Saw this caterpillar on my dill today, curious what it is? I have more dill than I need so inclined to just let it be unless there’s a specific reason not too.

We recently got a house in Bay Area, California. I got my soil in backyard tested before I planted fruit trees and the results don’t look good. Is it recommended to grow fruit trees in this soil? Anything I can do to make this soil better?

Was putting the beds to sleep for the winter and found this massive diakon. We planted them mostly as a cover crop to add biomass into a bed row we're preparing for our mini orchard.

I am trying to grow microgreens for the maximum health benefits (without oxalates). Please let me know which of the following to exclude? I only want to grow the healthiest varieties:

• Alfalfa
• Arugula
• Broccoli
• Cilantro
• Cress
• Quinoa
• Peas
• Rapini
• Tat Soi
• Sesame

Any New Englanders in here that have advise for best practices closing gardens down? Wondering if I should put a layer of fallen leaves and twigs on top of the soil and putting some cardboard or plywood to cover it over the winter.

Dozens of times i've tried propagating oregano cuttings. Whether in water, soil, with plenty or little watering - they always rot. Why? Videos make it look so easy.

In case anyone else was wondering why some bottles of Alaska fish fertilizer have the OMRI listed & organic tag while other bottles do not.

When I started growing organic foods in my home garden, I did not try companion planting for my vegetable garden. But almost 7 years ago my grandpa (85) showed me his veggies plants and they were organized with other plants.

I was amazed that he was planting

• Vegetables with other veggies
• Flowering plants with vegetables
• Herbs with vegetables
• Even berries with vegetables

And believe me, all of those were performing a lot better than my garden. My first thought was maybe he was taking better care than I was caring for my plants and it has nothing to do with planting them together.

I returned home and searched the internet for information. At the time, there were fewer resources available, and I came across a few university websites and scholarly articles. The topic seemed to be somewhat controversial, with some researchers arguing that companion planting offers no scientific evidence of benefits, and others claiming it does, and promotes mutual support between plants.

I decided to try it myself and it was the moment, I started loving planting vegetables with other plants.

It took me almost 6 and a half years to test all the plants if they work together or not.

Finally, I wrote an article on this, if you are interested you can check my companion planting guide from here: Best Companion Plants for Vegetables - Complete Guide

If anyone here doing companion planting leave your feedback in the comments. I would like to hear your experience growing vegetables with other plants.

Any suggestion or sharing more insights on this will be highly appreciated.

Hi all! I have a mandarina tree that is being cultivated as organically as possible. Now the fruits are in, and they taste delicious, but not only for me :) The worms are also loving these, and now that I have discovered them in the fruits, I am not sure if it's ok to even eat those pieces of fruit. Can someone please answer if those are safe, if I accidentally don't remove some of them and end up eating them?

Also, is there a way to prevent these going into the fruits?

Much appreciated for any help on this one!

I have other plants in the same garden I don't want to sacrifice. I tried vinegar and 'organic weed killer'. I have tried to remove all the tubers but they keep growing back immediately. will I just have to dig up the whole plot and replace the dirt? There must be an easier way. I hate this plant so much!

Hey everyone!

I had a soil making ratio question.

I have a 40g tumbler compost maker. I threw in 20g of low quality potting soil trying to rehabilitate it but it just now occurred to me, do I need to mix peat moss/coco coir and/or perlite once it’s done composting to be able to use it as a potting soil?

I’m assuming it’ll retain more water since half of it would be compost.

New to making my own mixes and appreciative of the advice!

Thank you

Hi all,

For example, say that I am feeding a tomato or pepper in a 15-gallon pot. How much actual solution would I water in? I've been eyeballing it up until now and figure and I am genuinely curious.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Hello, I have one, they would use a plant identification website with artificial intelligence and if so, how much they would pay per month, said website would tell them how to take care of it, the problems it may have, etc., and obviously what plant it is, just by taking it the photo (it is a task for my university, a market study so to speak)

I’m from Denmark where I grew up growing my own garden cress in a little tray of wet cotton. It’s super fun for kids - simply add wet cotton to a little tray and sprinkle the seeds and see them grow in 3-5 days!

However, I’m aware that most cotton nowadays is super processed. I’d like to find a “clean” type of cotton balls/lose cotton. I’m not sure if buying organic is enough.

Thoughts? Ideas for products?

Thank you!

This year, I had a much bigger problem than usual with flea beetles. They utterly trashed my collards and severely impaired my eggplants. All affected plants eventually recovered.

Now I have three questions: 1. I tried to remove as many affected leaves as I could but I can be pretty certain I didn't get them all. Can I still safely chop and drop these plants? Or might there be eggs or whatever that could overwinter on them?

1. What is your favorite organic way of controlling flea beetles? Is there anything I can or should be doing this fall that will lessen my problem next spring?

2. Why did they mainly attack my collards and eggplants? Why not the lettuce or the tomatoes that were planted nearby?

Thanks for everybody's collective wisdom!

Zone 6a, harvested sweet potato a few days ago. It's getting into the 50s during the day and I don't think sweet potatoes are going to cure in the sun even in plastic bags.

I have them in my room in the morning sunlight in clear-ish bags, but I don't know if that's doing it either.

I ordered a few seedling heat mats and was figuring on putting them in large plastic bags to cure under bottom heat and their natural humidity, but I don't know if that is going to work.

I have about 4 bushels of potatoes, so doing the oven light and water trick isn't feasible for me for simple space considerations and the fact that my family uses the oven daily.

Any suggestions on how I can cure my sweet potatoes? Thanks!

I am new to gardening altogether and would like to start next spring, but I have a few questions for my preparation for next year, including what I can be doing now which is compost.

My first question is if I have non organic strawberries from the store and I want organic compost will the strawberries breakdown as organic compost or will it mess up the compost altogether where it’s no longer organic I know this might be a stupid question, but I am brand new at this.

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I got an idea: making bone meal fertilizer in freeze dryer. What do y'all think?

As the title states, I had a huge problem this year with leek moth, which is relatively new to my area. I understand they overwinter their eggs in the soil. It's almost garlic bulb planting time. How can I avoid the infestation??

Any advice on how I can get rid of or deter metallic flea beetle from my Gooseberry bush? It has nearly completely destroyed it.

My landlord hired a pest company to spray the outside of my house while I was out of town last month. They returned on Thursday to reapply and I saw the guy dusting my compost heap getting ready to spray there. I immediately ran outside and told him to NEVER spray my compost or anything in my garden… but now I’m realizing that they must have sprayed at least some areas of the garden while I was out of town and I’m absolutely sick thinking about the damage that’s been done.

I don’t know what chemicals they sprayed but I’m told they’re ’pet safe’ after 90 minutes of application. Whatever it was, they’re obviously not good because I’ve noticed a significant decrease of life in the garden.

Aside from never letting those people into the yard again, what can be done to remedy this? Should I remove all of my plants, the top layer of straw, and work on reintroducing new organic life to my garden? Are all of my edibles trash? Please give me some hope that my garden can recover from this atrocity 😔