PlantwisePlus Blog

“Gardens are one of the greatest things about the UK and we at National Gardening Week are passionate about them”, say the organizers of the country’s biggest celebration of gardening, which takes place from 13-19 April 2015. The National Gardening Week was launched four years ago and offers plenty of events and activities being run up and down the country.

To show the support of the UK’s National Gardening Week, Sainsbury’s Bank has put together a fun and illustrative guide to growing your own mint and strawberries, which “…we hope will inspire people to try their hand at gardening this spring,” says Suzy Darke from the  Money Matters Blog by Sainsbury’s Bank.

You can’t beat freshly picked food from the field – and yes, even if you live in an apartment or a flat you can grow fresh fruits and vegetables! What you need is simple and cheap to get: a window box, potting compost, gravel and strawberry seeds or plants and now … go for it and check out how to do build your own strawberry window garden.

But watch out – strawberries are susceptible to many pests and diseases!

That’s where the Plantwise Knowledge Bank , comes into play. It is a gateway to global plant health information that can help you to prevent, diagnose and control leaf spot, strawberry aphids, powdery mildew and other common Strawberry pests that may affect you window garden.

The Plantwise knowledge bank provides you with pictures and technical factsheets of sick plants to diagnose pests and offers recommendations on how to combat them. Here: affected strawberry leaves by leaf spot, strawberry aphids and powdery mildew (from left to right). Source: Plantwise Knowledge Bank.

The Plantwise knowledge bank provides you with pictures and technical factsheets of sick plants to diagnose pests and offers recommendations on how to combat them. Here: affected strawberry leaves by leaf spot, strawberry aphids and powdery mildew (from left to right). Source: Plantwise Knowledge Bank.

The Knowledge Bank is central to the Plantwise global programme, currently active in 34 countries, which aims to help farmers to reduce crop losses due to pests and increase food security for their families. In only two years, the Plantwise Knowledge Bank has become a vital tool to support the Plantwise global programme and so far, over 198 countries have visited the Knowledge Bank to access critical agricultural data on crop pest distribution and best practice information to help manage and prevent potential crop loss.

The most recent innovations include a new Factsheet Library App, which enables farmers and agricultural advisors to take open access data with them to the field. Up to now over 9,000 technical factsheets in 61 languages are freely available in the Plantwise Knowledge Bank.

Some of these tips and tricks may also serve you! Happy National Gardening Week 2015!

Find more resources on strawberries and mint under:
Strawberries: http://www.plantwise.org/KnowledgeBank/SearchResults.aspx?q=strawberry
Mint: http://www.plantwise.org/KnowledgeBank/SearchResults.aspx?q=mint

A Plantwise Knowledge Bank demo video you find on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1kE05ELJCY

1 Comment

  1. […] Welcome to National Gardening Week 2015 […]

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