Welcome to the Beginners Garden podcast. I'm Jill McShehehehe with Journey Withjil.net, and my goal is to give beginning gardeners the tools they need to grow a rewarding, you guys. Well, depending on what day you're listening to this, the first day of summer is just a couple of days away.

Although, if you're like me, it has felt like summer for quite a while.

I hope everything in your garden is growing fabulously, and hopefully I know we have a lot of hits

and misses in our gardens from year to year, but I'm hoping that you're having a rewarding

experience this season. But the further we get into summer, the more and more we have to start

dealing with pests in our garden. And as much as I would love you to believe that I don't have

any pests in my garden, I do struggle from time to time with some. But I have to be honest with you.

Every single year, it seems like I have had fewer problems

than the years before. And I really believe a lot of that is due to my intentional approach of not

only promoting an organic garden, meaning I'm not going to put anything on my crops that is not

organic, but also I crops that is not organic.

But also, I try to avoid even organic insecticides in my garden.

You may wonder how in the world I do that, and I have to tell you it has not been an overnight thing, but by intentionally doing some things in my garden, building a habitat for beneficial

insects along with other ways of managing pests in my garden, I feel like it's made a big

difference, even just over a few years. And today, you don't have to just take my word for it,

but today I have an expert in integrated pest management Patrick

Byers works for the Missouri Extension Service and I first came across him at the

Arkansas Flower in Garden Show earlier this year where I attended his seminar on

integrated pest management I was so impressed with everything he shared. It was so relatable,

especially for a home gardener, even though he himself focuses on commercial growing, but he's

able to take all of that information and really narrow it down to the home gardener.

In my conversation with Patrick, he gave so much good information.

...