Organically Farming and gardening - Bugs, plant diseases, seeds, and a lot more

I must admit I'm in a lazy mood. Maybe it is te winter snow that dropped by to say hi for a week or two. Maybe it was simply the holiday season that got me slow. Maybe it is that I got a bunch of starlings dropping on my balcony to tussle over the birdfeed, and a Blue Tit also flies up here to the 3rd floor on occasion and I just can't keep myself from stopping everything to go look. Or maybe it is simply 2009 doesn't really seem like a year to look forward to. But I'm just feeling lazy.

As always, when I'm lazy, I end up doing things I've been putting off for ages, just as an excuse to not do the stuff I need to do now.
As it turns out, this time the lucky winner was my email, which got a nice wee clean up, and it's contacts organised, for the first time in, well, ever.

And in the process of doing so, I came across a bunch of links I had mailed myself throughout the last couple of years, and which I had lost when I had to format the harddrive.

There are a number of really useful pages in there for anyone interested in gardening or in doing a little bit of organic farming someday. Not all the pages are necessarily organic farming/gardening related, but I find they still have some useful info.


1- Info and advice 0n insect pests, diseases and other possible stress causes (chemical and alternative solutions), as well as prunning advice - CUES - University of Minnesota

2 - Is it a pest? Is it a good bug? Hell, you're just curious what it is or want to confirm your guess is right? Great website to find the oddest and the commonest of creature by looking at pictures and descriptions. If need be you can send the picture of your bug in and they'll post it and then somebody, usually Mr. Saugstag, will post the answer. I use it as a good starting point to find out what I'm dealing with: http://www.pestcontrolcanada.com/Questions/Whatisthispest.htm

3 - A great website for simple, natural, or homemade solutions and treatments to all sorts of problems a garden or field might encounter, from insects to diseases and even to deal with the ravages of, er, overly energetic pets destroying one's plants. Straight onto the insect treatment page, but the bar at the top will lead to the other sections: http://www.ghorganics.com

4 - Seeds and stuff like that. I mostly look for stuff there and see if I can find it closer to home, but it is good to have this as backup and as info. http://www.organiccatalogue.com/catalog/index.php

5 - This is a great website for anyone looking to plant anything, in particular if you're looking to seed uncommon varieties of vegetables. Besides being a really worthy NGO, it also has a pretty cool online guide for the differente seeds and varieties. Unfortunately, the online access is limited to only a few plants in English. Oddly, it is a lot more extensive in Portuguese and Spanish. So, anyone who can read portuguese or spanish, enjoy.

6 - Vegetable guide. I'm afraid it is only in Dutch :-(

7 - Australian Agriculture Portal - If you happen to be growing anything on their list of agricultural industries, it has quite a lot of info, well organised and in digestible layout. Definitely not particularly organic farming oriented though, of course.

Hope it is some help to someone at some point.
Happy gardening and farming.