Top Gardening Challenges and How to Overcome Them

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Address gardening challenges as they come, such as putting down weed cloth barrier to combat severe weed problems.
Address gardening challenges as they come, such as putting down weed cloth barrier to combat severe weed problems.
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Lubber grasshoppers are often a food-grower’s foe. For control, gather and drown the hoppers in a pail of soapy water when they’re still showing the black-and-yellow coloring of youth.
Lubber grasshoppers are often a food-grower’s foe. For control, gather and drown the hoppers in a pail of soapy water when they’re still showing the black-and-yellow coloring of youth.
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Critters covet your fresh veggies. Keep out raccoons and other wildlife with secure wire fencing.
Critters covet your fresh veggies. Keep out raccoons and other wildlife with secure wire fencing.
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Fencing excludes small animals, including pets, and can pull double duty as support for climbing plants.
Fencing excludes small animals, including pets, and can pull double duty as support for climbing plants.
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Where springs are short, grow greens in a “salad table” that you can move to a shady spot when hot weather arrives.
Where springs are short, grow greens in a “salad table” that you can move to a shady spot when hot weather arrives.
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Drip irrigation is especially apt for drought-prone regions.
Drip irrigation is especially apt for drought-prone regions.
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Give a boost to soil health by growing a cover crop such as buckwheat.
Give a boost to soil health by growing a cover crop such as buckwheat.
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Garden netting held aloft with simple hoops is an effective way to protect crops from birds.
Garden netting held aloft with simple hoops is an effective way to protect crops from birds.
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Use a broadfork to loosen compacted soil and, in rainy areas, to aerate soil so it dries out quicker for planting.
Use a broadfork to loosen compacted soil and, in rainy areas, to aerate soil so it dries out quicker for planting.

The perfect garden?—?free of all pests, weeds and weather surprises?—?does not exist. Nor does the perfect place to garden, because every climate is friendly to some crops and hostile to others. Thankfully, tackling gardening challenges, while frustrating at times, is part of what makes growing your own food such a lively adventure.

Smart garden troubleshooting is often crucial to successful food production, and working out the best solutions may require years of trial-and-error experimentation. To help you get a jump-start, we asked more than a dozen longtime organic gardeners to share their expertise on tactics for solving common organic vegetable gardening problems. Following is a roundup of their collective wisdom.

Organic Pest Control and Critter Control

Dealing with insect pests, rabbits, deer, voles and other critters is perhaps one of the most frustrating and ubiquitous gardening challenges. Organic vegetable gardening can make this issue trickier in that you’ve wisely opted not to use harsh chemicals to keep such troubles at bay. In the case of critters, good fences can make for good harvests (and offer the kindest solution), and diligent monitoring for pests will prove well worth your time.

Irritating insects. An hour north of St. Louis, in New Douglas, Ill., Carol Lentz aims to check her plants for insect pests at least every other day. “Check the whole plant for signs of trouble, especially the leaf undersides,” she says. Squish any eggs you see, and handpick adult potato beetles, squash bugs and Mexican bean beetles and put them in a pail of soapy water to reduce their damage to plants and prevent a second (or third) generation.

  • Published on Mar 7, 2014
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