Diatomaceous Earth to Get Rid of Pests By David Wall
An easy, safe, and effective ways to prevent garden pest outbreaks and prevent them from starting, is to use food grade diatomaceous earth (DE). It’s harmless to humans and safe for animals. The pest list thatDE is effective on is long, while the time to control is short. It’s a jack of all trades and master of all of them. For those unaware, DE is fossilized algae in powder form. The fossils were tiny...
Pruning Tomato And Pepper Plants By David Wall
Many have never heard of pruning tomato plants except for those pesky secondary branches and the central stem top a month before frost to force the plant into ripening the final fruit. Now, we’re learningthere’s more to do. For tomato plants, is pruning necessary? For determinate plants, the answer is usually no. They produce a crop and are finished by late July to early August, so why bother. For determinate...
This And That For June 2023 By David Wall
Water availability will continue to be a problem now and in the future. You can help by storing rain water, saving bath water wasted by running until the water gets warm, drip garden irrigation, saving the water from boiling vegetables which contains nutrients plants will love, enlarging ponds when they are very low, and so many more ways. In the NETSEO area, there are probably several hundred thousand gardens. If each of us could...
Should You Prune Cucumber Plants? By David Wall
We’ve discussed pruning tomato and pepper plants, but the literature suggests you should consider pruning cucumber plants. Yes, it seems weird, but better results can be obtained by pruning. The problem is most of us never heard of such pruning. So, how can pruning help? If growing bush cucumber plants, you can probably forget this article. They grow very little laterally, so there’s little to be gained by pruning. Also, if you allow...
Growing Cucumbers In Containers By David Wall
If you don’t feel you have enough garden space to grow cucumbers, consider growing them in containers. It’s easy and you can get a really good crop of this second most popular vegetable after tomatoes (which can also be grown in containers). Since cucumbers have a smaller root structure than many vegetables, there is little worry about them becoming root-bound in the container. Your first requirement is 6-8 hours of...
A Potential Danger In Sweeteners By David Wall
For so many of us, especially for diabetics, it’s important to check the sugar content in products. We normally think “no sugar,” “less sugar,” or “lite” must be better for us, and in most instances, such is smart thinking. Recently, however, an ingredient often found in regular or no-sugar products has been found to be unwanted, an in some case, perhaps downright dangerous. Some years back, I wrote an article about artificial...
Wood Ashes In Your Garden This Fall By Master Gardener David Wall
November 2, 2025 – As we move through the Fall season on the way to Winter, now is the time to non-fertilize/fertilize your garden for next Spring. Basically, this means that now is the time to put nutrients in your garden soil that will still be available next Spring without having to buy commercial fertilizers. Some do this with cover crops, but I prefer using wood ashes. They work extremely well, cost nothing, and...
Use or Skip the Marigolds? By Master Gardener David Wall
October 15, 2025 – I’ve grown French marigolds with tomato plants for years. They’re great companion plants and can combat gardening pests. For me, they’ve always done great. Besides, everyone else uses them, so they must work; right? Unfortunately, we’re starting to learn that when planted in mass (not once every three feet) they do work, although not as successfully as we’ve always thought. There’s a new...
This and That for October 2025 By Master Gardener David Wall
October 3, 2025 – Bayer Chemicals bought out Monsanto seven years ago and has since had to pay out billions in settlements for cancer-causing Roundup. Bayer took glyphosate out of Roundup and replaced it with a chemical even more dangerous. Now, they are trying to push legislation that would block lawsuits against pesticide makers around the country. With enough donation support, they could conceivably get...
The Asian Longhorned Tick By Master Gardener David Wall
September 18, 2025 – As if we didn’t have enough pests to be concerned with when we’re out and about in our gardens and outdoors in general, we have a new pest that’s coming, and it’s called the Asian Longhorned Tick (ALHT). Though Asian, it was first detected in New Jersey in 2017. In just eight years, it has spread to at least 20 states, the most western being Arkansas (2018) and Oklahoma (2024), which means...
