Vegetable Pests of the Central Great Plains

Vegetable Pests of the Central Great Plains

Vegetable pests range from caterpillars to beetles to slugs and snails. How can we gardeners combat the barrage of insect and animal pests that fight for control of our gardens each year? What is the best way of managing these issues? Well, I am here to tell you that we can only do this together. […]

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How To Attract Insect Pollinators to Your Garden

How To Attract Insect Pollinators to Your Garden

Welcome to the new year! Last season was one of the busiest gardening seasons for many across the country, with many new gardeners. With all those new gardeners, came a plethora of questions about a wide range of gardening topics. I am going to kick off the new year with one of the most important […]

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12 Things Every Gardener Should Know

12 Things Every Gardener Should Know

You know the song… “and a partridge in a pear tree”. Well, I do not know about the partridge, but I would take the pear tree. Anyways, as 2020 comes to a close, I was thinking about all the gardening questions I answered through the year. And I have a list of the 12 most […]

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Growing Fruit – Problems of Stone Fruits

Growing Fruit – Problems of Stone Fruits

In the last blog I went over all the major problems of pome fruits in the Central Great Plains. Now I am ready to get on to something even juicier, the stone fruits. What are stone fruits? Stone fruits include fruits that have a centralized single seed, usually with a very hard shell or coating. […]

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Creating A Fruit Tree Guild to Improve Biodiversity

Creating A Fruit Tree Guild to Improve Biodiversity

When I was first approached to write on this subject, earlier in 2020, I admit, I really had no idea what a fruit tree guild was. However, once I looked into it, I discovered that I was aware of the concept, if not the actual idea. I have been planting my gardens for maximum biodiversity […]

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What are Nativars and are They Better?

What are Nativars and are They Better?

I have had very heated discussions over the use of nativars with my purest friends in the native plant community. They prefer to use only true from seed native plants in their gardens, but I think selected varieties can be combined with true natives. It is worth digging into. So, what are nativars? Nativar is […]

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The Care of Trees – Major Insect Pests of Trees

The Care of Trees – Major Insect Pests of Trees

One of the most common things I see today on social media is questions about what is eating my plant. Insect pests are part of the biodiverse landscape we live in. Without most of them, we would not have a healthy landscape. Birds, mammals, and many other parts of the ecosystem rely on a diet […]

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