Sage Advice

A great question came in this week from a cauliflower gardener:

"I was so excited to have just harvested my first cauliflower! It was big, beautiful and infested with little grayish white bugs! (aphids, I think?). I couldn't salvage it because there were literally hundreds embedded just beneath the tops of the florets. I have several other cauliflower plants growing, some are new, some almost ready to harvest. Is there anything I can do to prevent future infestations?"

First of all, congratulations ...

During the summer months, I'm famous for my lemon sorbet. I use Meyer lemons from the tree outside the back door and feed the finished product to my girlfriends when we get together for high tea or some other summer thing that girls do. Now that it's winter, not many people are thinking about lemon sorbet, except for my friend Orna, who has a tree full of lemons and doesn't know what to do with them. She recently ...

A gardener wrote in recently:

"Hi, I am trying to learn how to Organic Garden. My 25 x 5 raised garden bed has a major grub worm infestation. Every foot I dig, there are 10 or more grub worms. They destroy any seed I plant. I applied milky spore all over my raised garden bed. What else should I do?  I would love to be able to grow onions and beets this spring. I will greatly appreciate any and all suggestions or advise for ...

An interesting question came in this week:

"I'd like to eradicate some Laurel Sumac in my yard. Do you have any
natural remedy I could use to do this. I thought I read at one time you
could make a potion of vinegar and baking soda and make a small hole in
the trunk and poor mixture down it.  Of course, I can't find where I
read this and don't know portions so if you know of anything it would
be greatly appreciated.  Thanks"

I'll admit that I'm ...