something keeps eating all my strawberries and zucchinis i put a fence up and it hasn’t stopped them at all, does anyone have ideas?
Birds love strawberries, so if you haven't netted then, that's a traditional fix. Not sure on the zucchini, I don't have much luck with growing curcubits.
A month ago I realized my lucky bamboo was getting a little too rangy to keep going the way it was, so I cut off the top about a foot and put it in its own glass to take root. Once it has a good root ball started I’ll put it in a bigger pot and figure out what to do with it. The remainder of the big one has had trouble on and off for the last six years or so. Right now it’s doing pretty healthy, and has just started its next sprouting direction after I trimmed the top.
there was a bit of a die-off in my terrarium, which I kind of expected since there was nowhere for all those lovely leafy plants to grow. Spoiler: large images the overall health of the terrarium seems to be doing fine though! I haven’t noticed any mold, even on the stems. looks like the bug life in there is continuing to do its job. we’ll see how things develop!
I'm looking for some advice. I have a potted indoor chilli plant with an aphid problem. (Wiping the leaves and flowers down with soapy water every two days seems to work in getting rid of/cutting them down-- but as soon as I stop, they are back with a vengeance.) I think the plant might be overtaxing it's resources somehow, and making it more vulnerable to insect attacks? I've heard of that being a thing with plants, but I'm not sure it's the case in this specific situation. I was thinking of pruning it back a bit, in case freeing up some resources that were going to the top 'branches' helps the plant fight off the aphids. (Also, it might free up some resources for bigger fruit? One can always hope.) I was wondering if the pruning back would be likely to help? And if it didn't help, would it be likely to harm the plant, or just be neutral to it.)
Aphids are bastards to get rid of on chillies. Popular methods for commercial growers include hosing plants down repeatedly as aphids can't hold onto the leaves, or introducing bio predators like ladybirds or lacewings. I have never heard that pruning a plant will help it fight off an external pest infestation of its own accord, fwiw.
i had a catnip with a terrible aphid infestation, and i used the farmer's almanac's method to kill them. i like it because it kills them without resorting to roundup take a squirt bottle and do 50/50 rubbing alcohol and water, and mix in a little dish soap. then lightly spray the leaves (making sure to get the undersides and other places where aphids hide) it took some time but i managed to nip the infestation! seconding lacewings and ladybugs if those are an option to0 as far as pruning, i've only heard that recommended for scale, since those pests are fairly stationary and you can remove most of an infestation if it's only on one branch by pruning the branch and then treating the plant.
Thank you for the advice! I'll see if the rubbing alchohol+water+soap does the trick (especially seeing as water+soap seems to be doing something already, it's just not quite finishing the job.)
Put in a butterfly bush. According to the label it’s a dwarf and is only supposed to get 2.5 feet tall, perfect for a pot, unlike the one I remember growing in my childhood yard that was taller than me for most of my life.
ooh v nice! they can be pruned shorter once they're established, if u need to. they're one of the things that puts out new sprouts really easily
i custom blended my own potting mix! i'm testing it out right now on a thai basil i have that needed repotted, but assuming it works* it should be good for most indoor plants (and probably vegetables) with a little modification depending on what i'm growing. i can't give ratios because i just kinda...dumped stuff in until i felt good with it but here's what i used!: Spoiler -the majority of it was coco coir, which is supposed to function like peat or sphagnum, but without the whole, ripping up peat bogs thing. so it should hold in moisture and make up the Bulk of it all -after that i used coco chips, which is the same stuff but much more rough-chopped, which gives roots something to grip onto, keeps it aerated, and prevents the mix from compacting too much. pine bark fines would probably work just as well here, but i couldn't find any easily and there was a big 10lb block of "coco orchid mix" (so basically just chunks) right next to the coir at the nursery so i grabbed it -then i added in chicken grit--in this case pure granite, i wouldn't add the probiotic stuff necessarily just because it's expensive in bulk lol--in lieu of perlite, bc it aids drainage in much the same way as perlite at much less cost. i paid $8 for a 50lb bag of grit, and for context, a 25lb bag lasted me almost a year. it also doesn't yellow in light like perlite does, and if it ends up clumping at the top like perlite it just looks like a pretty top dressing that you put on there intentionally. it does weigh more but i find that to be negligible personally once it's in the pot -finally, i tossed in a few good handfuls of worm castings for nutrients, bc it was less expensive than other fertilizers and won't cause root burn even if you add a lot to it, and i like that it has living bacteria in it. and it's the only poop-based fertilizer that