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Bug Blog Archives for 2008 January

You should clean all or your benches, tools, (reused) pots, even irrigation lines if you have and use such equipment. It all helps.

That time of the year is here for many of you. You’re getting into the greenhouse, starting to thaw things out. You’ll be starting plants and greening the place up soon if I haven’t waited too long to write this. And hopefully my timing is good, because before you green up, be sure to clean-up. I know, I know, you are cleaning, or plan to, but I’m not talking about just organizing, sweeping, and hauling out last year’s big debris. I mean a deep cleaning, one with pest control in mind. A little prep now can pay off throughout the season.

Continue reading “Clean Up Before You Green Up” »

In the mid-nineties a commercial customer called us with a mealybug problem on a large ficus tree at her home. The ficus tree was located in a poorly lit room, it was winter, and the heat made the room dry. Not exactly great conditions for biological control and we told her so. But she wanted to give it a go anyway so we asked her for the usual details: Pest info, area, infestation level, etc.

Continue reading “The Mysterious Giant Mealybugs” »

This unit lasted many years, long after we officially closed the retail plant sales side of the business.

When I owned my own greenhouse, I started everything myself the first year, getting seeds from seed purveyors, and cuttings from whoever would give them to me. I had to work that way since I had no money. I started my greenhouse business with only $700, and with this money I needed to get everything — including the structure (I built a solar greenhouse). I had to innovate. One way I saved was to build my own propagation tent. I couldn’t afford to buy one and even one of those mats was out of reach. Here’s how I did it.

Continue reading “How to Make a Propagation Tent” »

You’ve probably noticed that when you load a page on this site the masthead or banner image changes randomly. The image you see at any given time is drawn from a collection of them — a collection we change now and then. One of our collections is a “Winter” collection. It’s lacking, though, so we really need your help.

Continue reading “Show Off Your Winter Greenhouse” »

If you blog about gardening, or what the heck, even if you just garden sans blog (but have an interest), and you happen to be in the Austin (Texas) area on April 5th, 2008, you might be interested in this social gathering. We were invited, but that’s a long trip for us, and at a time of the year we’re very busy — too busy for events. But it sounds like fun so we figured we’d pass it along just in case some of our readers would like to attend. Here’s an excerpt from the official Garden Bloggers invitation:

Continue reading “Garden Bloggers Spring Fling 2008” »

If you are going to do a bake-out anyway for sanitation of the greenhouse, there may be some benefit in putting your new pots of soil in the greenhouse at the time of the bake-out.

At our research greenhouses in the Department of Horticulture & Landscape Architecture, we often observe fungus gnat adults as quickly as 10-14 days following potting into fresh, bagged commercial soilless media. Since the life cycle from egg to adult takes 20-26 days, this observation suggests that the immature forms were present in the bagged media when purchased. Anecdotal reports from other research institutions agreed with our observations, and it was documented by at the University of Illinois in a report published in 2004. Another explanation for the infestation at our greenhouses, in cases where the plantings were rooted cuttings rather than seed, was that the fungus gnats were on the roots of plants prior to transplanting into the fresh soil mix.

Continue reading “Greenhouse “Bake-Out” to Control Fungus Gnats” »