Garden

All Garden Content

A row of CSA subscription boxes with the words Green Market printed on them.

CSA Models

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) marketing is an outlet that allows a farmer to sell subscriptions or shares to consumers prior to the growing season. When the produce or food product is harvested it is then delivered on a scheduled basis to the customer.

an image of red and yellow cherry tomatoes

Founding a Farmers Market: Form a Planning Team

The first step to forming a new farmers market is to form a planning team. Keep the team small enough so that it is simple, small and manageable.

Shiny black beetle on a white background.

Black Vine Weevils Becoming Active

Black vine weevils are now showing up across the state. It is typical for the adult beetles to emerge in early summer and begin feeding on plant foliage. They primarily feed on lilacs and yews, both common landscape shrubs. Although the adults cause minimal damage, their larvae feed on the roots and can occasionally be a threat to ornamental plants, especially those grown in pots or containers.

Top view of a black colored ant inside of a clear plastic container.

Watch Out For Carpenter Ants

With the continued moisture and warmer temperatures, carpenter ants have become a more common appearance in South Dakota. Similar to termites, this insect can be a structural pest, causing damage to homes and other buildings. It is important to identify and treat carpenter ants early to prevent any potential damage.

Numerous grayish-brown bugs gathering on the stems of a Brassica plant.

False Chinch Bugs in the Garden

Swarms of false chinch bugs have started appearing in South Dakota this month. Although they are typically only a nuisance pest, their populations can become magnified during cool, wet springs (like this year). In high abundances, false chinch bugs can pose a threat to garden plants, especially Brassica plants such as broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, and cabbage.

A collection of empty pesticide and herbicide containers.

What to Do With Unusable Home and Garden Pesticides

As a gardener or homeowner, you may be wondering what you can do with your leftover pesticide products (including herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides), or maybe you bought a new home and the garage or basement is full of mysterious containers with no labels. If products are stored in garages or other areas with a lot of temperature changes, these products may become entirely unusable. So what to do?

a yellow dandelion flower growing in a garden

Dandelion Season

The yellow flowers of spring are coming. Spring dandelion treatments are not as effective as fall, but they can be used to stop the yellow flowers from producing viable seed.

Magnified image of a springtail that is hairy and dark blue in color.

What are those black bugs jumping on the snow?

One of the first critters you may notice in early spring or even late winter are snow fleas. These tiny arthropods can be an odd sight when they appear by the hundreds on top of snow drifts that are melting on warm, sunny days.

Black hairy caterpillar with a dark brown band in the middle of its body. The caterpillar is crawling on grey cement with visible pebbles present in the substrate.

Are those woolly bear caterpillars I see crawling?

Anyone that spent the weekend outdoors may have observed flies, wasps, bees, and others flying around for the first time this year. One of these insects is a familiar one, the woolly bear caterpillar.

two beetles side-by-side. The left one is a ladybeetle. The right is a colorado potato beetle.

Beetles in Your Garden: Friends and Foes

Two types of beetles are increasingly common on vegetable garden this time of the year. Interestingly enough, one is a predator that helps out gardeners getting rid of pestiferous insects while the other is a pest busily munching on the foliage.