We're Gardening Again! Is Anyone Else Into Gardening?

[t2van]

I walked out to the backyard yesterday to this travesty.

Sweet potato hornworms. I forgot how much of a pest they are around here. They ate our tomato plants. We're going to just set up a greenhouse and try again.

Pricks.

Ouch thats a loss and a half to the crop!

Given the bucks you will be stuck interplanting basil to keep them away. You can do a spray of washing up liquid and water to help remove them and or keep them off the plant totally. You can try neem oil mixed with water as well.

Or a general plant spray cayenne pepper, garlic, and dish soap, mixed with water spraying the plant will keep them at bay. Id pick off any you see on the tomato plant check the underside of leafs the works and then spray the entire plant and keep at it. The tom and pepper with leafs MIGHT make it.


You can also if your happy enough to do so is pick them off and cut them in half drop them in the garden next to the plant pots to train birds to come and check the plants out for food. It will take a season or two to train them up BUT don't do this if you are growing berries or fresh fruit (strawberries etc) as they will strip those and you have another problem.



Of course for next year you could build a netted enclosure with fine mesh to help keep them out as well.

Joys of gardening

 

[Zwielicht]

Ouch thats a loss and a half to the crop!

Given the bucks you will be stuck interplanting basil to keep them away. You can do a spray of washing up liquid and water to help remove them and or keep them off the plant totally. You can try neem oil mixed with water as well.

Or a general plant spray cayenne pepper, garlic, and dish soap, mixed with water spraying the plant will keep them at bay. Id pick off any you see on the tomato plant check the underside of leafs the works and then spray the entire plant and keep at it. The tom and pepper with leafs MIGHT make it.


You can also if your happy enough to do so is pick them off and cut them in half drop them in the garden next to the plant pots to train birds to come and check the plants out for food. It will take a season or two to train them up BUT don't do this if you are growing berries or fresh fruit (strawberries etc) as they will strip those and you have another problem.



Of course for next year you could build a netted enclosure with fine mesh to help keep them out as well.

Joys of gardening

When I had my potato plant in 2013, they infested it and I had to go out there each day and removed them from the plant.

Pink-spotted hawk moths are annoying because to my lay eggs on the underside of the leaves, so even when I removed them, more were hatch soon after.

I have to give neem oil a try. I have some netting in a roll I can use to build an enclosure, so I’ll most likely set that up in the backyard.

I like that advice about training birds to come and check the area. We have a lot of birds that hang out in a tree next next to our house, so I’ll consider that as well.

 

[t2van]

When I had my potato plant in 2013, they infested it and I had to go out there each day and removed them from the plant.

Pink-spotted hawk moths are annoying because to my lay eggs on the underside of the leaves, so even when I removed them, more were hatch soon after.

I have to give neem oil a try. I have some netting in a roll I can use to build an enclosure, so I’ll most likely set that up in the backyard.

I like that advice about training birds to come and check the area. We have a lot of birds that hang out in a tree next next to our house, so I’ll consider that as well.

Netting you need to make sure its a fine mesh as the moths will land on anything they can drop eggs in and almost guide bomb the eggs to plants. Little bustards they are.

As for neem oil mix it 50-50 and spray the plant underside and all. They cant lay eggs as nothing will stick and if anything is alive on there it kills them off due to the oil. Totally harmless but well worth it.

Our biggest thing here is cabbage white get 10,000s of caterpillars but nothing that size lol

 

[MisterF]

We have 5 orange trees and a nespiro tree, all produce fruit. I also have a chilli plant and I'm looking at getting some more with different types of chillies.

We were going to get 4 or 5 more fruit tress this spring, but never got around to it, so next Spring it will probably be.
Looking at getting pear, apple, might try banana tree. Not sure what else, but I'd like to try water melons and melons....

Don't want lemons or limes, as there are hundreds of acres of these around here. Fig is tempting, but the branches sting and burn, if you don't know what you're doing.

Soph is also talking about doing strawberries, peppers and onions again, which we did the other year. I'll see if she fancies redoing the small herb garden we also had.


We got another 5 chickens last week, so they're now mixing with the other 5, so hopefully more eggs soon.

Ducks are next on the list, Indian Runner Ducks, if we can source them here in Spain.

 

[polecat]

If you want something simple to grow I got wild raspberry and wild blackberrys all grow without me doing anything and inspects don't eat much of them plus grow pretty fast so even if they do can easy plant fresh ones the next day or so