Bradley - Rodales vegetable garden problem solver: the best and latest advice for beating pests, diseases, and weeds and staying a step ahead of trouble in the garden

Visualize your vegetable garden exactly as you wish it could be. All of your favorite crops are there, in just the right amounts to supply you with fresh produce every day. The soil is dark and crumbly and moist. The paths are well mulched. Theres not a weed in sight, but cheerful flowers bloom here and there among the beds. Birds sing in the shrubs and trees nearby, but no rabbits or woodchucks ever dare show their furry heads. Slugs, beetles, and caterpillars have produced nary a single hole in a leaf. Every plant is the picture of health, without a yellow leaf or blemished fruit to be seen.

Its a paradise, isnt it? And although this paradise is a fantasy, a healthy organic garden can be a paradise of life and plenty. Thats not to say it will be completely pest-and problem-free, but the soil will be rich and healthy, the plants will be vigorous, and pest infestations will rarely reach a crisis stage. Creating a healthy organic garden isnt a one-weekend project. It may take several years to develop a flourishing chemical-free garden, depending on the quality of the soil you started with, the resources you have available, and the amount of time you can devote to it.

Is your garden still on that multiyear road to achieving a healthy natural balance? Perhaps youre struggling to improve soil that was a rocky wasteland or a dry sandlot when you first started gardening. Maybe rabbits eat up half your crop of lettuce and salad greens, and you cant even consider growing corn because the local raccoons or deer would get to it before you could harvest it. Or perhaps the problems in your garden stem from the demands of the world beyond the backyardtheres just too little time to balance work, family, and community obligations with the needs of the garden.

Whatever the reason, if your vegetable garden is less than a paradise, this book is for you. Its filled with practical solutions to the gardening problems we all face. Advice for controlling insects, diseases, weeds, and animal pests abounds, but thats not all. Youll find practical ideas and helpful hints for all the logistical problems of gardening, too: where to find space for starting seeds indoors, how to plant small seeds efficiently, how to set up a crop rotation plan, how to decide when to fertilize and what to use, how to reduce the time you spend weeding and watering, and lots more.

Healthy plants are more resistant to problems than stressed plants. The more you can do to promote a healthy garden environment, the less youll have to struggle with fighting pest and disease problems. In undisturbed natural environments such as meadows and forests, its rare for pest problems to reach epidemic proportions. For the most part, plants and their pests stay in balance. However, our vegetable gardens are not undisturbed natural environments. We dig in the soil; we plant seeds and transplants and pull out unwanted plants; we put up fencing; and we harvest leaves, fruits, and roots. We choose the plants we want to growand some of them arent well adapted to our local climate and conditions. We plant in neat rows and beds. These are a lot of changes from a natural state. Even so, we can use gardening practices that mimic features of natural environments to help keep the balance and prevent disease or insect invasions.

The most important part of a healthy garden environment is biologically active soilsoil full of the living organisms that process nutrients, that help plant roots absorb nutrients and water, and that protect plants from pathogens.

The best way to tend garden soil is to enrich it with organic matter to stimulate the food web. The food web is the community of animals, insects, and microorganisms that live in the soil. Earthworms, nematodes, bacteria, fungi, and mycorrhizae (a specialized type of fungi) are part of this web, and their activity produces soil that is ideal for plant growth. Unfortunately, tilling and digging can kill some types of soil organisms and destroy the habitat for others. Synthetic fertilizers, harsh pesticides, and other materials put into the soil can kill even more. But good garden practices can support and enhance the underground community and let it work for the benefit of your plants. The more you can do to encourage living things in your garden soil, the better your crops will grow and produce. The Soil entry in this book explains how to overcome soil problems and build a diverse subterranean food web in your garden.

Bare soil is the exception to the rule in natural systems. You can see that in your own yardif you dig a garden bed but then leave it alone, it wont stay bare for long. If its spring or summer, plants will sprout. If its fall, leaves will drop from the trees and cover the bed. Only persistent effort keeps garden beds clear of vegetation or leaf litter. Dont fight natures tendency here; instead, work with it. After you dig a garden bed, if you dont plan to plant it right away, cover it up. Spread a layer of organic mulch or plant a cover crop. Or if you want to warm the soil, cover it tightly with black plastic.