Nature and Gardening

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[Image description: a three-panel meme with text. The first panel shows a person marked "caterpillars" asking "Hey, why'd you plant all these native plants for us?" In the second panel the person marked "me" replies "I want to feed the baby birds". The third panel has no text but shows the person marked "caterpillars" looking at me with surprise and alarm.]

This climbing aloe has been in its pot for a couple of years. It lives inside during the cooler months and outside in the sun during the warm ones. It had a trellis until today when I removed it due to the plant not really climbing the trellis.

I'm thinking a couple things to improve the situation here:

1. Repot it into something broader but not as deep, unless the roots are that deep.
2. Perhaps a bit better drainage.
3. A trellis that's closer to the plants height, can handle the weight, and isn't 6 feet tall.

What's your rating? Thoughts on how to improve this situation?

My chili has parasites, the soft white blob ones, how do I remove them

Have never seen those bugs before. A whole bunch of them on our only tomato surviver this year.

This is in Austria, if that helps.

Thanks!!

Hey folks, I gave my presentation at our town library last night and had promised to share some links with you all, so here they are:

A link to the .pptx file can be found here (non google link)

A link to the google slides page can be found here

A link to the youtube video for anyone who wants to hear me speak can be found here, runtime is 33 and a half minutes. I've been experiencing trouble getting alternate links for you all so if someone has a suggestion I'm happy to edit and provide one.

All pots, there is paving under the plants.

There's so much to do this time of year that the days are a blur! But my garlic is all planted out now, and I'm working on seed collecting as well. I've got my propagation presentation this Monday, sadly light on the memes so far (but working on it, if anyone has asexual-plant-reproduction-adjacent memery to offer).

What's growing on with you all?

[Image description: a four panel meme of fictional character Poison Ivy dancing, science-ing, and smiling with a beaker in hand. In the middle of the image is text that reads "POV: When I successfully propagate those expensive cuttings"]

[Image description: a half-inch long caterpillar takes a break and enjoys the breeze on the tip of my big toe]

It looks similar to Galgula partita, the Wedgling Moth (at least to me)

Two different webs very close together. I like to imagine they'd chat about their days of they could!

This past week has been a bit of a blur trying to grow a little Juniper, most of my time in the garden has been observation rather than interaction.

What's growing on with you all? I hope your gardens are bringing you joy

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/25361855

Another gardening lesson in not giving up: The progression of pictures here are 3 of the same plant, a Trepadeira Werner pepper, taken over the course of this year.

1st pic: I grew them from seed indoors and a few days after putting them out in early April, I found the local deer had visited and eaten the plant down to the stem. I considered it a loss but didn't deal with it or pull the plant up. I just walked away, then went out of town for a bit the next day.

2nd Pic: When I came back into town it had new leaves so I figured I'd let it try again for kicks. It had fallen over under its weight so I staked it up. I did try a few things to keep the deer away, I think with moderate success.

3rd Pic is from last week. I see some evidence of deer nibbling but I believe the heat of the pepper may be keeping them away from it now. I'm still blown away remembering this thing when it was eaten to the stem.

So i have a problem with slugs in the garden. They eat everything, and every night i cut around fifty slugs, to prevent thoese to get eggs and make more slugs . BUT, i see the same slugs i cut in half in the compost heap, and doing a great job,getting our waste in the best dirt for the garden. What would you do? Still cut those,or just leave them?

I saw a few trees beginning to change color and senesce on the drive home the other day and had a hard time believing it's already September. How have your gardens done this summer, and what are you looking forward to this autumn? What sorts of cool fall flowers or foliage are on their way for you? What's growing on with you all?

[Image description: a two panel meme. In the top panel, a person labeled "my customers" asks the question "how do I keep bugs off my plants?" In the bottom panel, a person labeled "me, a native plant nursery owner" says "that's the neat part, you don't"]

My family is visiting for the week, so I have an extra outlet for all these squashes and zucchini. One of our pumpkins is going haam and I'm excited for those to start ripening.

What's growing on with you all?

[Image description: eight raspberry cuttings showing the stages of root development at their growth tips, with the leftmost cutting showing almost no root and progressing to the rightmost which shows a cluster of roots and upward growing leaves]

I'm giving a talk next month about reproducing plants asexually and am working on images for the slide deck. Figured I may as well share some of the images here too as it might help some folks who are interested in doing this. Questions and feedback are encouraged and appreciated, they'll help to make the presentation even more informative.

I harvested a dozen Hungarian Wax peppers this morning and that one (!) plant can now stand under its own weight again. We have a whole slew of tomatoes currently ripening on the vine so hopefully I can make some sauces and salsa this week. We got a food processor recently and I'm dying to try out more modes.

The bees are going crazy in one of our self seeding salad patches. We have four of these now, though two are newer and were planted later to stagger the harvest schedules and provide fresh greens for longer.

Here's a view of the permanent raised bed near the northern boundary of our property. Native Echinacea (purple coneflower) is growing next to a native Rudbeckia (the yellow coneflowers), with black elder, bee balm, and others growing in the background. To the right is the only patch of grass I mow with any regularity, as it's a shared boundary with our neighbor and their kids have been a little too helpful with the mower in the past.

Speaking of seeds, we have a whole bunch of seeds forming on New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus americanus and also my favorite plant) planted all over the place. These plants have a mechanism for seed dispersal that creates pressure behind the seeds as they ripen, which then releases and jettisons the seeds with force. It can be difficult to time seed collection with this kind of adaptation, but luckily a neighbor has some tulle she's looking to offload so I'll be making some small pouches to tie around the seed heads. I collected a ton of seeds from our Russian sages yesterday as well, but those are much easier to time - the flowers will brown and dry, at which point you can gently shake the seeds out into a container.

What's growing on with you all?