The Rusted Garden Blog

I spent some time last year using aspirin to manage tomato diseases before the diseases showed. I was not vigilant about the routine, but can say my aspirin treated tomato plants did better than the untreated tomatoes. Early blight is a disease that gets tomatoes in my area. Last year the blight came, but it appeared to do a lot less damage to the treated tomatoes. The treated tomatoes also seemed to recover more quickly. This year I intend to follow a strict routine of aspirin drenching and spraying. I have seen enough of a benefit over the years using...

These are 4 sprays I use regularly in my garden and they have changed they way I grow. They are very effective when used the right way. The first rule of using sprays is to always to TEST SPRAY. That is on you. Spray some of the leaves of several plants and wait 48 hours to look for damage, when you use any spray be it a DIY recipe or purchased premixed spray. Many factors contribute to how plants react to sprays. You need to test them in your gardening zone. The second rule is to keep a journal of...

Starting garden plants indoors is rewarding on so many levels. It gives you something to do during the cold months and opens the door to  transplants of 1000s of varieties of plants you would never find at nurseries or your big box stores.  Not only that, it will save you a lot of money.  Even with the initial start up costs of buying lights, shelves and starting supplies, you save money. You can get a good 10 years out of lights now-a-days. The money you save starting you own plants will pay for itself in the first year. Instead of...

Bagged manures and composts are not always 100% fully composted or broken down. Many bagged products contain manures and compost that are still actively being broken down by soil microbes. This is important because we tend to assume these products are ready to be used in our garden beds and therefore we can immediately put plants into the freshly manured and amended beds. Company's are allowed to label just about anything as manure, compost or compost and manure. They are not regulated for quantity of the said product being put in the bags.  Nor are they regulated on how far...