Garden Wisdom Blog — category: Product Instructions

Soil Blockers have been around for many years, but their popularity is spreading fast, largely by word of mouth. Using this Soil Block recipe and Soil blockers will eliminate the need for plastic seedling trays and insert flats, so they represent an ecologically sound alternative for people who find themselves starting masses of seeds. A soil blocker creates individual cubes of lightly compressed soil. A single seed is planted in each block and grown into a seedling to the stage it is ready to transplant into the garden – or into a larger soil block. Because the sides of each soil...

Learn how to attract hummingbirds. The two most common hummingbird species in British Columbia are the Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus) and Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna). The Rufous is a migratory species that usually appears in the Lower Mainland around the middle of March, and stays throughout the summer. These birds migrate as far north as Alaska, and then take their winter months primarily in Mexico. Anna’s Hummingbirds are found mainly along coastal North America from Alaska in the north down to Baja California. These birds often stay in one area all year round, and they can be quite territorial. Anna’s...

Predatory nematodes can be applied in the spring to combat chafer beetles, wireworm, and other soil dwelling beetle larva. Predatory nematodes are effective against over 250 species of insect pests. Only insects that have a soil dwelling stage (egg, larvae, pupae or adult) can be controlled by nematodes. Therefore, the nematodes are best used as a preventative. In field crops they infect cutworms, grubs, root borer larvae, root weevil larvae, flea beetle larvae, carrot rustfly larvae and other pests. Parasitic nematodes invade and destroy white grubs, pill bugs eggs & larvae, Japanese beetle larvae, crane fly larvae, and other harmful...

Whether you intend on planting potatoes in a garden trench, in containers, or even in your unused parking lot stall at work, your key to success is an understanding of how potato plants grow. The little spud that you plant (called a seed potato) is a tuber – part of the plant’s roots in which it stores energy for growth the following year. If you’ve ever left a potato out on your kitchen counter, you’ll know what eventually happens… The “eyes” of each potato sprout little growths called stolons. When these sprout below the soil, they grow vertically upward, and...