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...
Fall Gardening Ideas By Master Gardener David Wall
September 4, 2025 – Well, we’ve had a nice warm(?) summer, and some of your crops have produced well while others not so well. In my case, for whatever reason, the okra produced like mad, but two weeks ago, most of the leaves fell off and the stalks turned brown. So, what to do with the 9 X 17 raised bed garden? There are several vegetables our local Safety Crisis Center (battered people shelter) can use, such as...
Rejuvenate your Vegetable Plants (Clip and save) By Master Gardener David Wall
September 1, 2025 – Many of you planted vegetables starting with onions in mid-January, followed by peppers and tomatoes around the first of February, cucumbers the end of March and finally okra around the first of May. Soil with fertilizer and compost was great, and water was in abundanece. The results were large amounts and sizes of fruits A few months later, the situation,...
Basic Fertilizer Information from Master Gardener David Wall
August 15, 2025 – You can buy fertilizer based on name, most colorful & biggest package, cheapest price, or content, but purchase should be made on content, so let’s reexamine what’s in the bag. It’s often said a 3-1-2 or 4-1-2 fertilizer is a complete fertilizer, meaning 30% or 40% of the content is Nitrogen, 10% is Phosphorus (actually Phosphate (P2O5)), and 20% is Potassium (actually potash (K2)). OK, so what? Well,...
Increasing Tomato Production During This Heat From Master Gardener David Wall
August 3, 2025 – Tomato production and may stop during the summer heat. Day temps of 95° and night temps not lower than 75° cause pollen to hardens to an extent that bees can’t do their job. Further, tomatoes have great difficulty manufacturing ethylene, which is necessary to trigger the ability to turn red. To get around this, one can put green tomatoes with ripe or ripening tomatoes and perhaps a ripe...
The Latest on Roundup From Master Gardener David Wall
July 17, 2025 – Most of you are aware that Roundup has a very checkered career in farming and gardening. The chief ingredient, glyphosate, is a very weak pathogen, but when combined with other Roundup ingredients some of which were even more toxic than glyphosate, its toxicity rises several hundred percent. Due to its extensive use as a herbicide and desiccating agent, we all probably have Roundup in our...
This and That for July 2025 From Master Gardener David Wall
July 1, 2025 – Clip, store and hang on to this for use in 2026. Unless you’re eating organic bread, you’re consuming glyphosate, the key ingredient in roundup. While wheat may not be GMO ready, roundup will probably be sprayed on the crop to ensure the entire crop dies at the same time. Water used in soaking beans can be used as fertilizer. The water used in soaking onions can be a useful pesticide and as a nutrient solution for...
