Eating 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day lowers your risk of stroke by 31 percent, according to a recent Harvard University study. Since stroke is the third leading cause of death in the U.S., this advice shouldn’t be taken lightly. And, many Americans don’t even eat half of that recommended amount.

Fruits and vegetables are rich sources of fiber, potassium, folate, and antioxidants–components known to reduce the risk of many major illnesses. Since raised blood pressure is the major cause of stroke, the blood pressure-lowering effect of potassium could be one of the major mechanisms contributing to the reduced risk of the disabling or fatal disease.

Potassium intake from fruits and vegetables may also inhibit free-radical formation, making potassium-rich foods a good preventative of many cancers.

A visible benefit of eating five servings or more a day of fruits and veggies is their ability to help you keep your weight in check. One serving is equivalent to one medium piece of fresh fruit, 1/2 cup of cut fruit, a cup of raw leafy greens, or 1/2 cup of other cooked vegetables, such as broccoli.

Refrigerate berries, citrus, and fruit with edible skin (like apples), as well as veggies, to preserve their natural antioxidants. Eat servings from at least three different color groups (including green, orange/yellow, red, white, and blue/purple) to ensure you get a wide variety of nutrients daily.

If you roam through Garden Harvest Supply’s selection of fruit and vegetable plants, you’ll find an overwhelming variety of enticing plants to grow–and don’t be afraid to try new ones! Fresh-picked produce really does taste better than any processed, store-bought foods. Even the most finicky eaters will tempted to try new foods if they pick them off the vine. And, gardening provides the relaxation and calorie-burning activity necessary to offset the stresses of everyday living, another benefit of growing your own.

Garden Harvest Supply makes it easy to garden using all-natural products, so your produce will not only taste better, but your meals won’t contain the chemical insecticides and artificial ingredients used to speed food to store shelves.

If you have never grown your own, try experimenting with nutrient-rich kale and collards, beets and radishes, and squash, eggplants and cukes. Not only are all these plants easy to grow but they are a gold mine for good health and great meals! And for dessert, why not pick your own cantaloupe, watermelon and strawberries to create the tastiest fruit salad ever?

Tomatoes are probably the most popular vegetable grown by gardeners. The majority of the problems in growing them are environmental and are generally not infectious to other crops you might have planted. Choosing the right plant is just as important as location in controlling some common issues. Look for a cultivar that is disease resistant, especially to verticillium wilt, fusarium races 1 2, nematodes, and tobacco mosaic virus. Using good general sanitation practices by keeping weeds and rotten or fallen fruit away from the plants, and washing your hands and tools after handling or working with plants, are the best ways to not spread any disease present.

Problems can be categorized into several groups: insects, physiological (culture or environment), fungus, bacterial or viral. Let’s start with those insects:

Common pests are tomato and tobacco hornworms, whiteflies, aphids, stink bugs, and cutworms. Southern gardeners are bothered by corn earworms and potato beetles. Methods of control for these pests vary.

For hornworms, hand-picking is the best solution because several of the species of Sphinx moths (the tomato hornworm is the larvae) are pollinators of endangered native orchids. You can also make netting covers if hornworms are a problem. For larger plots and if you need an environmental control use, Bacillus thuringensis. This the same control agent for cutworms.

For whitefly and aphids, using an Insecticidal Soap should be an effective control. The damage from whitefly is usually minimal; they’re mostly a nuisance when they fly up in your face!

Stink bugs cause damage visible on green fruit, appearing as dark pinprick spots that remain green or yellow as the fruit ripens. Keep the growing area and surrounding area free of weeds since the bugs overwinter in these areas. For earworms and beetles the same controls are recommended: insecticidal soaps and Bacillus thuringensis.

Environmental and cultivar problems include blossom drop, blossom end rot, leaf roll, sunscald, fruit crack, numerous trace mineral deficiencies, and over-fertilization with high nitrogen. Overwatering and underwatering, and sudden cold spells are common causes.

Blossom drop is the most susceptible to dry soils and cold spells but could also be caused by heavy rains, too much nitrogen or a bacterial or fungal infection. Blossom end rot is usually associated with extremes in soil moisture. This can also lead to calcium deficiencies.

Fruit crack happens with rapid growth during rainy spells followed by dry periods. During dry periods water plants and apply mulch.

Sunscald happens when green tomatoes are exposed to direct sunshine for long periods.  Allowing the plant to develop some suckers provides a canopy of leaves to protect the new fruit. If your plant has sprouted lots of bright green leaves but very few blossoms or fruit, cease fertilizing with a high nitrogen fertilizer and use one with a higher P and K number, the second and third number.

There are a variety of fungal diseases and most can be treated with Bordeaux Mixture, Copper Soap or Sulfur Dust. The best control is to plant resistant-strain cultivars. Before treating determine which fungal infection your plants are infected with (anthracnose, botrysis fruit rot, damping off, fusarium wilt, gray leaf spot, early or late blight, septoria leaf spot, or soil rot fungus). As with all diseased plant material, it’s best to not compost any diseased material and to clean all tools.

Bacterial spot causes small lesions on leaves that turn black. Green fruit will develop black, raised spots that will become pitted. There is no effective treatment for bacterial spot and it’s best to remove and destroy the plant and to wash all tools to keep the infection from spreading.

