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• Flea Beetles (those little black bugs that chew up everyone’s cabbage) have a favorite food to munch on. It’s radishes. We planted a lot of sacrificial radishes around our garden, especially by our cabbage crop items, and they have pretty much left the good stuff alone. Try it. You may just save a cabbage or two. And it’s a natural way to control the little buggers. — Randy Deering.

• Those pesky potatoes beetles. The most natural way to control these guys are to hand pick the adults off the plants and smash them between two rocks (yuck). Sounds gross, but it works. If left alone, they will lay their eggs on the underside of the potato plant leaves. Take a look for the eggs yourself. They are very easy to find. They are yellow/orange and when you find them, squish them between your fingers. Once the eggs hatch, they are little red soft skinned leaf munching bugs. They will eat your plat leaves and get fat and bright red. If you find them, take them off the plant leaves and step on them to squish them. If left on their own, they eat until full and then fall off the leaves and bury themselves in the ground under the potato plant and emerge as an adult to start the hole cycle over again.If you don’t believe this method works, stop on by our garden plot and see for yourself (no till plot 11C). Our potatoes are doing wonderful, and pretty much bug free. — Randy Deering
• Get those pepper & tomato plants producing! Once your pepper & tomato plants start making blooms, don’t forget to feed them some calcium and magnesium. We use a product called Cal-Mag http://www.americanagritech.com/supplements/cal-mag by Botanicare. It helps set fruit from the blossoms and makes the plats turn really dark green and healthy. We use it on our tomato’s too. — Randy Deering