doesn't stink to high heaven! the amendments i'd make for other plant types would be: adding more grit for succulents (i do about 50/50 soil:grit ratio when i'm growing succulents, and they really seem to like it), and adding more coco chips for aroids and similar tropicals (aroids love a good chunky mix that drains well and gives their roots lots to grab onto). if i were using it on things like carnivorous plants, i'd probably use 50/50 pure coir, thoroughly rinsed with distilled water, and grit. *i'm fairly confident about my mix as it is, but coco coir and chips can sometimes have a lot of salt in them, and i don't have any way to test tds, so i'm just testing it "in the field" as it were haha. if it doesn't work, i'll probably rinse the coco several times with distilled water and try again. it probably cost me about $75-90 for everything, but for a sense of scale, the 10lb brick of coir i bought expands to 30 gallons worth, so i'm not planning on needing any more soil for a good long time. i think overall it's going to cost much less than what i've been paying for even just the cheap shit, and i think significantly less than i'd pay for soil mix of similar quality
The raspberry bushes my parents have are in a raised bed (because...reasons?), and a couple years back, mom tried to mulch them with hay. It turned out, the hay still had live seeds in it. We've been fighting a battle against weeds in the raspberry bed ever since. The weeds have been especially bad this year, and the raspberry canes are just...struggling. This year, we're probably going to be moving the raspberry bushes from their current bed to a different one, which we can rototill beforehand and make sure it's free of weeds. And then we can mulch the raspberries with compost that definitely doesn't have live seeds in it, and then go scorched earth on the old bed and get the weeds completely out of it. Anything that I'm missing, in terms of stuff that'll be likely to help out the raspberries survive the transplant and do well next spring?
Raspberries are pretty tough, but if it were me I'd just transplant any new suckers/shoots that appear in spring or late winter, and try not to break any taproots. Also, wow. Your weeds must be something else if they can give bloody raspberries trouble.
question for plantpeople, because i had an idea and I was wondering if maybe someone in here has experience: I wanna try growing an anubias nana in a bowl, as a sort of extra bit of green in my bathroom. The local shop sells anubias as aquarium plant, propped to a piece of driftwood that you can attach to the aquarium glass via sucker. I would like to buy a nice glass or porcelain pot/bowl, fill it with a nice sand or glass pebbles or something, and attach the plant so that the leafs are above water but the roots are submerged. The place i have in mind would be on top of the washing machine, so about 1-2 meters away from a southfacing roof window. Does anyone have experience with similar setups and knows if this is at all feasible?
I don't have personal experience with anubias, but a low light aquarium plant like that should be just fine in the setup you're suggesting. I would treat or at least leave any water out to declorinate before adding plant to be on the safe side, I think.
Oh yeah that won't be a problem, german tap water isn't chlorinated. My marimo's been living fine in it.
They're very determined weeds (I get maybe two or three days, if I've been super thorough and stripped out as many of them as I can, before they're starting to return - and about a week in total before the grass is getting taller than the canes), but I'm pretty sure it's a combination of "very determined weeds" plus being in a raised bed where the raspberries can't go deeper or range anywhere to get more nutrients when they've run out in a particular spot. That bed definitely needs some fertilizer. Transplanting in late winter is...not really likely to be an option, considering we're in Canada and 'late winter' is probably going to still have the beds buried under snow. Even if we can find the raspberries, the ground's going to be frozen solid. Late fall, however, is perfectly viable as is "after the first frost".
Late fall or spring will work just fine, my dude! Just give them time to get over the shock and don't expect too much fruit next year, is all :)
it's that time again!!!! has anyone else gotten started? i just got peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants in. got a little overexcited and ordered some dwarf peas, another eggplant, and some greens so those should be in the mail soon. the plan is to do the peas and greens indoors and everything else in containers outdoors. i've already got a grow light system set up for succulents and other plants, so i'm confident everything else should be able to grow nicely in there. here's what i'm growing: Spoiler -fish pepper -zulu sweet pepper -poblano pepper -cherokee purple tomato -blue berries tomato -white tomesol tomato (i got this one as a free gift and figured i might as well try it out) -burpee black beauty eggplant -casper eggplant -kelvedon wonder garden pea -arugula -kale (another free seed packet i got) -rouge d'hiver lettuce -gigante d' inverno spinach -whatever free seed comes with my order perhaps? unless it's another white tomesol lol i'd love to do squash or cucumber but...alas, apartment, i only have so much space
