10 ms·

Home Gardening

35fbe7d3d5b9 5y ago
Gardening is a fun hobby my wife & I have taken up over the past several years. You probably will never grow an entire meal, and that's fine. You'll still feel satisfaction in going outside with a bowl and coming inside with what will become a salad or a side. Pick something easy – when I started with zero knowledge I tried some of the harder plants like asparagus and celery and managed to get nothing, but I stuck with it after I realized I couldn't kill my Swiss chard or lettuce or collards if I tried. And don't start off trying to grow from seed. Get starts from a plant store - more expensive, but less likely to die off. Many of those easier plants are also amenable to growing in a five gallon pot, which is perfect for when you don't have a ton of space to work with, or if you just want to dip your toe in.
- thomasfromcdnjs 5y ago
  If you actually want to feed yourself, just go to a Sunday market get 50kg of potatoes and plant them everywhere you can. Low maintenance, hard to kill and great caloric yield.
  - chris1993 5y ago
    Best to use certified seed potatoes so you don't introduce virus problems for anyone else growing potatoes in the area.
    - hinoki 5y ago
      In case else is interested why, here’s an article about how aphids transmit viruses between potatoes, so it’s important to plant uninfected potatoes to keep the viral load down. https://ahdb.org.uk/news/the-importance-of-testing-for-virus-in-seed-potatoes https://ahdb.org.uk/news/the-importance-of-testing-for-virus...
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
    Really good advice! You have a book in you my friend.
  - jk7tarYZAQNpTQa 5y ago
    > and plant them everywhere you can I guess you implied "at your home", but I do love the idea of guerilla gardening. Never done it with produce though, just flowers and trees.
- steve_adams_86 5y ago
  > And don't start off trying to grow from seed This is great advice if you're just starting out. There's a bit of an art to starting from seed. You need to understand the dynamics like light, temperature, moisture, and seasonal timing. Where I live, you can start tomatoes indoors around February to have great starts that'll go into a greenhouse in March, or into the soil outside in June. That's quite an undertaking to time and get right. This year I got the timing, lighting, temperature, and all the rest right - the plants look amazing - but I have eighteen extra plants taking up a lot of space that I guess I'll just leave on the sidewalk for a lucky gardener in my neighbourhood. I could have used that space in the nursery for so many other useful things, but I had no idea what would survive or if some would be too small or whatever. Each plant demands its own special conditions, and it takes a lot of space if you start indoors. Unexpected harsh conditions can suddenly ruin outdoor plants. Forgetting to water one day could more or less stunt an entire bed of seedlings. They can be so delicate, and it can really suck the fun out of gardening. There's no harm in starting out in easy-mode.
  - thomasfromcdnjs 5y ago
    Just a counter suggestion. I find seeds so cheap to buy, that I just buy a bunch of different packets (for a season), put em in a bowl, then just throw them everywhere in my garden. Then just rely on luck to see what I get. When working with new garden beds, it let's me quickly find what seems to like that area of the garden. (I think the Japanese have some similar technique) I'm a really lazy gardener though, my yields could be better but I don't want to put any work in aha
    - arrayjumper 5y ago
      How do you keep track of which plants you have? Do you just wait for them to flower/fruit?
      - thomasfromcdnjs 5y ago
        I'm in my third year of gardening so can mostly tell what is coming up pretty quickly.
- asd4232 5y ago
  Many plants are still pretty easy to grow from seed, as long as you use good soil and find a spot with plenty of sunlight. Tomatoes and chili seem particularly easy, even some commercial varieties not optimized for hobbyists seem to grow okay in a greenhouse here in Northern Europe. I just took some seeds from supermarket vegetables. Next I'm going to try some more traditional varieties that should be better for hobbyists.
- gibspaulding 5y ago
