When it comes to our homestead, we do many things together as a family. But, we each definitely have our own areas we focus our attention on. Warren enjoys his machinery repairs, welding, and other greasy endeavors. The kitchen and garden tend to fall under my domain. Potatoes happen to be the main exception to this. Warren would happily eat potatoes with every meal, so he has a vested interest in our potato crop. And, it became very obvious that we needed to know how to get rid of potato beetles naturally.

We had one year that was a particularly awful year for the Colorado Potato Beetle in our area. One of the common gardening mistakes is not catching a pest issue in the earliest stages. And, during that year, we fell victim to this mistake. We engaged the invading Potato Beetles hordes in an all-out war. But, they were too well established at that point. The potato plants ended up being mostly bare stalks by the end of the season, with undersized potatoes. Since we did not want to repeat this experience, we experimented with various ways to control potato beetles. We finally were able to figure out how to get rid of potato beetles naturally.

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When I was first learning how to raise vegetables, I did not make a lot of “big mistakes”. Most of my mistakes seemed very small at the time. But, they still resulted in a lot of damage to my crops. This is because the small mistakes are often cumulative in nature, or they are not caught until it is too late to change anything. The majority of the mistakes I made are common gardening mistakes that no one talks about. I am going to spend some time discussing them because most of you will encounter them at some point. Fortunately, they can all be easily avoided with a little preparation or planning. Sometimes, you just have to be aware of these pitfalls ahead of time. Then you will not be scrambling later in an effort to fix something after it has already become a problem.

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Learning how to plan your garden using Dollar Tree items is a fun and inexpensive winter project. I will usually treat my kids to some of their restricted screen time (usually something along the lines of Little House on the Prairie), and then set up at the dining room table.

I definitely have a few things on our homestead that I look forward to every year. These include the days the piglets and chicks arrive, the day the first calf is born, when I see the first seedling successfully poke through the soil, when the first item is ready to be harvested from the garden, and when haying is completed for the year (I get my husband back on that day). Another favorite time for me is when I start to plan my garden for the coming growing season.

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