When Good Gardens Go Bad: Earth-Friendly Solutions to Common Garden Problems

by Judy Barrett

Overview

Gardens do not take care of themselves. Poor soil, pests, disease, fungus, and inclement weather can ruin plants and a gardener’s zeal. In When Good Gardens Go Bad, veteran author and pioneer organic gardener Judy Barrett offers safe, practical, and inexpensive advice for handling common garden problems and challenges. Plants thrive and fail for many reasons, but if you improve the soil, choose the right plants, plant them at the right time, and encourage them along the way, you will have far fewer failures and be able to take the credit when they flourish.

Dispelling the belief that gardens should be perfectly controlled environments, Barrett encourages gardeners to embrace the imperfections. If you are frustrated because nothing seems to grow in your backyard or you can’t keep pests or plant disease away, this book offers organic solutions while banishing stress. Barrett encourages readers to learn more about their soil through observation and talking with neighbors and local experts in order to make smarter choices for their yards. Insects are another common frustration for gardeners. Here, Barrett differentiates the beneficial insects from the problem pests, and she offers homemade and store-bought solutions for keeping harmful pests away. She also provides frustrated gardeners straightforward advice for tackling other common hurdles such as weeds and composting.

Barrett’s gardening philosophy is that the best gardeners are those who enjoy the process and can live with some dead plants, failed visions, and annoying bugs. A garden doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should be fun!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623496227
Publisher:	Texas A&M University Press
Publication date:	04/12/2018
Series:	W. L. Moody Jr. Natural History Series , #57
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	116
File size:	33 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

JUDY BARRETT is the author of several books, including Easy Edibles: How to Grow and Enjoy Fresh Food, Recipes From and For the Garden: How to Use and Enjoy Your Bountiful Harvest, What Can I Do with My Herbs? How to Grow, Use, and Enjoy These Versatile Plants, and Yes, You Can Grow Roses. She is a pioneer of organic gardening in Texas and is present online at Judy Barrett’s Homegrown on Facebook. She lives in Taylor, Texas.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 The Garden of Eden is Long Gone but the Fruit was worth it 1

Chapter 2 Brown-Thumb Syndrome 7

Seven Simple Rules 8

Failure to Thrive 10

Location, Location, Location 15

If You Don't Like the Weather… 18

Timing is Everything 20

Chapter 3 Without Bugs, we've got nothing

What Bugs Do for Us 24

Important Pest-Control Tools 31

Products 33

What's Bugging You? 38

Chapter 4 Invisible Friends and Foes 50

Fungi 51

Other Fungal Diseases and Fungicides 56

Bacteria 57

Viruses 58

Chapter 5 Plants run Amok: Dealing with weeds 61

What Are Weeds? 62

Weeds in the Lawn 63

Weeds in the Beds 65

Covering the Soil to Discourage Weeds 67

The Scoop on Coffee 69

A Word about Volunteers 71

Friendly and Useful Weeds 72

Despicable Weeds 75

Chapter 6 Compost Nature's Miracle Cure 82

Types of Compost

Make Your Own

Mulch: Compost's Companion 90

Chapter 7 The Exuberant Garden 93

Acknowledgments and Resources 97

Index 99

Editorial Reviews

If you think you have a brown thumb, you need only read When Good Gardens Go Bad to find the cure and turn both thumbs green. With sage advice and a generous dash of humor, veteran gardener Judy Barrett spills the dirt on how to build a healthy, sustainable garden from the ground up.” — Pam Penick, author of Lawn Gone! and The Water-Saving Garden
 

Pam Penick

Down-to-earth advice on how to create a healthy garden you will truly love and how to keep it from getting out of hand and being a burden.”—T. Henry Flowers, Garden Director at Festival Hill in Round Top
 

T. Henry Flowers