  A couple of other things my wife and I have picked up over the last few years for anyone starting out. 1. Mulch mulch mulch! It keeps weeds down and water in and will add organic matter to your soil as it breaks down. Your municipality probably makes tons of mulch from trimming trees and you can usually find somewhere to buy a truckload from them for a few dollars. We put down at least 3 pickup truck loads over the course of the first year in ~200 square feet of beds. Unless you are directly sowing seeds somewhere, you don't ever want bare soil showing. 2. If you have plants that seem diseased or have pests, rip them out or prune the affected parts off ASAP. We don't use pesticides or anything so the best way to keep pest populations down is to keep them from multiplying. Caterpillars become moths/butterflies that make many more caterpillars. If you eliminate the plant or leaves hosting them, they won't get that far. 3. The more you weed, the less you have to weed. This is the same idea as with pests. These things don't spontaneously generate, so every weed you pull up that doesn't go to seed first is one less seed in your soil waiting to pop up. If you keep on it, eventually the only weeds you have to worry about are ones that come over from your neighbor's overgrown beds!
- oilbagz 5y ago
  How's your compost? I've reached the point where thats my first question for every gardener I meet.
  - rini17 5y ago
    Voracious, thanks :)
barbazoo 5y ago
Love it. I wish I could change the units to metric.
- hrisng 5y ago
  Yeah the biggest problem with horticulture resource online in English is that most of them are written within the US context. So everything is measured in imperial unit. And hardiness zone only take into consideration about the minimum temperature, and say nothing about heat tolerant. So if you're in tropical country or somewhere else with drastically different climate, you gonna have to go through a lot of trials and errors.
- patrickk 5y ago
  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/everything-metric-converter/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/everything-me...
mucholove 5y ago
Ooh! So fantastic. I just bought a wheelbarrow today and am planting guava, okra, in addition to the cacao and coffee I already got. If that sounds weird, it is because I am in Dominican Republic. The biggest challenge for me is finding information because most home gardening books are done for temperate climates and the DR is not exactly a great place for literature. If anybody has a good site, please do recommend! I look up Hawaii and Florida often and get OK results. :) The pro farmers in the neighborhood are helpful as well, but they don’t always have time and most of them have a plantain mono-crop. :)
- souprock 5y ago
  Being in Florida, your crops don't sound weird based on climate. Cacao and coffee look like a lot of trouble to process though, and I'm not sure how a person can stand to eat okra. You're missing out on coconut, jaboticaba, mango, dragonfruit, sweet potato, figs, rambutan, lychee, loquat, longan, avocado, jackfruit, and pineapple. Note that mango and avocado should be obtained as grafted plants because seeds usually create undesirable plants.
  - dumpsterdiver 5y ago
    > I'm not sure how a person can stand to eat okra. Pickle it, and it’s a pretty great snack (popular here in Texas). https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yYey8ntlK_E https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yYey8ntlK_E
    - spijdar 5y ago
      It's also pretty tasty fried and salted, although its nutritional value goes out the window, so to speak...
  - tasssko 5y ago
    Okra is very good if done right. https://youtu.be/GMnsdI0nO7s https://youtu.be/GMnsdI0nO7s
    - 5y ago
midhhhthrow 5y ago
If you’re new to gardening, I recommend tomatoes. They’re quite easy to grow as long as your timing is roughly right
- jansan 5y ago
  The probably easiest plants to grow for an absolute beginner may be salads like arugula or herbs like bazil and mint. If you have good soil and enough moisture, mint will be very difficult to stop from growing. Once I planted mint into a pot that I placed into the bed to separate it from the other herbs. It broke through the walls of the pot and gave me a great example of exponential growth.
  - gibspaulding 5y ago
    One thing to keep in mind if your growing your greens outdoors is that they quickly get bitter when it is hot out. If you live somewhere that gets very hot in the summer you'll want to stick to the shoulder seasons for greens. Most can survive light frost, so you can start them quite early/late.
- ultrasounder 5y ago
  Bingo!. Cant recommend tomatoes enough. Roses too if You live in a sunny(vale)area. The combination of clay and sunshine just makes those Floribundas bloom. Its a pity I cant find enough patent free rose bushes. Its time to "free the seeds" in the spirit of FOSS. Perhaps sometime in the not too distopian future.
  - drumttocs8 5y ago
    Anytime I see a plant with a label that says "propagation prohibited" I can't help but chuckle. Who's gonna stop me?
    - pvaldes 5y ago
      A lot of people could, in fact. And most of them are lawyers. As long as you don't resell it, you will fly under the radar most probably
markdown 5y ago
