Linda got a few comments and questions on her post a couple of weeks ago on fertilization and insect resistance. This is an issue I’ve been peripherally involved with over the years so I wanted to share a few thoughts. First, the relationship between plant nutrition and insect resistance is extremely complex. We often have difficulty predicting how a plant is going to respond to fertilization, let alone predict how an insect is going to respond to how the plant responded. … Continue reading this article “Insects and Fertilization”
Tag: insects
Disney and Japanese Beetles
This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak at Epcot Center in Florida. It was, without a doubt, one of the highlights of my career so far. I spoke 6 times over the course of 3 days. The focus of my talk was garden remedies. I started by talking about Paris Green (a good story for next week), then made fun of some of Jerry Baker’s, Myles Bader’s and Joey Green’s recommendations, and then proceeded to talk about which homemade cures do and don’t work and why. … Continue reading this article “Disney and Japanese Beetles”
Bags and Apples
One of my favorite garden “cures” is placing a clear plastic sandwich bag around apples when they are young to protect them from insects and disease. It usually works great and impresses the heck out of people who see and eat the apples which are normally tough to grow without using bunches of organic or synthetic pesticides.
Unfortunately this year was different. Rebecca Koetter, the person who planted these trees and put the bags on the apples (on the University of Minnesota campus) discovered that birds may choose to ignore the bags. … Continue reading this article “Bags and Apples”