Growing Your Own Vegetables: An Encyclopedia of Country Living Guide Read Online Free PDF

overpopulation has become a serious problem. They have no fear of people or cars, and their competition with each other, combined with the rapid loss of their natural habitat to development, pressures them to boldly graze in suburban yards. Fencing stops them—if it’s high enough. Bury the fencing a foot or so under the ground and it will also serve to keep out rabbits, cats, and poultry. Top the fencing with an electrified wire or two and you may keep out garden-bandit raccoons.
    Gophers, moles, and voles all do a great deal of damage with their tunneling. Adding insult to injury, gophers will feed on roots (moles and voles are content to dine on grubs and earthworms). You can try fencing them out with underground barriers, but it can be difficult to get them on the right side—that is, the outside of the barrier. Old-timers plant castor beans to repel the diggers, but this is not a good solution in gardens with children or animals as even a single seed of this very toxic plant can kill. Other, far less dangerous but admittedly quirky controls include chewing-gum or instant grits placed at the tunnel opening. An organic, castor oil-based spray may prove the best option of all. To control rats and mice, keep a few hungry cats.
    Dogs, scarecrows, a motion-triggered sprinkling device, rotten eggs, hot peppers, garlic, human hair, even urine are all time-tested tools for defending your turf against most garden predators.
    Slugs, snails, and insects
    These diminutive predators, although much smaller than those just mentioned (and, it could be argued, less sentient and crafty beings) nonetheless can still wreak great havoc on a garden. Slugs are snails with no shells; both are land-dwelling mollusks with a voracious appetite for the stalks and tender leaves of most garden plants. Being soft-bodied and very slimy, slugs and snails are most active in the damp weather of spring; controlling their numbers early in the year will go a long way toward reducing their impact throughout the rest of the season. Use diatomaceous earth, copper stripping, or iron phosphate-based organic baits to combat slugs and snails. A well-placed saucer of cheap beer will also lure them to their demise.
    Various chewing and sucking insects capable of damaging plants, ruining a crop, and spreading disease may be controlled by planting marigolds, alliums, evening primrose, wild buckwheat, baby blue eyes, candytuft, bishop’s flower, black-eyed Susan, strawflowers, nasturtiums, angelica, and yarrow to attract beneficial insects, or purchase ladybugs, predatory mites, praying mantises, beneficial nematodes, parasitic wasps, and other “good bugs.” All are powerful and natural allies in the war against bad bugs. When all these practices, hand picking, and good garden hygiene are not enough, as a final resort you can try biodegradable, environmentally safe, and natural plant-based sprays. A conscientious organic gardener should also be willing to give up or “tithe” a minor percentage of their crop back to Mother Nature.

    Crop rotation and management
    Buy disease-resistant seed varieties whenever available. Rotate each vegetable’s planting area around the garden every year to avoid a buildup of pests or disease spores. Don’t let them just lie in wait to devour next year’s crop. Move the target! Don’t leave disease-infected plants in the garden or add them to the compost pile. Put them on a separate trash pile or burn them to avoid spreading soil-borne contagion.

PART TWO
    GUIDE TO VEGETABLES

    O rganizing a list of crops suitable for cultivation by the home gardener can be cumbersome and confusing, not to mention time-consuming. For our purposes—that is, producing and enjoying healthy, delicious food—we have grouped vegetables into the following useful categories: The Onion Family, Leaves, Stems and Flowers, Roots, Grasses and Grains, Legumes, Gourds, The Nightshade Family, and Herbs.

THE ONION FAMILY
    C losely related to lilies, the