> Bok choy > Chinese cabbage In my part of the world, Bok Choi is just one type of chinese cabbage. Others are choi sum, napa cabbage, etc.
rektide 5y ago
Is this available as data anywhere?
cheesecake_luvr 5y ago
How do you deal with pests? I have had severe problems with spider mites, which cabbage moths and fungi. I dislike using chemical pesticides so much I am willing to give up gardening so as not to use them. And natural pesticides almost never work.
- worik 5y ago
  Part of the solution is pesticides. "Natural" pesticides do work. Pyrethrin is very powerful. Part is cultivating carnivorous insects. Keep cats away from your garden, they hunt and kill the carnivorous insects. Part is chemical deterrence. Dilute soapy water interferes with the life cycle of many pests. Garlic discourages lots of things. Part is companion planting. I have not had much luck with this myself, but better gardeners than me (most) swear by the technique. Be a bit vigilant. If a plant is being attacked, rip it out. Spray soapy water and/or garlic on your plants on a regular basis. Accept some defeats. You will not win every battle with the little evil creatures. But if you engage with them you will stay ahead enough to have a fabulous garden.
  - jillesvangurp 5y ago
    Put some garlic cloves in the ground. You can eat the garlic shoots and the smell discourages some of the bugs.
- johnthedebs 5y ago
  I've been gardening for a few years and have had some similar problems and learned a lot. I also really dislike using chemicals. Each problem calls for a different approach, and sometimes the approach can create problems :). With fungi - if you mean blight - I've been lucky enough not to have to deal with it. Try to keep plants healthy and leaves relatively dry. If you mean powdery mildew, I think it's a part of life to a certain degree and the best you can do is manage it. Try to keep leaves dry when watering, promote airflow around plants, and cut off old leaves that have a lot of mildew. They should still produce. If you mean fungus in the ground around plants, that's usually a good sign not a bad one. With cabbage moths, the most effective protection is some type of fine netting/horticulture fleece over the plants to keep the moths from laying eggs, or applying BT (bacillus thuringiensis) periodically. It's a natural pesticide (a bacteria) that's extremely effective against caterpillars. I use it, and it's great, though I'm hoping to use less this year because it likely affects other insects in their larval stages as well (thinking ladybugs and lacewings). With spider mites... sigh. The problem has seemed to get worse each year. This year I'm trying a more holistic and hands-off approach using compost exclusively (0 or very limited fertilizer use, even organic) to make sure plants are healthy enough to fight them off and produce despite their presence. Also covering soil with dense plantings and other smaller inter-crops to regulate soil temps, hold onto moisture, and encourage soil life. I'm also allowing a baseline population of them in some places (not that I've had a choice) to give predators a food supply so they'll move in and hopefully help keep things under control. The thinking here is a "soil-up" approach that focuses on soil, plant, and ecosystem health rather than simply attacking what may be a symptom of other problems I've created. Hope this is helpful!
jonstewart 5y ago
Cucumbers are pretty easy to grow and one plant can produce a lot of cucumbers. They’re great if you have kids who need daily vegetables. Highly recommend growing them up a fence or a trellis so the cukes don’t rot on the ground. They do require near daily watering when they’re producing.
worik 5y ago
I could not find cannabis in the flowers. Perhaps it is not a popular home gardening plant? Often the perfect plant, almost perfect...
- a012 5y ago
  I heard (cannabis isn't legal here) it's mostly identical with growing tomato, so ...
grawprog 5y ago
Pretty awesome. It'd be nice to see some design tips for vegetable gardens. Maybe things about companion plants and the best way to utilize space for maximum yield or something? Or possibly maybe even permaculture stuff, or designing edible flower and vegetable gardens that grow together. Their vegetable tips were nice and detailed, but their design stuff was all basic landscaping design stuff, i must admit, I was hoping to see maybe something about vegetable garden design.
brobdingnagians 5y ago
Does this come in book form? Or does someone have any good recommendations for good books that have this kind of format with a lot of different vegetables? Would love to hear recommendations for general gardening books too.
- aphrax 5y ago
  It meets your criteria in a loose sense but I’d recommend Modern Nature by Derek Jarman
  - brobdingnagians 5y ago
    Thanks!
FooBarWidget 5y ago
