Spoiler Alert! There are no cures or easy answers here.
It’s spring in the garden and we have all begun to plant our plots and anticipate those wonderful harvests of flowers, fruits and vegetables. Last year was tough with a very wet spring followed by a hot, dry summer, and then a winter with very cold temps and little snow. Many of us have noticed that we lost some long-standing perennial crops.
When we are gardening in a community garden, it is important to remember that we share almost everything with our neighbors - the good and the bad. We see regular pests and problems like Potato beetles, Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD), flea beetles, dandelions, asters, sunflowers, dill and more.
Before we get into the bad stuff let’s all remember to share the good stuff with our neighbors and our food shelves.
This year we seem to be having a bumper crop of cutworms. I have been a victim of them at Dowling and at home. I am also hearing from others that they have attacked their tomatoes.
There are several species of cutworms that we see in Minnesota. the larvae overwinter in the soil. When they emerge, they begin to feed on roots and leaves but as they grow they wrap themselves around small stems and kill them by burrowing in and the result is that the stems are cut off.
Monitor: check early in the morning for fresh damage. You can move the soil around anc check for them as they will curl up when disturbed.
There are two types of control in an organic garden - cultural and physical.
Cultural: Remove plant residue and weeds to limit alternative hosts for eggs to be laid in.
Physical: find the cutworms and remove them. Also, protect your small plants with a collar of some kind. You can use cardboard, or old yogurt and cottage cheese cups with the bottom cut out. Anything that will provide a barrier that keeps the cutworms from the stems. Be sure to set them so that they are down several inches into the soil and several inches above ground.
Till: Tilling in the spring or fall will disturb and kill many of the cutworms. While we don’t recommend tilling every year, it does help when you have a large pest infestation.
Flea Beetles visit us every year. Flea beetles chew into the leaves of many garden crops such as spinach, bok choi, broccoli, eggplant, tomatoes, radishes, melons and more. They can stunt the growth of plants. The same controls apply.
Monitor, Cultural and Physical. Many gardeners use a physical barrier such as insect netting while plants are young. Get your netting on early. The adults will go for the earliest and tallest plants.
To prevent or control many pests and diseases there are sensible steps to take early and often.
Water the soil, not the leaves.
Use soaker hoses, drip irrigation or point your hose at the base of the plants – not the tops. This will help reduce the spread of some soil pathogens and fungi.
Mulch your garden. Layng mulch at the base of your plants and removing any diseased leaves can substantially reduce pressure on many plants.
Do not add diseased leaves and debris to your home compost system. Put them in the city or commercial compost.
https://extension.umn.edu/yard-and-garden-insects/cutworms
https://extension.umn.edu/yard-and-garden-insects/spotted-wing-drosophila
https://extension.umn.edu/yard-and-garden-insects/flea-beetles
And then there are the weeds and other shared plants that we don’t really want in our plot: Some of them can be controlled by annually edging our plots and cutting those roots that are creeping in.
Dandelions: they are a tender perennial. They are found on all 7 continents and you either love’m or hate’m. when I was at the garden last week, their fluff was floating through the air, and it was quite beautiful. But I also had spent over an hour in my garden a week earlier pulling dandelion weeds. Pull the big ones as they have a taproot that will take water and nutrients from your veggies.
New England Asters: They are a beautiful plant native to Minnesota and a good pollinator but they reseed prolifically, and they have very deep roots. If you don’t pull them when they are young, they will be difficult to dig later. They get tall and can shade out and crowd out your veggies.
Queen Ann’s Lace (Daucus carota): I have seen a lot of this lately. Queen Ann’s Lace is listed as an invasive terrestrial species. Always wear gloves when you pull it as the sap is toxic. Remember that our gardens are steps away from the Mississippi River.
Dill: I welcome some of it as it is one of my favorite herbs, but I do have to control it and not let it all go to seed.
Creeping Charlie: Just keep pulling it. It is one of those weeds that can be controlled a little by annually edging our plots.
Velvet Leaf: The bane of community gardens. It has very cool looking seed pods but be sure cut it down before it goes to seed.
Field Bindweed: this is a weed of cultivated crops. It will travel far and wind up through your garden plants. It is an alternate host for cucumber mosaic and tobacco streak viruses. Remove it when you can and you may diminish the viruses.
https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialplants/herbaceous/queenannslace.html
https://extension.umn.edu/planting-and-growing-guides/upper-midwest-home-garden-care-calendar
https://extension.psu.edu/the-noxious-persistent-invasive-and-perennial-bindweeds