For those with a home garden

[kneedownnate]

Yes, I realize since I am from northern california (and the emerald triangle to boot) it may be hard to believe, but I'm talking about a vegetable garden!  I'm mostly curious, how do you keep the damn pests out of your garden?  I barely got 10% of my strawberries last year and lost many other yields.

I have about 21 tomato plants this year, 9 or 10 lemon cucumbers, 6 corn, 4 cantaloupes, leeks, onions, potatoes, 12 strawberry plants, several stevia plants and something else I'm forgetting.

I'm already planning to get lots of marigolds to plant w/strawberries and tomatoes, may sew some borage seeds near tomatoes, put epsom salt in when I planted tomatoes to help keep away blossom end rot, and read you can flip yellow dixie cups upside down, coat them in vasoline and attach them to the top of a stake and put near corn plants so bugs will think they're something to eat and get stuck to them.

Anybody else who has a garden have any tips?  Or wanna share what you're growing this year?  Feel free to post pics 

[jimbo74]

ovrarok has a garden

[kneedownnate]

Since there's been such interest (lol?) I'll give a little update.  My corn plants stunted and only grew 10-12" high, attempted to grow corn but that stunted as well.  I filled the area in with more corn a couple weeks back and they're growing quite well and seem very healthy.

The majority of my tomato plants are doing well.  It took them a while, but they're growing like weeds lately and showing good signs of potential output.  Lemon cucumber plants were a bit slow to grow but have doubled and tripled in size this last week and are starting to bud.  Melon and pumpkin plants are healthy and growing, despite the neighbor cats best efforts to tear them up and all over.  Stevia is doing very well also and grows very quickly, so I should get lots of homegrown sweetener through the summer. 

I lost 3 strawberry plants to over-fertilization with an expiremental fertilizer, but the rest are healthy.  I am having a problem with the fruits wilting or getting soft and discolored spots, and I have no idea wtf is causing that.  They're all in suspended pots off the ground to keep away bugs.  Onions are doing well with only 1 that started to look sickly so I cut it.  Planted quite a few more since they were doing so well, which will also split up the yield.  Still need to plant carrots and potatoes

[CletusLloyd]

Mix a light solution of dish soap (dawn etc.) in a spray bottle. Its not strong enough to kill plants, but does kill the little buggers. This works for tomato plants, I'm not 100% sure about strawberries.

[kneedownnate]

Thanks, I've read that but have never tried it.  I try to use as natural of products as I can.  I may not put a ton of stock in the strawberry plants this year and hope they do better next year, just let them establish pretty well.

[junya92toy]

Check your soil PH, soft spots or discolor can be fix with gardeners lime
What kinds of pests are we talking here, bugs, rabbits ?
I put rabbit fence around all my raised beds do to the dog.
I also put in a auto drip system with a timer, works great.
Yellow leaves can be too much water. Soil drain well?

[kneedownnate]

Mix a light solution of dish soap (dawn etc.) in a spray bottle. Its not strong enough to kill plants, but does kill the little buggers. This works for tomato plants, I'm not 100% sure about strawberries.

So it turns out this works pretty well on ants, too.  Spray their trails or where they're congregating and it kills them instantly.  Just tonight found aphids on some cucumber plants and will be spraying them to see if the soapy water solution takes care of them as well.  I've previously trimmed out the leaves with more aphids on them, but am hoping the solution will do the trick

And the cats are back at it and worse.  They dug around one garden the other day near some onions, then dug up an onion 2 days ago, then dug up onions and in the soil last night/today.  I will put some tuna in the live trap and place it right next to the planter.  If I catch the neighbors cat from right next door, I will hand deliver it and let her know what's going on.  I've caught an opossum and hoped it was the true culprit, but if I catch a cat I will be holding responsible their owners.

[Mudder]

No offense but how can you tell an owner to keep their cat away from your garden? The cat will do whatever it wants, yes they ruin your plants but maybe look at ways to keep them away? As for your strawberries dying, are they getting enough sun light? Years ago when I planted some I placed them in an area with sun 90% of the day and they took off and grew everywhere.

[kneedownnate]

Easily, with my mouth!  What ways to keep them away?  You mean lacing the area with pine cones?  Done, only works if you cover the entire area, not leaving space for stuff to grow.  Maybe spray them with the hose?  Done, but their memory seems to be shorter than my thingy.  Maybe you mean throwing stuff at them, once in a while connecting?  Done, again memory/thingy.  I tried pepper flakes and it seemed ok, but washes away quickly.  I've searched and tried quite a few different ways to deter them, and each has failed at some point.  There are only 2 local cats that will be released if caught in the trap.  Next door and straight across the street neighbors.  Any others without tags are considered feral 

Yes, strawberries are getting quite a bit of sunlight.  Plants are doing well now and I have several small fruits growing, just still nothing of size.  Nothing that has grown has gained any reasonable size this year.  Probably should just go back to using miracle grow fertilizer

[emsvitil]

You need to mark the territory as yours....................

[kneedownnate]

Holy crap, where'd you find a bronze likeness of me