One thing I have a hard time grasping is: how do you find out whether your soil quality is still good enough? How do you know when nutrients are depleted, and you need add fertilizer? How do you know when there is sufficient nutrients, and you shouldn't add fertilizer? Poeple just tell me "don't think too much about it, add fertilizer once in a while" but that to me feels lile flying blind. I don't have a garden, only a balcony with a few boxes of dirt. Gardening manuals seem to tell me to replace all dirt every year (or 2-3 years at most) in order to renew soil quality and get rid of diseases. That seems... increadibly wasteful? Are there no alternatives? Why do real gardens and farms not need to replace all their soil so often?
- hvidgaard 5y ago
  The short answer is experience. Buy some good quality soil and use it in your planters. Learn how the plants grow and thrive - if they slow growth or do not bloom as much it may be the weather or it may be because it's lacking nutrients. You can also simply give them some fertilizer. If it doesn't make much of a difference it was probably not needed. If possible you should renew your soil, not be replacing it, but by mixing it with good manure or even just a bunch of leaves. I have experience with manure from rabbits and horses - both can be directly mixed with the earth.
- smhinsey 5y ago
  There are some fairly simple steps that get overcomplicated due to companies selling products. 1) Figure out what you want to grow 2) Look up what kind of soil pH and what nutrients those plants need 3) Test your soil for pH and those nutrients, where possible 4) Amend the soil with fertilizer to correct measured imbalances A lot of it is trial and error, also. Take note of what you do and the outcomes and keep doing what works. There are so many local variables generalized advice can never hope to cover them all.
- tom_mellior 5y ago
  You can buy simple soil test kits that tell you about your soil's pH, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash levels. Then you know if/what to replenish. A university or lab near you may also offer a service where you send them a soil sample and you get a detailed report. Probably overkill for a balcony though.
jsmhard 5y ago
Antoher site I use to get garden information is https://www.jardineriaon.com/en/ https://www.jardineriaon.com/en/
shireboy 5y ago
Nice resource. I’ve been into gardening a few years but dove deep during COVID. I joke it’s not cheaper than a grocery store, but is cheaper than therapy. I’m trying to improve that by doing more from seed, using vertical techniques. One thing I think is helping this year is liquid kelp fertilizer.
thewizardofaus 5y ago
Gardening is a great relaxing hobby! I've done it on and off for the last several years. During COVID I grew 100kg/220lbs of tomatoes.
theshadowknows 5y ago
Ok my wife just got into gardening this week...this is great timing and a cool resource.
vharuck 5y ago
I just started a garden in the small dirt patch behind my condo. I'm trying to attract insects, so they attract larger predators, and end up with a garden that's fun to watch This site lists native wild flowers to each state: https://www.wildflower.org/plants/ https://www.wildflower.org/plants/. It also has basic info on characteristics, needs, and how to grow them. I used to rent a house that had a tiny crop plot and let it get weedy. My neighbor didn't like me for it, but my wife and I loved watching the birds and rabbits run around our yard. We even got a field mouse. I thought the reason it got out of control was because I hated gardening, but it's that I hate taking care of things I didn't pick. It's great seeing (some of) the flowers I planted really flourish.
oilbagz 5y ago
Gardening is one of those subjects that brings me as much joy and satisfaction as developing and shipping productive software to real customers. There is no greater feeling than to have fed ones family direct from the house garden, or to have raised ones children to understand and appreciate the rewards of cultivation of renewable resources, plants, in their own lives. Every single human being should have a plant that they take care of, regularly, and participate in its life. No matter if its an avocado pit growing in the window, or a field of leafy greens, the care of plant life is a very rewarding activity. We eat from our garden daily for 9 months of the year, and this year had the pleasure of seeing our last season's crop of mangold survive winter, rejuvenate, and provide us with ample harvest. Gardening is a lot like programming, though. If you don't take care of the base layers, you may find yourself with a broken framework and need to refactor. Just like programmers should know their compiler - gardeners should know their compost. The better the compost, the better the garden ..

