’t get tilled and cleaned up like the rest of the vegetable beds.

For bees, their wild hives can be in all kinds of interesting places like

logs, caverns, or the crevices of man-made materials. If you have the

means, consider building a hive for them. Bee-keeping is a wonderful,

important, and rewarding activity in today’s world.

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Colony Collapse Disorder

What it is and how to stop it

According to the USDA, 30% of our food is pollinated by honeybees. Alt-

hough they are not native to the USA and are not the only pollinators,

they have become extremely important to our food system. In recent

years bees have been dying of in alarming numbers, leaving beehives

empty and crops unpollinated. In 2012 the USA lost 30% of the bee-

hives. The reasons for this crisis are complicated and are still being fig-

ured out, but we do know that some of these factors make it worse:

1) Widespread use of insecticides that are toxic to the bees

2) Migratory bee-keeping (like putting beehives on trucks and hauling

them around the country) because it causes pathogens and para-

sites to be spread nation-wide.

3) Environmental destruction that both deprives the bees of nectar

plants (food) and exposes them to pollution.

Therefore, there are two main steps we can take to help the bees:

Plant for Pollinators and Eliminate Pesticide Use!