And is there anything you can do?

Well, I mean, you could certainly, if it is indeed a fungal disease, you could potentially be applying a fungicide.

But the downside to fungicides is that they only protect those newest needles on the plant, and they have to be reapplied frequently.

You could also be making sure it gets enough water.

So you don't wanna plant them in a real boggy area, but they also don't wanna be allowed to dry out completely.

How do you diagnose what the problem is if you have a blue spruce in your yard that you're concerned about?

You're gonna be looking at the symptoms primarily, and there are really three types of diseases that hit spruces.

There are the needle casts, which cause early needle drop from spruce trees.

How do you know when to divide your perennials?

The general advice is to divide spring blooming things in the fall and fall blooming things in the spring.

But like you said, it's really when you have the time, and fall tends to be a good time for it.

I typically know something needs to be divided when the plants are producing fewer blooms, when the leaves seem like they're maybe a little bit smaller than normal, or if there's a dead center in the middle of the plant, a hole in the center like a donut, then it is time.

Is that [laughs] a good technique?

Probably better for the plant in the long run, and a lot easier if you dig up the entire thing.

Now you wanna capture enough of the root system and soil with it, lift it up, and then depending on the nature of that root system, I'll cut it into smaller pieces with a spade or a soil knife, or maybe even in some cases use a couple of garden forks to help pull apart tubers.

Emma, we got a letter from a listener, Carol, and she was asking, "How do I get rid of creeping jenny?" What is creeping jenny?

It is a ground cover plant that is also called moneywort.

This is Lysimachia nummularia, and it is a New Hampshire prohibited invasive plant.

It's long been used in gardens for its bright yellow color.

It's makes a lovely ground cover and can be a nice spiller out of containers.

Unfortunately, though, it is very aggressive and can easily escape garden beds and take over the understory of forest areas or, most importantly, wetland areas.

How can you control it?

Well, if you have a smaller population of it or if you have a lot of energy, hand pulling or digging is a perfectly viable option.

So when is it normal and, and when is it not?

If they're shedding off in the spring or in the summer, that's a sign that something is going awry.

The oldest needles are gonna be furthest in on the stem, closest to the trunk.

The newest ones are gonna be at branch tips.

So if you're seeing needles fall off that are at the branch tips, that's unusual.

If they're falling off closer to the trunk and the interior, then that is very likely just a normal shedding pattern.

So if you do have damage, how do you deal with it?

A lot of evergreens only produce new growth right at branch tips, so if that branch tip is damaged, it's all over.

What kind of alternatives are there, Emma?

There are a number of organic herbicides that you can find at the garden center.

These are what you would consider burn down products.

That means they're only effective at killing the green vegetative tissue that's above ground.

Glyphosate is a systemic herbicide, and that chemical is drawn down into the root system of the plant and kills it.

So essentially, these organic herbicides are just burning off the foliage that's present, what's visible.

One that I think is probably the most readily available for the home gardener is something called horticultural vinegar.

What are your thoughts about those?

How do you set up a rain barrel? What are the benefits?

There's a lot of options for rain barrels.

You can buy ready-made kits, or there's lots of different plans online or in books for how to create your own rain barrel.

Whatever sort of barrel you have, you're putting that under the downspout.

You're elevating it ideally on blocks or pavers or something so that you can get all of the water out of that barrel, either into a watering can or into drip hoses, and it should have some sort of screening across the top so small animals don't get inside, and ideally so that mosquitoes can't get inside.

Are there downsides to rain barrels?

I think probably the biggest one is just what is actually coming off of your roof into that barrel.

There could be animal droppings up there from birds, squirrels, who knows? And also, you could be getting leached chemicals off of whatever your roofing material is.

And then what kind of active, um, mosquito prevention techniques do you have?

Well, one thing you could try that could potentially work pretty well for you is setting up a mosquito dunk bucket.

Essentially what you're doing is finding a two to five gallon bucket and purchasing a product that's called a mosquito dunk that contains a bacteria in it called Bacillus thuringiensis that specifically kills aquatic mosquito larvae.

So you're gonna set up your bucket.

You're gonna drill a few holes in the top for overflow, and if you get a rain.

You're gonna put- fill it up, half to two-thirds full.

Add a handful of straw or grass clippings because female mosquitoes are attracted to that decaying material.

Right, you don't wanna drown any bees or anything in there.

If you're starting a veggie garden for the first time, Emma, what are the basics for growing some of the popular vegetables?

First things first, you really need to pay attention to how much direct sunlight your garden gets every day.

The majority of vegetable crops, or really I should say all, need at least six hours of direct sunlight a day.

Plants that don't fruit, so your, your lettuces, your spinach, your herbs, these are happy in that six-hour window or maybe just a little bit less.

But if you're hoping for that beautiful tomato or eggplant or pepper, you really wanna have eight or 10 hours of direct sun a day.

So go out and gauge exactly how much light is hitting your garden before you get excited about what you're gonna grow.

And what about temperature?

Crops that you grow in your garden really fall into two categories, either cool-season crops or warm-season crops.

I don't either, so we're probably gonna butcher this, but let's talk about hügelkultur.

Hügelkultur, yes.

Hügel is the German word for hill or mound.

So essentially what you're doing is trying to create an environment that really mirrors a natural ecosystem.

So you're creating a base that's made out of wood typically, so branches, old firewood that you're not gonna use, leaves, sticks.

All of this forms the base of your mound for your hügelkultur.

Over top of that, you're adding organic matter, so that could be wood chips that you have, leaves, grass clippings, compost.

So, so what are the advantages?

Why is this preferable to growing vegetables in the ground?

Well, it's not necessarily preferable, but raised beds do have some benefits.

Raised beds tend to be more productive, 'cause the soil isn't compacted.

You're being able to work on it just from the sides and not stepping into it.

They can also be a little bit easier to maintain if you have any sort of mobility issue.

And then they can also be built in places where the conditions are just not right for growing food, either the soil is very poor or you're worried about something that might be in the soil, maybe heavy metals.

So how deep does the bed need to be?

At minimum, you need to have, and it depends a bit on what you're trying to grow, but you wanna have at least six inches of soil in that raised bed to have enough rooting area for the plants you're trying to grow.

So you've convinced me that I need to fertilize my plants, Emma, but there are some home concoctions that might do the trick, like compost tea?

Compost tea has been something that a lot of gardeners have been talking about for quite a few years now, and if you're not familiar with it, this is basically compost that's been brewed in a permeable bag in a big bucket of water.

So essentially you're getting the leachate of that compost.

The nutrients are coming out of it and microbes are growing.

Now, compost tea can be a good source of nutrients, but primarily people are trying to use it to control disease issues on the foliage of their plants.

Whether it works is kind of up for discussion, and by and large, most experts recommend just applying compost directly as a mulch layer to your plants in your garden.

And what about things like banana peels?

Bananas are thought to have a lot of potassium in them, and potassium is a nutrient that plants need a lot of.