Gardening is a fun hobby my wife & I have taken up over the past several years. You probably will never grow an entire meal, and that's fine. You'll still feel satisfaction in going outside with a bowl and coming inside with what will become a salad or a side. Pick something easy – when I started with zero knowledge I tried some of the harder plants like asparagus and celery and managed to get nothing, but I stuck with it after I realized I couldn't kill my Swiss chard or lettuce or collards if I tried. And don't start off trying to grow from seed. Get starts from a plant store - more expensive, but less likely to die off. Many of those easier plants are also amenable to growing in a five gallon pot, which is perfect for when you don't have a ton of space to work with, or if you just want to dip your toe in.

thomasfromcdnjs 5y ago
If you actually want to feed yourself, just go to a Sunday market get 50kg of potatoes and plant them everywhere you can. Low maintenance, hard to kill and great caloric yield.
- chris1993 5y ago
  Best to use certified seed potatoes so you don't introduce virus problems for anyone else growing potatoes in the area.
  - hinoki 5y ago
    In case else is interested why, here’s an article about how aphids transmit viruses between potatoes, so it’s important to plant uninfected potatoes to keep the viral load down. https://ahdb.org.uk/news/the-importance-of-testing-for-virus-in-seed-potatoes https://ahdb.org.uk/news/the-importance-of-testing-for-virus...
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  Really good advice! You have a book in you my friend.
- jk7tarYZAQNpTQa 5y ago
  > and plant them everywhere you can I guess you implied "at your home", but I do love the idea of guerilla gardening. Never done it with produce though, just flowers and trees.
steve_adams_86 5y ago
> And don't start off trying to grow from seed This is great advice if you're just starting out. There's a bit of an art to starting from seed. You need to understand the dynamics like light, temperature, moisture, and seasonal timing. Where I live, you can start tomatoes indoors around February to have great starts that'll go into a greenhouse in March, or into the soil outside in June. That's quite an undertaking to time and get right. This year I got the timing, lighting, temperature, and all the rest right - the plants look amazing - but I have eighteen extra plants taking up a lot of space that I guess I'll just leave on the sidewalk for a lucky gardener in my neighbourhood. I could have used that space in the nursery for so many other useful things, but I had no idea what would survive or if some would be too small or whatever. Each plant demands its own special conditions, and it takes a lot of space if you start indoors. Unexpected harsh conditions can suddenly ruin outdoor plants. Forgetting to water one day could more or less stunt an entire bed of seedlings. They can be so delicate, and it can really suck the fun out of gardening. There's no harm in starting out in easy-mode.
- thomasfromcdnjs 5y ago
  Just a counter suggestion. I find seeds so cheap to buy, that I just buy a bunch of different packets (for a season), put em in a bowl, then just throw them everywhere in my garden. Then just rely on luck to see what I get. When working with new garden beds, it let's me quickly find what seems to like that area of the garden. (I think the Japanese have some similar technique) I'm a really lazy gardener though, my yields could be better but I don't want to put any work in aha
  - arrayjumper 5y ago
    How do you keep track of which plants you have? Do you just wait for them to flower/fruit?
    - thomasfromcdnjs 5y ago
      I'm in my third year of gardening so can mostly tell what is coming up pretty quickly.
asd4232 5y ago
Many plants are still pretty easy to grow from seed, as long as you use good soil and find a spot with plenty of sunlight. Tomatoes and chili seem particularly easy, even some commercial varieties not optimized for hobbyists seem to grow okay in a greenhouse here in Northern Europe. I just took some seeds from supermarket vegetables. Next I'm going to try some more traditional varieties that should be better for hobbyists.
gibspaulding 5y ago
A couple of other things my wife and I have picked up over the last few years for anyone starting out. 1. Mulch mulch mulch! It keeps weeds down and water in and will add organic matter to your soil as it breaks down. Your municipality probably makes tons of mulch from trimming trees and you can usually find somewhere to buy a truckload from them for a few dollars. We put down at least 3 pickup truck loads over the course of the first year in ~200 square feet of beds. Unless you are directly sowing seeds somewhere, you don't ever want bare soil showing. 2. If you have plants that seem diseased or have pests, rip them out or prune the affected parts off ASAP. We don't use pesticides or anything so the best way to keep pest populations down is to keep them from multiplying. Caterpillars become moths/butterflies that make many more caterpillars. If you eliminate the plant or leaves hosting them, they won't get that far. 3. The more you weed, the less you have to weed. This is the same idea as with pests. These things don't spontaneously generate, so every weed you pull up that doesn't go to seed first is one less seed in your soil waiting to pop up. If you keep on it, eventually the only weeds you have to worry about are ones that come over from your neighbor's overgrown beds!
oilbagz 5y ago
How's your compost? I've reached the point where thats my first question for every gardener I meet.
- rini17 5y ago
  Voracious, thanks :)

