John J. Pascarella

I have been gardening, off and on, for most of my life. I have been serious about gardening for the last 20 years and gardening organically for 15. At the top of my gardening experience, I gardened in a 1000 square foot plot, and that was just my vegetables.

I've recently inherited the home I grew up in and plan to start a new garden come spring. I am planning to have another large garden, sharing what I grow with my mom and my new neighbors.

My organic philosophy is based in Integrated Pest Management, which basically says that the earlier you address a problem, the easier it is to solve it. For example, if you spray for grasshoppers when they are small and immature, you can use organic insecticides in small amounts to solve the problem. If you wait until they are large and mature, the only organic method that will get rid of them is the "Two Brick Method."

I am a Master Gardener through the Master Gardener program of Iowa State University. I also wrote a weekly gardening column in the Quad City Times, Davenport, Iowa.