This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

It’s time to get started on the vegetable garden for the coming season so you can grow your own healthy, organic food again this year. Many of us have already started seedlings indoors to transplant out to the garden or the cold frames as soon as weather permits. Kathryn and I have come up with a checklist of ten things to consider before you plant. Each item on the list helps to prevent pests and diseases in your vegetable garden. All ten of them acting in concert really gives you a leg up for a successful and productive year.

1. Sanitize. If you didn’t get around to cleaning up old left-over garden debris last autumn, do it now. Pay special attention to any dead plant material from diseased or infested plants and get it out of your garden. Fungal spores, insect eggs, and bacteria lurking on old infected dead leaves lying on the ground can quickly infect your new plants and ruin your produce all summer long.

2. Right plant, right place. Be sure and read the instructions on the seed pack or the vegetable start plant label and put your plants in the best location to meet those requirements. If your plants have the right amount of light and water, the correct temperature, and the proper soil they won’t be under stress. And stress, as we all know, predisposes our plants (as well as ourselves) to attack by pests and diseases.

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

On Thursday David and I taught an all day long Master Gardener class about insects. What fun! Insects come in so many different colors, sizes, and shapes it boggles the mind. Some insects (the good bugs) are a gardener’s friend and some (the bad bugs) are foes. Learning how to identify friend from foe really helps in successful garden management. Your friends are the beneficial insects, the predators, parasites, or pollinators. Predators and parasites eat the insects that ruin your garden and pollinators pollinate the flowers on your fruit trees and vegetables. The list below is a continuation from David’s last blog post.

Butterflies and Moths. All of these insects belong to the order Lepidoptera, meaning scale-wing, because their wings are covered with minute, often colorful scales. Adults have four large wings and are often much appreciated for their grace and beauty. Their larvae, on the other hand, are caterpillars, cutworms, hornworms, corn earworms, tomato fruitworms, and many other very destructive pests of our food crops and ornamental plants. All lepidopterans have complete metamorphosis with larvae that are worm-like caterpillars which pupate in a chrysalis, cocoon, or in the soil. The larvae have chewing mouthparts and the adults have straw-like mouthparts for sucking up nectar.

Caterpillars come in many different colors and sizes. Some are very furry, some are quite smooth. Some are brightly colored and some match their background so perfectly they are very difficult to find.

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

This week Kathryn and I are teaching Entomology, the study of Insects, to the Master Gardeners. Insects are absolutely fascinating animals, some are the gardener’s friend and some are foes. How can you tell which is which? Use this handy guide to help you distinguish between pests and beneficial insects on your plants.

Beetles, Weevils, and Curculios. All members of this group belong to the order Coleoptera, meaning sheath (coleo) wing (ptera). In this group, the wing covers (the two fore wings) are hard, often shiny and colorful, and completely cover the abdomen. These insects have complete metamorphosis. The ladybird beetle (aka, lady bug) is a familiar representative of this group and one of the most beneficial insects in your garden. Many destructive pests are found in this group, in addition to the beneficial ones. As a group they are rather clumsy fliers compared to many other insects. They have mouthparts adapted for chewing.

Beetle eggs hatch into larvae that are distinctly different in appearance from the adult insect. Some are C-shaped, white grubs with brown heads and three pairs of jointed legs. They live in the soil and feed on plant roots. Others, like the ladybird beetle larvae, look like tiny monsters crawling over the leaves of your plants searching for aphids to eat.

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

It’s December and every time you go shopping –- at department stores, grocery stores, big box stores, garden centers –- you see poinsettias in full bloom. They make delightful holiday decorations because winter is their natural flowering time. The bright red “flowers” and bright green leaves say Christmas for many people. I put “flowers” in quotes because those big, showy, red “petals” are bracts, modified leaves, not flowers. The real flowers are tiny and insignificant.

