Gardening

Corn is finally peeking out, but something has been digging it up and chomping seedlings, too. I shotgunned it, so I can afford the losses. More stuff in a comment to follow

So I've got this Monstera plant thats been with us for a while but recently got attacked by these tiny tiny black insects that keep eating the leaves. I've actively tried to get rid of them as well as screening this plant away from the rest, but the insects seem to always come back. I've just read that it's possible to spray the plant gently with soappy water to help get rid of them, so I've just tried that - hoping to see better results. The uther leaves are more or less OK, but have some damage too. But what do I do with this leaf that's basically half gone? Does one cut of just the leaf part? The whole stem? What's the best thing to do in this scenario?

Appreciate any pointers 💚

Hello!

My wife and I just put in a ton of hardwork getting our gardens renewed, only to find something has immediately started to eat the seedlings we planted.

Can anyone help us identify this plant eater? Looks like a tiny isopod/pillbug to me.

We live in southern Ontario, Canada.

Lots of peas, few different bean options, lots of carrots, some radishes, lettuces, assortment of flowers.

Nothing too fancy, just lots of options to see what works and what doesn’t.

They aren’t going in yet, hopefully slowly over the next week, still need to harden off my starts, but didn’t want to be left with nothing for options either.

Wife and kids picked most of the flowers so don’t know all of what they are, but I got a few tomatoe plants, a few pepper plants, a couple squashes and a few other random pickings.

I also got a bunch of seeds too!

Having never owned a house or really had a yard of my own, I got pretty excited and decided to do some ad-hoc landscaping. Built some raised beds for vegetables, and just laying in some organic shaped in-ground beds for low water decorative plants. Gonna fill the rest in with gravel. Any pointers?

Daikon goes boom. Pak choi is on the way up with it. Gotta solve my soil issues before I put these down. Speaking of soil issues, I probably gotta start over on my squash bed. Nothing looks too happy in there and instead of watching it die a slow death, I'm just gonna direct sow everything after I get some amendments in with it.

In the mean time, I'm just watching these guys revive some hope for a summer harvest

Do to a busy life (both good and bad stuff) I had a bit of a late start planting and sowing seeds indoors.

But today cut the grass (which was knee high 😅) and planted a courget plant. Some weeding in the beds (I did it weekly luckily) and looks much nicer.

Tomorrow or Monday the tomatoes and cucumbers will be planted. After that most seeds I have can be direct sow from now on.

Both pots were started at the same time from the same batch of strawberry starts. They should have the same soil box. Both grew vigorously last spring/summer and got visited by deer in the fall. Both bounced back pretty well before winter set in. The left pot is very happy, the right... Not so much. I do recall the big pot having quite a bit of wilted leaf cover all winter, but don't think that was the case for the pot on the right. Maybe I didn't notice a late in the season deer visit that set the small pot back? Maybe the smaller pot got just enough colder than the big pot to kill some roots? Any other theories?

Bleeding hearts, Solomon's seal, and lilacs

I got sick a week and a half ago, so things got a little messy. We're back on schedule, tho. Kale has been the hero this season. Couple broccoli doing what I ask. Slugs got all my first round peppers, so on my back foot there.

Herbs need to be moved out into the sun and a new round of starts there. Tomatoes in the ground, started a bunch of tubers (daikon, french breakfast radish, and beets). All of my pak choi is ded, which makes me worry for the ten million carrots I have coming up. Started like, 30 pak choi to make up for it (get em young, cut em in half and roast em with salt and pepper, finish with Lao Gan Ma. One of my favorite veggies).

Garlic and onions coming along, taters growing, put down some corn and spinach yesterday. Been having hard luck with the spinach. Had an unidentified rodent living in that bed picking off my seedlings as they sprouted. Took the cover off and let the ferals deal with it, so here we are again on a fourth round of direct sow and I STILL AIN'T GOT NO SPINACH.

Oh, I put some watermelon down, too. Makes an awesome cover along my walkway and the ferals love to hide in it. Also, watermelons, I guess.

Squash arch is archin, but I worry about my soil out there. Same mix I used for the hugel and the new beds and I'm having problems. Shouldn't have rushed to get them done, but hey, that's my problem now.

Additional info in comments.

Thanks for the advice, everyone! My legacy blueberry plant is going strong, and my sunshine one isn’t far behind! I can’t wait to pick them, how will I know when they’re ready? I imagine they’ll need to darken in color a little bit and shed the little brown flower petal bits, right?

Me I just got done mine, snow and rain made it a little too wet to do fully, but I dealt with it.

Once the snow is melted (I get a few chances during the winter at least) I’ll clean up all the land mines from the dog, I’ll then give it a light rake to clean up the leaves and some of the dead grass.

Once I’ve done a light rake I’ll run the lawn mower over it at the highest setting, then the lowest setting. I grab a leaf rake and give it a good rake, I used to power rake, looking at getting a detatcher machine/rake next year. I aerated with a manual tool last year so skipped this year.

Once it’s gotten a good deep rake I will then give it a blow with the leaf blower before mowing at the lowest setting to clean it all up. After that I overseed with some white clover (only started last year) and regular grass seed. Then give a her a soak, in three weeks I’ll follow up with a fertilizer.

Previous post for the reminder

And no still not planting outside for 2 more weeks likely. Look at those night time lows.

Grown from seed, 20 litre paint bucket for scale.

I had a customer come into my garden center today and ask for "those mini sweet peppers. you know, the ones grocery stores sell". I have no idea what those peppers are. I suggested a sweet pimento, but they wanted the grocery store was selling.

I linked to what I think the person was talking about.

1.3 yards to fill the entire 3’x40’ flower bed. Cedar mulch.

Saw a bunch of these crop up in our front yard and they look so delicate! I guess they came with the house and I hadn't noticed them before.