barbazoo 5y ago

Love it. I wish I could change the units to metric.

hrisng 5y ago
Yeah the biggest problem with horticulture resource online in English is that most of them are written within the US context. So everything is measured in imperial unit. And hardiness zone only take into consideration about the minimum temperature, and say nothing about heat tolerant. So if you're in tropical country or somewhere else with drastically different climate, you gonna have to go through a lot of trials and errors.
patrickk 5y ago
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/everything-metric-converter/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/everything-me...

mucholove 5y ago

Ooh! So fantastic. I just bought a wheelbarrow today and am planting guava, okra, in addition to the cacao and coffee I already got. If that sounds weird, it is because I am in Dominican Republic. The biggest challenge for me is finding information because most home gardening books are done for temperate climates and the DR is not exactly a great place for literature. If anybody has a good site, please do recommend! I look up Hawaii and Florida often and get OK results. :) The pro farmers in the neighborhood are helpful as well, but they don’t always have time and most of them have a plantain mono-crop. :)

souprock 5y ago
Being in Florida, your crops don't sound weird based on climate. Cacao and coffee look like a lot of trouble to process though, and I'm not sure how a person can stand to eat okra. You're missing out on coconut, jaboticaba, mango, dragonfruit, sweet potato, figs, rambutan, lychee, loquat, longan, avocado, jackfruit, and pineapple. Note that mango and avocado should be obtained as grafted plants because seeds usually create undesirable plants.
- dumpsterdiver 5y ago
  > I'm not sure how a person can stand to eat okra. Pickle it, and it’s a pretty great snack (popular here in Texas). https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yYey8ntlK_E https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yYey8ntlK_E
  - spijdar 5y ago
    It's also pretty tasty fried and salted, although its nutritional value goes out the window, so to speak...
- tasssko 5y ago
  Okra is very good if done right. https://youtu.be/GMnsdI0nO7s https://youtu.be/GMnsdI0nO7s
  - 5y ago

midhhhthrow 5y ago

If you’re new to gardening, I recommend tomatoes. They’re quite easy to grow as long as your timing is roughly right

jansan 5y ago
The probably easiest plants to grow for an absolute beginner may be salads like arugula or herbs like bazil and mint. If you have good soil and enough moisture, mint will be very difficult to stop from growing. Once I planted mint into a pot that I placed into the bed to separate it from the other herbs. It broke through the walls of the pot and gave me a great example of exponential growth.
- gibspaulding 5y ago
  One thing to keep in mind if your growing your greens outdoors is that they quickly get bitter when it is hot out. If you live somewhere that gets very hot in the summer you'll want to stick to the shoulder seasons for greens. Most can survive light frost, so you can start them quite early/late.
ultrasounder 5y ago
Bingo!. Cant recommend tomatoes enough. Roses too if You live in a sunny(vale)area. The combination of clay and sunshine just makes those Floribundas bloom. Its a pity I cant find enough patent free rose bushes. Its time to "free the seeds" in the spirit of FOSS. Perhaps sometime in the not too distopian future.
- drumttocs8 5y ago
  Anytime I see a plant with a label that says "propagation prohibited" I can't help but chuckle. Who's gonna stop me?
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    A lot of people could, in fact. And most of them are lawyers. As long as you don't resell it, you will fly under the radar most probably

markdown 5y ago

> Bok choy > Chinese cabbage In my part of the world, Bok Choi is just one type of chinese cabbage. Others are choi sum, napa cabbage, etc.

