Knowing your enemy is the first step to defeating your enemy so we’ve provided all you need to know about specific pests in our series within a series, “Knowing Your Enemy”, inside and out. Our second creature is the spider mite.

Knowing your enemy is the first step to defeating your enemy so we’ve provided all you need to know about specific pests in our series within a series, “Knowing Your Enemy”, inside and out. Our very first creature to explore is the dreaded fungus gnat.

By now we hope you’ve read through our article outlining integrated pest management, as well as our “Prevention” article (stay tuned for our upcoming our extensive “Knowing Your Enemy” series on particular pests). Maybe at this point you’ve also done everything to prevent a pest population from reaching unacceptable levels but things got out of hand anyway. Fear not, we’ve provided everything you need to know to get things back under control in this next section of our pest patrol series, “Elimination and Restoration”.

As we learned in the article on integrated pest management, maintaining an acceptable, manageable, level of pests is key to keeping things in check. This naturally requires maintaining an environment which is conducive to plant health but much less inviting to unwanted creatures so as to keep as many out as possible, allowing you to keep things under control. Preventing hoards of pests from entering the garden in the first place is the best defense against any pest and prevention starts with keeping an eye out.

The end of summer is the time of year when plants are finishing up their growth cycle and are just about ready to have the bounty you’ve worked hard to cultivate harvested. At this particular point in time, the plant is focusing most of its energy and nutrients on producing big, beautiful flowers, leaving its immune system weaker and vulnerable to hungry opportunists. Just before you can get your hands on the fruits of your plants’ labor, you might find that some six or eight legged creepers have beat you to the punch.

Light is a necessary component of the successful growth yields. Regardless of the size of the indoor operation, light matters. Even though light is vital to any production, often times a lighting system is left up to incomplete knowledge or guesswork. The fact of the matter is, with correct lighting, indoor yields can exceed current expectations. This, however, requires thorough planning for light fixtures.

The new frontier of organic agriculture will include probiotic farming practices. Probiotics are a catchall phrase that comprises beneficial bacteria Micah Ryan's a Trichoderma nematode, etc. Most probiotics are intended to symbiotically help plants in the growth and flowering phases. They help sustain the microbes and in return, some microbes provide needed nutrients and water to the plant.