Pest and disease prevention is a major topic for many gardeners and for good reason. We take a top down approach to manage for next season with easy tips.
Real, home-grown roasted pumpkin puree has a rich sweetness that is just plain lacking in commercially available pumpkin products today.
Pest and disease prevention is a major topic for many gardeners and for good reason. We spend countless hours in planning, planting, tending and harvesting our gardens only to sometimes have a disease or insect bring much of our efforts crashing down.
What many gardeners don’t know or fully realize is the powerful benefits of a systematic, thoughtful and determined effort in cleaning up the garden, tools and debris that remains after the season ends. Properly done, this can significantly reduce the occurrence and damage done by pests and diseases, increasing the enjoyment and production of the garden.
Let’s take a top to bottom look at things that you can do in the very late fall and early winter after the garden is dormant to give your garden a much better head start next season.
The biggest reasons for cleaning up the garden, removing dead materials and weeds and thoroughly cleaning and treating your gardening tools is to remove the food and shelter that is the foundation of pest and disease prevention. The first steps are sanitation in the colder season, and then preventing their introduction into the garden next growing season.
Pests and diseases don’t just magically show up out of nowhere, though they may seem to! Pests especially need a place to survive the winter and food to keep them alive. Diseases can be a bit more involved to treat, but with some forethought and understanding, it isn’t difficult.
Removing dead plants, weeds, and debris from the garden after it is finished growing is essential in preventing pests from having a convenient winter “home” where they wait for the new season’s growth to show up. Potato beetles, squash bugs, squash vine borers and certain species of aphids are very destructive examples of pests that will overwinter in the garden bed if their shelter isn’t removed. The perfect environment is shown in the lead photo.
We found this out to our detriment with squash bugs, as we use wood chips for our walkways in the trial garden – the perfect winter housing for them! We now only grow squash and pumpkins in the garden every third or fourth year, using straw bale raised beds outside the garden other years. This starves them of a yearly, reliable food source and keeps their population under control.
Another example is the fungus responsible for damping off in young seedlings. The fungus will survive in dead organic matter, often producing spores that can survive over the summer in unwashed and sterilized seedling flats and coming back with a vengeance when new seedlings are planted.
Once the housing is removed, next we need to look at the food sources for pest and disease prevention. Weeds are not only a nuisance, but they are very important sources of food and housing for both pests and diseases, often with the diseases piggy-backing on the pests to get into the garden. One example is cucumber mosaic virus overwintering in chickweed and groundsel, and then coming in next spring. Others are pigweed that harbor grasshoppers, flea beetles and aphids; annual grasses that aren’t grazed or mowed housing cutworms, armyworms, flea beetles, grubs, several species of aphids and the Colorado potato beetle; Russian thistle (tumbleweeds) is an especially good example as it harbors the sugar beet leafhopper, which in turn is a common host for the curly top virus that decimates many garden crops like tomatoes, beets, green beans, squash, cantaloupes, and spinach.
Removing the housing often removes a major food source at the same time, and vice versa, so you don’t often need to do twice the work to be effective in sanitation and prevention. Removal and control of weeds and unmanaged grasses is very important for pest and disease control, not only in the garden but adjacent to it as well.
Cleaning a Hori-Hori Knife
We now have a good handle on taking care of the food and housing for pests and diseases, so what next? One of the biggest culprits for the introduction of pests and diseases is from them being carried in, either from contaminated plants bought at big box stores or garden centers, from insects that overwinter in firewood, smokers spreading tobacco mosaic virus throughout the garden, or from contaminated tools spreading diseases to other plants and trees.
For smokers, the tobacco mosaic virus can easily stick to the fingers or clothing and be spread to plants in the garden. After smoking, wash hands thoroughly with warm soapy water and ideally wear a different shirt or over-shirt than the one smoked in.
Pruning shears and tools can inadvertently be the cause of a disease spreading, as it picks up and distributes the virus or fungus from one branch and tree or shrub to another. If you are working on cankers or other diseased portions of a tree or shrub, sanitize the tools after each cut to prevent spreading the disease to other parts of the tree with a simple spray or dip of rubbing alcohol or commercially available sanitizing solution. Wiping with antibacterial wipes is also very effective. Do not use bleach or bleach solutions as it will cause accelerated corrosion of metals. If you are fighting an outbreak of disease in your garden it is very prudent to sanitize your tools and gloves after each use in the affected area, especially before using them in other, disease-free parts of the garden.
Sanitizing Pruners with and Alcohol Spray
Sanitizing all of your garden tools – hand tools, shears, pruners, rakes, shovels, wheelbarrows (including tires) is always a good practice at the end of the season, especially if you have had an attack of disease during the season or have an ongoing issue. Many plant diseases only need one single pathway into the garden, and we often unknowingly bring it in season after season; working against ourselves.
Shovels, rakes and larger tools can be cleaned by scraping away any residual mud or dirt, then plunging them in and out of a bucket of sand to remove rust and small amounts of dirt before spraying with alcohol to sanitize before putting away for the winter. Smaller hand tools like pruners and trowels can be wire brushed to clean and remove rust, then alcohol sprayed as well. The bucket of sand treatment might work with some tools. Wheelbarrows should be cleaned inside and out, dirt removed and wire brushed or sanded before spraying with alcohol or sanitizing solution. Don’t forget the tires and handles!
