Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
them open to picking up a wide range of unhealthy bacteria, fungus, and other nasty things.
If you use your tools outside of your container garden, make sure to disinfect them thor-
oughly before using them again on your plants to avoid any kind of contamination.
Separate the good from the bad. If one plant comes down with a disease, chances are they
all will unless you act quickly. Separate a plant at the first sign of trouble to avoid spread-
ing it to others.
Treatment
Once bugs or disease hit, it's time to take action. The first thing people do is to run to their
closest garden center and load up on chemicals. But wait! You want to make sure that you
are stopping the infestation while limiting the residual damage left behind to the plants and
the environment. How do you do that? Research.
In order to effectively deal with something, you have to know exactly what it is that you are
being forced to deal with. Unless you are an expert in plant diseases and pests, you prob-
ably will not know what it is. Trying to describe a particular bug in detail or exactly what
a specific kind of fungus or blight looks like to a garden associate might not be accurate
enough. You need proof.
If you can, capture one of the bugs or pull off an infected leaf and take it with you for iden-
tification. If you can't or don't want to, get your hands on a pest, write down exactly what
it looks like including shape, size, color, any distinguishing marks, if it flies, crawls fast,
has long antennae, etc. And if that seems like too much work, take a picture or video using
your cell phone. Now, your sales associate will know exactly what to give you to fight it.
If you are given a pesticide, make sure of a few details before purchasing. First, is it spe-
cifically designed for just this one problem or a host of problems? Many pesticides are de-
signed to kill everything that moves. While this might sound reasonable to a gardener who
is closely guarding their container garden, it also means that even good insects are being
eradicated. This is not advisable.
There are pesticides that are only geared for specific pests. Going with these are always the
best option.
Your second concern is its staying power. Does it quickly dissipate or does it linger on the
plant, and in the soil, for some time? If it hangs around, this means that a good rain will
