Things Are Warming Up

by Patricia Byrne

Previously published in the Home Gardener

Things are blooming and turning green with the rain we got in March and early April. Many are starting to prepare the flower beds and give the lawn a fresh look. You may consider putting your plants in pots this year instead of replanting the beds. It would be a good idea to mix in some good organic compost, humate, molasses, hydrolyzed fish, and diatomaceous earth to the top soil and cover it with mulch. This would allow the soil to lay fallow for a year. After the long drought conditions we have suffered the last few years it would give you a year to mineralize and create a rich soil. Instead you can bring color into your lawn with decorative pots and blooming flowers. In the beds around the house with established shrubs these colorful pots can be placed without a lot of work. They would not compete with the shrubs for nutrients allowing them to recover from the drought easier.

Herb gardens are so fun to have and are a good way to know you have fresh herbs to cook with. Herbs are another decorative and fragrant way to spruce up your gardens. Many herb plants do not do well in the evening sun. Morning sun is great but the Texas evening sun is blistering to them. You may have noticed that the shade in our yards move depending on the time of year. By planting them in pots you can move them as the shade moves throughout the season. Strawberries are often grown in pots as are lemon and lime trees. Those three love the sun all day!

Potted plants can be brought into the house or a sun room as the weather turns too cold allowing them to continue growing and provide beauty to your personal space. Whether you plant in pots or replant your beds, insect control is going to be necessary this year. Protect your new and existing plants with Perma-Guard’s Garden and Plant insecticide. It is gentle enough not to harm the beauty of any bloom and strong enough to kill any bug that comes in contact with it. It requires a very light dusting to do the trick. Some think more is better. Not in this case. A light dusting on the top of the soil and underneath the pot will kill invading ants or insects that lay eggs in the soil. A fine dusting of the plant protects the blooms, leaves, fruit, or vegetable. The Pest Pistol is best used to dust pots or buy the Garden and Plant in our puffer bottles. The Spritzer (a tube duster) is the best way to dust an area of a quarter to a half acre. To protect larger bushes or trees mix with water as indicated on the bag and spray it. Garden and Plant is a diatomaceous earth product made from a deposit of a specific shaped fossilized diatom. Because this diatom is fossilized it continues to maintain it integrity wet or dry. It is the particular shape of diatom used in Perma-Guard products that makes it as effective as it is and allows us to provide you with a less toxic method of protecting your plants. The tubular shape with the tiny holes that snag the underbodies of insects causing slits in their exoskeleton is what kills them. The loose their bodily fluids through the slits and dehydrates them causing death. They can not become immune to this therefore we do not have to keep making our formula stronger and stronger with chemicals that make your environment toxic.

If you did decide to use pots for your plants, you can be sure they will be bug free when you bring them in for the winter by dusting with Perma-Guard’s Garden and Plant.