rektide 5y ago

Is this available as data anywhere?

cheesecake_luvr 5y ago

How do you deal with pests? I have had severe problems with spider mites, which cabbage moths and fungi. I dislike using chemical pesticides so much I am willing to give up gardening so as not to use them. And natural pesticides almost never work.

worik 5y ago
Part of the solution is pesticides. "Natural" pesticides do work. Pyrethrin is very powerful. Part is cultivating carnivorous insects. Keep cats away from your garden, they hunt and kill the carnivorous insects. Part is chemical deterrence. Dilute soapy water interferes with the life cycle of many pests. Garlic discourages lots of things. Part is companion planting. I have not had much luck with this myself, but better gardeners than me (most) swear by the technique. Be a bit vigilant. If a plant is being attacked, rip it out. Spray soapy water and/or garlic on your plants on a regular basis. Accept some defeats. You will not win every battle with the little evil creatures. But if you engage with them you will stay ahead enough to have a fabulous garden.
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  Put some garlic cloves in the ground. You can eat the garlic shoots and the smell discourages some of the bugs.
johnthedebs 5y ago
I've been gardening for a few years and have had some similar problems and learned a lot. I also really dislike using chemicals. Each problem calls for a different approach, and sometimes the approach can create problems :). With fungi - if you mean blight - I've been lucky enough not to have to deal with it. Try to keep plants healthy and leaves relatively dry. If you mean powdery mildew, I think it's a part of life to a certain degree and the best you can do is manage it. Try to keep leaves dry when watering, promote airflow around plants, and cut off old leaves that have a lot of mildew. They should still produce. If you mean fungus in the ground around plants, that's usually a good sign not a bad one. With cabbage moths, the most effective protection is some type of fine netting/horticulture fleece over the plants to keep the moths from laying eggs, or applying BT (bacillus thuringiensis) periodically. It's a natural pesticide (a bacteria) that's extremely effective against caterpillars. I use it, and it's great, though I'm hoping to use less this year because it likely affects other insects in their larval stages as well (thinking ladybugs and lacewings). With spider mites... sigh. The problem has seemed to get worse each year. This year I'm trying a more holistic and hands-off approach using compost exclusively (0 or very limited fertilizer use, even organic) to make sure plants are healthy enough to fight them off and produce despite their presence. Also covering soil with dense plantings and other smaller inter-crops to regulate soil temps, hold onto moisture, and encourage soil life. I'm also allowing a baseline population of them in some places (not that I've had a choice) to give predators a food supply so they'll move in and hopefully help keep things under control. The thinking here is a "soil-up" approach that focuses on soil, plant, and ecosystem health rather than simply attacking what may be a symptom of other problems I've created. Hope this is helpful!

jonstewart 5y ago

Cucumbers are pretty easy to grow and one plant can produce a lot of cucumbers. They’re great if you have kids who need daily vegetables. Highly recommend growing them up a fence or a trellis so the cukes don’t rot on the ground. They do require near daily watering when they’re producing.

worik 5y ago

I could not find cannabis in the flowers. Perhaps it is not a popular home gardening plant? Often the perfect plant, almost perfect...

a012 5y ago
I heard (cannabis isn't legal here) it's mostly identical with growing tomato, so ...

grawprog 5y ago

Pretty awesome. It'd be nice to see some design tips for vegetable gardens. Maybe things about companion plants and the best way to utilize space for maximum yield or something? Or possibly maybe even permaculture stuff, or designing edible flower and vegetable gardens that grow together. Their vegetable tips were nice and detailed, but their design stuff was all basic landscaping design stuff, i must admit, I was hoping to see maybe something about vegetable garden design.

brobdingnagians 5y ago

Does this come in book form? Or does someone have any good recommendations for good books that have this kind of format with a lot of different vegetables? Would love to hear recommendations for general gardening books too.

aphrax 5y ago
It meets your criteria in a loose sense but I’d recommend Modern Nature by Derek Jarman
- brobdingnagians 5y ago
  Thanks!

