Home of "Gardening with Bugs" and "Spencer Brewing".
Epsom salts are a sometimes overused and misunderstood soil amendment for plant growth. It must be MgSO4 (Magnesium sulphate) and it must be a deficiency in your soil to have any benefit. But when it's recommended, off the shelf products may do more harm than good. Here is why.
If you're like me, the first sunny day after New Year's is the start of the growing season - at least in my head. I'll wander the garden looking for some gardening task, and finding none, I'll go inside and start thumbing through seed catalogues. Then from week 1 to mid summer I'll be seeding... Continue Reading →
The dreaded, unsightly silver-grey spots on your leaves will eventually reduce plant health to a noticeable point. While most powdery mildews will not kill your plant, they are often associated with plant decline from other processes. So it's no surprise you've come here searching-out how to control it. Listed below are some methods to control... Continue Reading →
The ladybug lifecycle is a long one. It can be as longer than 8 weeks from when an egg is laid until when it emerges as an adult. So that means that the great flush of ladybug eggs that you’ll get in late spring won’t produce the great number of adults that you hoped for... Continue Reading →
See below, or watch the video here. Shortly after dawn on a summer day that woke with the promise of sunshine, fluffy clouds and a cooling breeze, two government researchers set out into an orchard in Ontario. Their task was simple: Determine what - if anything - had survived the damaging chemical pesticide initiative that... Continue Reading →
You're a home gardener and the cost of of buying; the labour of applying; and the difficulty in sourcing beneficial insects seems - all together - like a mountain to climb. You're not alone. And while it is my goal to make beneficial insects better understood and more readily available to you, this is still... Continue Reading →
We've been lucky....so far. Other than one or two gentle overnight periods we have been without a freeze since February. However, nothing is any more established than in years previous, largely due to below average temperatures. Yes, no freezing, but it has still been cold. The south coast of BC and Seattle recorded their first... Continue Reading →
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A genuine "Fool's Spring." It was 12 degrees Celsius in full sun this weekend. Yes, the lows were 1C, and there was frost, but I got a sunburn in February and that's what counts! We like to use the term "Fool's Spring" here on the West Coast because we often get a few of them.... Continue Reading →
“The biggest thing in biological pest control since chemical resistance.” Anystis baccarum, or The Crazee Mite (also known as the Whirligig Mite) is a cosmopolitan (world wide distribution) predatory mite and an impressive destroyer of common greenhouse, ornamental and agricultural pests. Adult Anystis finishing a green peach aphid. The Crazee Mite is known for controlling... Continue Reading →