Cleaning Gardening Tools with Sand
With these proactive techniques, you will find that dealing with pest and disease issues will become much easier as you close the door to easy entry. A side benefit of doing these procedures will show you different ways that pests and diseases gain entry, making it that much easier and effective to stop them early on.
Pumpkin is an essential part of the fall season in my humble opinion, but it is much more than the trendy “Pumpkin Spice” everything that suddenly jumps into our lives in the cooler weather. Real, home-grown pumpkin has a rich sweetness that is just plain lacking in almost all of the commercially available pumpkin products today. Let’s take that one step further and slow-roast that incredible goodness of a pumpkin and now you’ve got something that resembles that canned pumpkin as much as a brand new truck does a 100 year old buckboard!
The type of pumpkin does matter, so think about it before you dive in. Don’t fret about not growing your own – buy one this year from your local Farmer’s Market, local grower or CSA share, and then plant your own patch next spring. The smaller pumpkins tend to be sweeter, especially the ones called “pie pumpkins” like our New England Sugar Pie pumpkin have been selected and refined for their rich sweetness along with their smaller, easy to handle size. Larger pumpkins will not be as sweet, but have their own flavors so don’t discount them. Plan on using 2 to 3 of the smaller pumpkins to put up a goodly supply of puree, or one of the larger ones. You will want to put up more than you think you will use, as once your family and friends taste some of the deliciousness, it will go much faster than you initially think! Keep in mind that the commercially grown “Jack-O-Lantern” pumpkins are hybrids, grown specifically for carving and usually have absolutely no flavor at all!
The process is extremely simple and doesn’t require your presence in the kitchen, so this is a great thing to do when you are home but have other projects. Set the timer to keep you on track and you’ll do fine.
Let’s get into it!
Aurora and the Pumpkin
We are using the Connecticut Field Pumpkin for this, as we were shooting photos and had it available to roast. It has a mildly sweet flavor and is large enough to keep us in pumpkin puree for awhile. Aurora had to help, of course – inspecting and being part of the process!
Connecticut Field Pumpkin
The tools needed are pretty simple – a knife, cutting board, large spoon or spatula to scrape out the seeds and a colander if you want to keep the seeds for roasting and eating or saving and planting.
Pumpkin cut open
Cut the pumpkin open in half. This pumpkin weighed about 15 – 20 pounds, and you can see how thick the walls are, giving lots of pumpkin for cooking!
De-seeding
Use the large spoon or spatula to remove the seeds and as much of the pulpy connective tissue as possible.
Cleaning the Seeds
Use the colander with a warm water spray to clean the seeds and remove the connective tissue. Then they are ready for roasting or drying and saving to plant next year.
Roasting the Pumpkins
Ready for roasting! I wanted the slow roasted flavors that make the sugars caramelize a bit, so heated the oven to 300°F and roasted this one for about 2 hours, maybe a little more. I checked it every half hour or so with a toothpick – when it goes all the way in with very little resistance, the pumpkin is properly roasted.
If you need to roast it faster, you can – just use 350 – 400°F and peel the pumpkin, then cut it into 1 – 2 inch chunks or cubes. It will roast in about 30 – 45 minutes, you’ll need to check it every 15 minutes to make sure you don’t over-do it. It won’t have quite the slow-roasted flavors, but will be much better than the store-bought version nonetheless.
Peeling Roasted Pumpkin
Next is peeling the pumpkin after it has cooled. You can see the darker spots, don’t worry, it isn’t burned – just well-roasted!
Chunks Ready to Puree
Cut the pumpkin into chunks after peeling. Cut them into manageable sizes for your food processor, blender or whatever you will use to puree it. Keep the juices from the roasting pan, as you’ll add them to the puree later on.
Puree Time
Into the food processor next! This shows the first batch and was a bit too full as it took a long time to work the pumpkin down and puree it. I added much less pumpkin to subsequent batches, and they processed a lot faster.
Transferring the Puree
After pureeing, scoop it into a bowl large enough to hold all of the puree. You will need a bowl that is a bit larger than what holds the sliced chunks.
Stirring the Puree
Remember the juices in the roasting pan? Add them to the puree and stir them in for added flavor.
Jars of Roasted Pureed Pumpkin
Here’s what we wound up with from one large pumpkin – 3 quarts and 9 pints of slow-roasted, pureed home-grown pumpkin! What is that worth at the store? We’ll use the quarts for soups and stews, with the pints going for pancakes, bread, muffins and cornbread.
We left about an inch of head room in the jars so we can freeze them without the jars breaking. Freezing is the preferred method, as canning is no longer recommended for pumpkin.
Painter’s Tape for Labels
Here’s a bonus tip: Use painter’s tape for labels that will go into the freezer. We use name brand such as 3M, as the store brand doesn’t stay on as well. Using it as labels is very inexpensive as a roll will last for several months, sometimes almost a year. The tape stays on in the freezer, but comes off afterward with no sticky, gummy residue.
Clean Tape Removal
Terroir Seeds | Underwood Gardens
Late Season Pest and Disease Prevention
Pest and disease prevention is a major topic for many gardeners and for good reason. We take a top down approach to manage for next season with easy tips.
Roasted Pumpkin Puree
Real, home-grown roasted pumpkin puree has a rich sweetness that is just plain lacking in commercially available pumpkin products today.