FooBarWidget 5y ago

One thing I have a hard time grasping is: how do you find out whether your soil quality is still good enough? How do you know when nutrients are depleted, and you need add fertilizer? How do you know when there is sufficient nutrients, and you shouldn't add fertilizer? Poeple just tell me "don't think too much about it, add fertilizer once in a while" but that to me feels lile flying blind. I don't have a garden, only a balcony with a few boxes of dirt. Gardening manuals seem to tell me to replace all dirt every year (or 2-3 years at most) in order to renew soil quality and get rid of diseases. That seems... increadibly wasteful? Are there no alternatives? Why do real gardens and farms not need to replace all their soil so often?

hvidgaard 5y ago
The short answer is experience. Buy some good quality soil and use it in your planters. Learn how the plants grow and thrive - if they slow growth or do not bloom as much it may be the weather or it may be because it's lacking nutrients. You can also simply give them some fertilizer. If it doesn't make much of a difference it was probably not needed. If possible you should renew your soil, not be replacing it, but by mixing it with good manure or even just a bunch of leaves. I have experience with manure from rabbits and horses - both can be directly mixed with the earth.
smhinsey 5y ago
There are some fairly simple steps that get overcomplicated due to companies selling products. 1) Figure out what you want to grow 2) Look up what kind of soil pH and what nutrients those plants need 3) Test your soil for pH and those nutrients, where possible 4) Amend the soil with fertilizer to correct measured imbalances A lot of it is trial and error, also. Take note of what you do and the outcomes and keep doing what works. There are so many local variables generalized advice can never hope to cover them all.
tom_mellior 5y ago
You can buy simple soil test kits that tell you about your soil's pH, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash levels. Then you know if/what to replenish. A university or lab near you may also offer a service where you send them a soil sample and you get a detailed report. Probably overkill for a balcony though.

jsmhard 5y ago

Antoher site I use to get garden information is https://www.jardineriaon.com/en/ https://www.jardineriaon.com/en/

shireboy 5y ago

Nice resource. I’ve been into gardening a few years but dove deep during COVID. I joke it’s not cheaper than a grocery store, but is cheaper than therapy. I’m trying to improve that by doing more from seed, using vertical techniques. One thing I think is helping this year is liquid kelp fertilizer.

thewizardofaus 5y ago

Gardening is a great relaxing hobby! I've done it on and off for the last several years. During COVID I grew 100kg/220lbs of tomatoes.

theshadowknows 5y ago

Ok my wife just got into gardening this week...this is great timing and a cool resource.

vharuck 5y ago

I just started a garden in the small dirt patch behind my condo. I'm trying to attract insects, so they attract larger predators, and end up with a garden that's fun to watch This site lists native wild flowers to each state: https://www.wildflower.org/plants/ https://www.wildflower.org/plants/. It also has basic info on characteristics, needs, and how to grow them. I used to rent a house that had a tiny crop plot and let it get weedy. My neighbor didn't like me for it, but my wife and I loved watching the birds and rabbits run around our yard. We even got a field mouse. I thought the reason it got out of control was because I hated gardening, but it's that I hate taking care of things I didn't pick. It's great seeing (some of) the flowers I planted really flourish.

oilbagz 5y ago

Gardening is one of those subjects that brings me as much joy and satisfaction as developing and shipping productive software to real customers. There is no greater feeling than to have fed ones family direct from the house garden, or to have raised ones children to understand and appreciate the rewards of cultivation of renewable resources, plants, in their own lives. Every single human being should have a plant that they take care of, regularly, and participate in its life. No matter if its an avocado pit growing in the window, or a field of leafy greens, the care of plant life is a very rewarding activity. We eat from our garden daily for 9 months of the year, and this year had the pleasure of seeing our last season's crop of mangold survive winter, rejuvenate, and provide us with ample harvest. Gardening is a lot like programming, though. If you don't take care of the base layers, you may find yourself with a broken framework and need to refactor. Just like programmers should know their compiler - gardeners should know their compost. The better the compost, the better the garden ..