Vole damage in a yard or garden can be extensive. Moles can also do an incredible amount of damage to your yard and gardens as well. Actually moles and skunks will often tag team your yard. The moles attack it from the underside and the skunks attack it from above. Digging it up like a… Click here to read more…
Skunks digging, moles tunneling, why are they digging up my lawn?
If you have moles tunneling in your lawn and or skunks digging up your lawn, chances are your lawn is full of Japanese Beetle Grubs. And make no mistake about it, the grubs are silently destroying your lawn from the roots up. Japanese Beetle Grubs quietly feed on the roots of your lawn. You don’t… Click here to read more…
How to Get Rid of Skunks
Skunks tend to live as close to a food source as possible, so be careful to not inadvertently provide food sources for them. Skunks eat insects, grubs, garbage, bird seed, fruit, vegetables and small mammals. In a residential area skunks usually make a home under a garden shed, in a wood pile, a rock pile… Click here to read more…
Spider Mites Eating Your Plants?
Most Spider Mites, especially the Two Spotted Spider mite love hot weather and dry conditions, so the race is on! Batten down the hatches and Katie bar the door, it’s Spider Mite season! Spider mites attack a variety of plants in your landscape including Burning Bush, Dwarf Alberta Spruce, Boxwood, almost all spruce varieties and… Click here to read more…
Strawberry Growers Are Forced to Use Ozone Killing Pesticides
Farmers have been using methyl bromide since 1961, but in 1990 the Montreal Protocol mandated farmers to stop by 2005 because of its ozone destroying ways. Several government exemptions allowed farmers to continue using the fumigant, but these will all expire at the end of 2016. That sounds like a good thing — that farmers… Click here to read more…
Organic Grasshopper Control
Grasshoppers have been the bane of gardeners for centuries. These insects are responsible for consuming up to 25% of the available forage in the western half of the US each year. That’s a lot of food that could have been available to people and livestock. A heavy grasshopper infestation can reduce a garden to stubble… Click here to read more…
Are Birds Eating All of Your Fruit?
Nothing is more frustrating than watching all of the hard work you put into growing and nurturing your fruit or nut trees go to the birds! For years people have tried many methods to try and deter birds and other garden moochers from eating their crops. People have tried bird netting, sonic blasting, predator decoys… Click here to read more…
Controlling Earwigs in Your Garden and Yard
Earwigs are unwelcome guests in most everyone’s garden or home. Earwigs can damage your plants, but they rarely bite people. These ¾” long, reddish brown insects look particularly formidable, with their rear pincers and quick movements. Their name comes from an old European superstition that these nocturnal insects will crawl into the ears, and then… Click here to read more…
Garden Slugs, Nature’s Slimy Thugs
SLUGS…..YUCK!!! Who is chewing all those ragged holes in the leaves of your beautiful plants? It could very well be slugs or snails. Garden slugs like to hide in dark, moist places during the day, and at night they crawl out of their hidey holes to munch on your plants or ripening vegetables. The evidence… Click here to read more…
10 Plants that Naturally Repel Mosquitoes
10 Plants that repel mosquitos You spend years planning and building your dream backyard patio. Then, as you sit enjoying your backyard, you hear the dreaded buzz of a mosquito as it zips past your ear. What’s a person to do? Do you run back inside your house in fear? No way! Take back your… Click here to read more…
11 Options For Natural Pest Control In Your Garden
A couple of weeks ago we discussed bugs and the damage they can do to your garden. So the logical step is to discuss what you can use to keep these garden killers away. Oddly enough, some of the remedies are (no kidding) bugs!! That’s right. Just doesn’t seem right does it? But, it is… Click here to read more…
Homemade Garden Insecticides
After a long, cold winter, no one gets more excited about spring than a gardener. No one, that is, except the insects that are waiting to dine on our gardens. How do you prevent your garden from being a 24-hour diner for every insect that passes through the neighborhood? There are any number of chemical… Click here to read more…
As You Dig in Your Flower Beds, Watch Out For…
Little White Grubs Those little white grubs that you find while digging in your lawn or flower beds are not a good sign. Of course it depends on how many of them you have, but they are Japanese Beetle larva and they are very damaging to your lawn and landscape. The grubs (the larva) feed… Click here to read more…
How to Get Rid of Slugs in Your Garden
If you love Hostas, you also know the damage caused by slugs. Besides eating large holes in all the pretty leaves they also leave long silver slime trails as they move across the leaves feeding. Here are four simple home-made traps to show you how to get rid of slugs in your garden. There is… Click here to read more…
How to Get Rid of Moles
How to Get Rid of Moles The most important thing is deciding if you actually need to try to remove the moles from your landscape. Keep in mind that moles and other tunneling creatures help break up the compaction in your soil and are a great means of assisting in over all soil health. In… Click here to read more…
DIY Squirrel Trap
Ground squirrels can damage many food-bearing and ornamental plants. They will enter gardens and devour vegetables in the seedling stage, gnaw on plastic sprinkler heads and irrigation lines, eat the eggs of ground-nesting birds and can be quite destructive. This humane DIY squirrel trap can help you eliminate those pesky little varmints! Step 1: Gather… Click here to read more…
DIY Fruit Tree Netting
How To Net Your Small Fruit Trees and Bushes If you want to keep more berries and fruits for yourself here’s an easy way to cover your fruiting plants. You can always leave one bush uncovered to feed the birds! You will find that this fruit tree netting helps protect the leaves on your plant… Click here to read more…
Tent Caterpillar Control
Every ten years or so you might notice an abundance of tent caterpillar nests like the one pictured above. The eastern half of the U.S and Canada get hit hard, but I’m sure our readers along the pacific coast and in the U.K. can relate to this as well. Eastern tent caterpillars overwinter in a… Click here to read more…
Japanese Beetle Traps? Do they Work?
Urrrrrrrg! Japanese Beetles, what can we do about them? Okay kids, today we are going to talk about Japanese Beetles, how to control them and which methods of control really work. Like Japanese Beetle traps, do they really work? I’ll get to that, but first let’s cover some basics. In order to beat the enemy,… Click here to read more…
How To Keep Cats Out of Garden
Meet Dave. Dave was a friendly stray who liked to hang out at a local restaurant and pester customers for their leftovers. Dave is actually a girl. She was named after the owner of the restaurant she frequented. (We knew she was female, but decided to call her Dave anyway.) Now days… Click here to read more…