Organic Insecticides

I know we are moving rapidly into late fall weather, even though it is only 1 week after the official fist day of fall, but I wanted to share what I had learned about a few organic insecticides.

I consider it late fall because my mom announced that CBC is calling for a cold front to move in and snow next week (yes, I said the 's' word...sigh!). She has informed me that it is officially time to take in the vegetable garden. We will be working on that on Sunday. On Saturday, I plan to move the last of the perennials into my new flower garden, and place wood chips around those plants that need an extra bit of protection this winter.

When I was planning all of these necessary chores, I noticed the leaf damage quite a few of my plants sustained this year from insects and fungus. I tried a few of the organic kinds of things I had heard about and found no dent at all in the problems. So I must say I reverted to using chemical insecticides and fungicides to clear up the problem.

My plan for next year is to have a plan - to have organic insecticides and fungicides in place and ready to go before the infestation occurs. I was watching a show about a couple in Ontario that practice organic gardening, and they very casually mentioned that they use rhubarb tea to treat for insecticides - for the very reason that the leaves of rhubarb plants are poisonous. I thought, "Now that makes perfect sense." So I looked up some Rhubarb Tea recipes for an organic insecticide. There are tons of recipes on the net, so take a look. I'm going to give this one a try:

 http://vegetalshapes.com/OrganicInsecticides.html

Rhubarb tea #1- boil 0.5 Kg (1 pound) chopped rhubarb leaves in 1litre (1 quart) water for 30 minutes. Filter and sprinkle.  Use against aphids and other pests.

Rhubarb tea #2 - put 0.5 Kg (1 pound) leaves in 7 liter (7.3 quarts) water and let it stay 24 hours. Filter and sprinkle.  Use against aphids, whiteflies, spider mites, caterpillars and other pests.

Note: The best time to apply the tea is early morning or late evening. Do not apply in the hot, sunny part of the day, as this mixture could burn the plants.

So, here it is. I will come back to this post next early summer and look this information up. It will be an important part of next year's planning.

Happy fall days, everyone!

Pruning Forsythia

Erika and I were talking about forsythia shrubs today. A few years ago I bought 2 bare-root forsythias. They came up and leafed out the first spring, came up and leafed out the second year and this year, they winter-killed. No idea why. According to my well-thumbed book, Tree & Shrub Gardening for Alberta by Don Williamson (a very informative book), forsythias “quite happily survive in zone 3.” The ‘Northern Sun’ and ‘Northern Gold’ species are hardy ranging from -33⁰ to -35⁰ C. I believe we are zone 2b, and I know that Zone 3 shrubs will survive very nicely in Central Alberta.

Today, Erika talked about the poor performance of her forsythia shrubs. We both believe that it comes down to pruning. This is what my guide states: (p. 165)

“Correct pruning is essential to keep forsythias attractive, but prune young plants only minimally. Flowers are usually produced on growth that is at least two years old. Mature plants should be thinned annually, removing old wood back to vigorous shoots and removing one or two of the oldest stems to the ground. Pruning should take place after flowering has finished.”

Tips for winter survival – these flowers grow best when the shrubs are buried under a protective layer of snow: “As long as there is dependable snowfall, simply pile some salt-free snow over your hardy cultivar in winter to enjoy flowers each spring.” If this protective layer is not provided, “a shrub may flower only on the lower half that was buried in a protective layer of snow.”

So this August I purchased a forsythia again, but this time in a container, a New Hampshire Gold. We will see how it survives the winter.