The Dustin-Mizer Garden Duster is a lightweight and economical handy operated duster. This short video will demonstrate how easy it is to use

I received my pie’s a few minutes ago and I discovered it was not the order I made. There were suppose to be 2 blackraspberry pies instead I got 1 blackraspberry and 1 Rhubarb.I did not received my plant supports yet. I thought they might be coming in another shipment. When I cut the pies , I discovered the mistake,the package had blackraspberry on both of them.I thought the filling in the blackraspberry pie was too thick but the rhubarb was fine.I don’t mean to be credical but thought this might be helpful in the future.Thanks and I will order some more things from your company. 6-20-08

Watch and see how easy it is to germinate a vegetable seed in your home.

Watch as we plant tomatoes and install different tomato cages. Then watch the tomato plants grow in the cages.

Check back through the summer to see our progress.

The first tomato cage we will put up is the Ultomato cage. The Ultomato cage is very easy to install. Simply clip the side pieces onto the three main stakes and then push it into the ground. This tomato cage allows for easy adjustments for the side supports as the tomato plant grows. Just move them up and down to accommodate the growing plant.

It is early August and as you can see, the Ultomato Cage is filling out nicely.

The Ultomato continues to fill out nicely.

The second tomato cage we will put up is the Veggie Cage. It requires a bit more work because of the stake you must drive into the ground to hold it up. But once it is up, there is little more you will have to do with this tomato cage.

The Veggie Cage continues to keep the tomato plant growing upward and off of the ground.

The third tomato cage we will put up is the Heavy Duty Folding Tomato Cage. This is a very easy cage to use. You simply pull it open from its flattened storage position, put it in place over the tomato plant and then push the legs into the ground.

The tomato plant is growing well inside the folding tomato cage.

As you can see the folding tomato cage is filling out nicely with some tomatoes poking themselves out for us to see.

The folding tomato cage continues to come along wonderfully.

The final tomato cage we will trial is the Tomato Tower. To use this cage, simply put the bottom stake into the ground, put the sections togather and insert into the ground stake. Very easy and simple.

The Tomato Tower is handling the job very nicely.

Japanese Beetles are the bane of the rose gardener, but they also feed on about 300 other species of plants.  Most gardeners loathe the sight of their return each summer around mid- to late June and hope for the best as they begin their month-long feeding and mating frenzy that defoliates our prized plants.Beetles can travel up to a 5-mile radius but generally stick to a 1- to 2-mile area if the food source and egg-laying conditions are favorable. A single Japanese Beetle doesn’t do a lot of damage but they generally feed in larger groups, working from the top of a plant downward and preferring plants that are in full sun.

The life cycle of the Japanese Beetle begins again as soon as the adults emerge and begin to mate. Females will burrow into the ground in the afternoon and lay 1 to 4 eggs every 3 to 4 days. The eggs will hatch to a larva—or the familiar white grub—state where they continue to develop for 10 months. The grubs prefer moist soil with lots of organic matter, and they especially love tender grasses. They are drought tolerant and will move deeper into the soil if late summer rains aren’t forthcoming. It is during this feeding period they can do the most damage to your lawn grasses.

They over-winter in this grub stage, moving deeper into the soil to withstand any cold weather and become inactive when soil temperature drop below 50 degrees. Many birds such as starlings, common grackles and crows will eat grubs in heavily infested areas. A sure sign of infestation is a large flock of starlings digging up the grubs with their long, pointed bills or crows pulling up small pieces of turf as they dig and search. Moles, shrews and skunks will also feed on the grubs.

A natural method of grub control is milky spore.  We sell the spores of the bacterium in two different application types, powder or granular. The spores will reduce the number of Japanese beetle grubs in your lawn but will not stop the flight of adult beetles.  Our Milky Spore product is available in several sizes AND we carry a very handy applicator for use with the powder.  It makes application effortless and your back will appreciate not having to do all the bending!

The best natural way to detour adult beetles from your property is Nocdown cedar oil-based insect repellent.  Its odor is noxious to beetles and other pests, and it is an all-natural way to repel them, or if they stick around, it will shut down their receptors, and they’ll eventually leave or starve and die.  We carry three economical sizes of Nocdown

An easy, natural method of control for the adult Japanese beetle is hand collecting. This is best done early in the morning when the beetles are not as active. Reducing the numbers on a plant makes it less attractive to other beetles flying in. Shake or knock them into a bucket of soapy water to kill them.

We don’t recommend the use of Japanese beetle traps for home landscapes. They should be limited to large open areas away from valuable plants because the powerful attractant can actually draw more beetles into an area. We also don’t recommend toxic insecticidal sprays and dusts to protect ornamental plantings as they can contaminate food crops.

One more effective means of controlling grubs and adult Japanese beetles is Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth. It works by a physical, non-chemical process of destroying the exoskeleton of pests. It’s like tiny shards of broken glass that will kill them as they come in contact. Since it’s non-toxic, it is safe if ingested by warm-blooded creatures. It can be sprinkled liberally on plants and on the soil. However, it’s best to use a garden duster, taking care not to inhale the dust. We carry both 5-pound and 50-pound bags.

Japanese beetle infestation can be frustrating, but it’s easy to fight the destructive pests the natural way, with our easy-to-use and safe products: Milky Spore, Nocdown and Diatomaceous Earth.

Here’s the update on your gourmet popcorn……I believe I have now tried all the popcorn that you sell.  I like them all but the ones I like the best are the Gourmet Purple, Red and Ladyfinger.  Again, thanks for everything.  Denise

We were so intrigued by the retro fitting of this Earthway Garden Seeder that we just had to share it with you. The photos were sent to us by Lon Purvis, which combined the Garden Seeder & Kentucky High Wheel Cultivator for a carefree way to plant his vegetable seeds. It allows for very easy pushing, even in rocky soil. If you have any questions, contact Lon at www.purvisinvestments.com.