In addition to several shades of red poinsettias now come in an array of colors: white, yellowish, pink, and striped. There are also double-bracted varieties which have a larger number of colorful bracts than the original wild type.

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We did our “design launch” yesterday for a somewhat technical but always delightfully written (and sometimes even funny) book on those underappreciated garden insects: Bees, Wasps, and Ants: The Indispensable Role of Hymenoptera in Gardens. Believe me, you can’t really understand what’s going on in your garden without this book.

The most interesting thing I learned today is the existence of the “Justin O. Schmidt Pain Index” for bee/wasp/etc. stings.  It’s rather entertaining reading, and a not-so-gentle remembrance of stings past. This may not be news to everyone—there is a lengthy Wikpedia article here, but I love the idea that you can now put a number to your level of agony. Kind of like the Sleep Number bed.

The Justin O. Schmidt Pain Index (Schmidt 1990)

1.0, Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.

1.2, Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch.

1.8, Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.

2.0, Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.

2.0, Yellow jacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.

2.0, Honey bee and European hornet: Like a match-head that flips off and burns on your skin.

3.0, Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.

3.0, Paper wasp: Caustic and burning, distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.

4.0, Pepsis wasp (spider wasp): Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath (if you get stung by one you might as well lie down and scream).

4.0+, Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.

During my time at Timber Press, I’ve seen many titles come up for discussion. Most of our titles are self-explanatory — buy a book entitled Japanese Maples, and you will find it to be chock full of Japanese maples. (Truth in advertising!) Some titles, however, are a bit vague. Niwaki? What does that mean?  In these cases, it’s the subtitle to the rescue! (A perfect example of the subtitle clarifying the title is the Diagram Prize winner Bombproof Your Horse, whose subtitle is Teach Your Horse to Be Confident, Obedient, and Safe, No Matter What You Encounter. Makes a lot more sense with the subtitle, doesn’t it?)

In the realm of self-explanatory titles, I would say that our latest, What’s Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?) is pretty darn self-explanatory. (Though I do kinda wish that the last part was in all caps. I think it would add an important soupçon of drama!)

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About this time of year, there is a lull in my garden activities. It’s summer! There are dozens of places and events to dash off to at any given moment! Who has time to garden, anyway?

So it was nice to spend a quiet evening watering and noticing all the small beauties that I’m missing out on as a result of all the dashing.

Poppies poking through nasturtium leaves.

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I’ve been gardening in the city for the past 3 years now, and have formed a strong opinion on squirrels, cats, dogs, and their, ahem, “relationship” with my garden. (I have opinions on bugs and slugs too, but those are easier to trap with beer.)

Let’s start with squirrels (who seem unaffected by beer – bummer.) Our esteemed next door neighbor has a squirrel feeder, which provides them with a constant supply of peanuts – and me with a constant supply of squirrels burying peanuts in my garden. It’s like a video game – squirrel gets peanut, squirrel comes over fence to bury said peanut, garden owner must chase squirrel off before it succeeds. Extra points for hitting squirrel with a jet of water! I wish I could designate a squirrel digging area – DIG HERE, AVOID SEEDLINGS. On the other hand, my husband enjoys laughing at my outrage, so there’s that.

Then there are cats. Honestly, I think cats are worse than squirrels. I prefer what squirrels bury to what cats bury. Coming across a peanut in the dirt? No biggy. Cat by-product? Yuck! We have two lazy indoor cats, who posture amusingly on windowsills when they see the outdoor interlopers. I encourage them to act as “guard cats”, but so far, chicken wire over my garden beds has proven to be more effective. It gives me a whole new appreciation for indoor cats – I think everyone should have them. Think of the gardens!

Lastly, though this is a rare problem, there is our neighbor’s dog. He’s usually very good, and doesn’t come dashing into my garden much. But he is large. And enthusiastic. And – well – there goes the lettuce, replaced by a filthy, squeaky toy. Sigh.

I can count my blessings, though. I have yet to see deer or rabbits. And I don’t live near a bar.