Trying to control squash bugs can seem an insurmountable task when you find them in your vegetable garden. These bugs can do a huge amount of damage, particularly to young plants. These 10 easy tips will keep your garden pest-free. Take charge and get rid of these destructive pests for good. Last summer I had…
Do you have a problem with ants in your home as soon as the warm weather arrives? I know that I do and I don’t like it at all. I decided to test 5 different Borax Ant Killers against the retail version called Terro to see which one works the best for me. Using more…
Vinegar is a versatile and effective household product that is more useful than just for making salad dressing. There are dozens of vinegar uses in the home. From soaking your sponges to keeping your counters free of ants, this product is a must have. I recently had to deal with ants in my kitchen and tested some…
With all the talk of GMOs, pesticides and large scale farming, one has to ask the question “How important are bees to our Food Supply and to nature in general?” I, for one, and many of my gardening friends have noted the declining bee population. And those that do visit our yards are the bumble bees, rather…
Critters in the garden range from beneficial to invasive. Some actually are listed by the US Department of Agriculture as invasive pests that need to be controlled. See my tips for dealing with these unwanted bugs. This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of the United States Department of Agriculture – Animal…
With summer comes lots of outdoor living. Sadly, that can mean lots of mosquitoes. I don’t like to use chemical products but, thankfully, Mother Nature has the perfect answer – Mosquito Repelling Plants! We can grow annuals, perennials and herbs that will keep the bugs away naturally. With all the hype about West Nile Virus,…
It is ant season again! As soon as the weather starts to heat up, and particularly after a warm rainy day, ants decide that indoors is a good place to be. Sure, you can kill ants with various home remedies, but are there are lots of other things that you can do to keep ants…
Growing Sunflowers is one of the really fun parts of summer time gardening. These big annuals are very easy to grow, which makes them a very popular plant to introduce children to gardening. Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) are a member of the Aster family. The sunflower is the state flower of Kansas. It is native to…
I am so looking forward to the return of warm weather. With the sunny days come flowers, gardening and time spent outdoors. Unfortunately, with the warm weather also come ants! These natural ant killer remedies will help to control the ants in your home in a non toxic way. It is fun for kids to…
It’s been a long spring with a ton of work put into my gardens. So many of them were overgrown, and neglected last year when I spent most of my energy on my vegetable garden. Months of tilling, planting and transplanting have gone into my garden beds this year. I enlarged my test garden by…
Facebook has so many great pages devoted to gardening, but the way the site now shows the content of pages, it is sometimes hard for them to get seen on news feeds. I thought it would be fun for the Garden Charmers (a GREAT Facebook page) to each share their own favorite Gardening page on…
Gardening Cook Fan Tamara Martin’s Photos The fans of my Facebook page are always submitting photos of their gardens and projects for me to consider for this website and The Facebook page – The Gardening Cook. Normally, I include a photo or two in specific articles, such as vegetable harvests, or garden flowers. But every…
There is nothing like wandering around in my garden and seeing the wildlife in the form of insects buzzing around. We all know that gardens need bees for pollination but so many other garden insects will find their way into a garden too. Just provide them with flowers and leaves, and they will seem to…
The tobacco hornworm is a voracious eater that can do a great deal of damage in a flower or vegetable garden. I decided to prune the dead flowers from my Buddleia (Butterfly Bush) the other day. It is attracting butterflies like crazy, but most of the flowers were long dead. I thought pruning it would…
