Squirrels are taking a few but I think the thorns are doing their job. 3rd year for this bush if I remember right.

When one of my lettuce plants started wilting, I pulled on it and found I could just pull it straight out of the soil with no resistance. On the roots, I found these maggots. (You may need enlarge the picture a bit.)

Does anybody know what these are?

How likely is it that those are why the lettuce started dying?

Can they spread to other nearby potted plants?

What can you do against these?

Some are growing! Hoping for no end rot this year!

I've been gardening for several years now and I rediscovered my obcession with chilli peppers this year after discovering the Chinese 5 Colors dual purpose pepper.

Besides these, I have a few jalapeno plants and a non-descript variety I bought at the supermarket, already potted and well developed, as I was not getting any seeds starting. The newcomer must have generated a jealousy crisis because every seed I had commited to the ground decided to pop up.

I want to store seeds for next year but I don't intend to have more than one variety at a time growing, so I need to at least store and keep seeds healthy for two years.

It's not a nutrient issue, I tested the pH and EC.

I also doubt it's dehydration or suffocation, because it's in an optimal hydroponic environment.

So, there's only three options left I guess.

Option 1: wind damage.
It was quite stormy about one or two weeks ago. Maybe it got root damage (unlikely, small plant), or it bend too much?

Option 2: temperature fluctuations.
At the same time of the storm, the night temperatures dropped quite a bit (lowest: 12°C). And now, it raised to 40°C just a few days after.
Or,

Option 3: sunburn.
It's under a shaded cloth, and gets direct sun only at afternoon, if at all.
All other plants (e.g. pepino) do very well and have no light stress.

Or is it something different?

It also lost a few pollinated buds. Is that a very bad sign?

New growth this week has appeared wrinkled as well.

Cross post from ![email protected]

I made a guide on how to pre-treat coco coir to avoid nutrient lockout or toxicity issues.

One of my favourite things about summer is making "Gubbröra" with my own vegetables 😁 I'm not sure how to translate "Gubbröra" so I'm taking suggestions....

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

#GrowYourOwn #OC
#FreeFood #Free #Food
#SelfSufficient #Urban #Garden #Gardening
#Bokashi #Compost
#April #Southern #Finland

P.S If you haven't tried the vegetarian caviar callled Cavi-Art, you're missing out!

Southern Wisconsin

So I just read a couple months ago that you can reuse a pineapple top to grow a pineapple plant. I'm attempting to do this myself at home and I started rooting it in water on May 9th. It's looking ready to be transferred to soil in a pot. I've got the clay pot, I have soil, I bought a pH tester for water and soil to make sure the pH levels are on point. How often should I be watering starting out and also when should I be fertilizing? I'm growing indoors with a grow light in a controlled temperature climate.

Any steps I can take or missed that I should do, tell me what's up.

Update 6/17/2026:

I potted the rooted pineapple crown in soil. I'll keep posting more updates here as I patiently wait for my plant to grow me a fruit.

Leaving aphids alone to help encourage a crop of ladybugs for the future.

Moss gardens (balcony)

I had to cat proof my balcony, and for that, I filled containers with cement and put a rod into them. They are solid 3/4 and had about 10 cm air space.

I initially put stones in them, but they always filled up with rain water and were a breeding ground for algae and mosquitoes.

They used to look like this:

Then, I decided to do something more useful and less labour intensive with them.

I put lots of leftover hydro substrate in them, mostly LECA, lava rock, pumice, zeolith, and so on, as well as a small net cup as filter, to pump out the water in case it's needed.

Most were left as is, with no organic layer on top.

Then, I went outside and collected all different kinds of mosses I could find. Only small patches of course, both for sustainability and the sake of the experiment.

The goal is to establish a living, organic top surface, and a very airy moist environment below with lots of air gaps, where puddled up water from below gets drawn up and evaporates.

All pots do have different environments. Some are in bright sun all day, some very shaded. Some get fertilizer leeched in from flower pots above, some are very nutrient poor.

This means, quite a lot of species lost the "natural" selection game and got outcompeted or died, while others thrive in this environment and cover big areas.

They are all getting drained from time to time to prevent nutrient buildup, or in case the cement below leeches out. In dry times, they get a small shower with RO water, especially my bog pots.

How they look now, after about a year

Here's the first one. Very bright light and quite nutrient dense. 100% inorganic substrate.
I put a bit of osmocote in it, and it stays relatively dry.

There are lots if "weeds"/ grasses in it, which have formed a dense sheet of rhizomes and roots. I trim the grass from time to time.

Second one. 100% inorganic substrate, very bright, very nutrient poor.

I put some "random" moss, as well as living sphagnum in it. There's also a sarracenia in there, but it's not looking very happy.

My goal was to simulate the natural formation of bogs. In theory, the sphagnum moss will acidify the environment extremely, which makes it inhospitable for most other mosses and plants.

Initially, the random moss got a great jump start from the decomposing other mosses around, releasing nutrients. It covered most of it.

But it seems like, due to the constant flooding and lack of nutrients, that the sphagnum now strikes back and takes its place.

The third one is the exact same as the one before, but a bit drier maybe.

It took lots of living sphagnum to decompose itself and turn the habitat livable for other living sphagnum. I also put a sarracenia in there last year, but it sadly died. There's also a hand full of (used) peat on top to give the spagnum a jump start.

Then, the fourth one. This one is very shaded and nutrient rich. It gets lots of synthetic fertiliser by surrounding plants leaching into it.

It's very similar to a forest environment.

Here's my newest one. It has got a base layer of lava rock, followed by coco coir, and finished with some used peat I got from a fellow gardener. It's somewhat flooded most of the time and is a 100% bog environment (very bright, acidic, nutrient poor).

I put the sphagnum and sarracenia into it about two months ago, and they're already thriving!

Then, there's my Drosera binata. Peat as substrate, and some freshly planted sphagnum as top layer.

And the final one. Shallow bowl, filled with a few cm of LECA, nothing else, and quite a lot of living sphagnum. There's a venus flytrap and a Drosera rotundifolia in it, as well as some seeds (either weeds, or carnivorous plants).

After that one or two years, the moss garden transformed my "sterile" balcony into an oasis for life. It's like living in a forest!

There are SO many critters in there. Beetles, arthropods, springtails, nematodes, snails, you name it.

Indoor Sphagnum cultivation

I'm also growing some sphagnum indoors for further use.

The outdoor stuff in the bog containers is mainly for habitat formation and contaminated with weeds and bugs.

Right now, the amount harvested is insufficient. I mostly use it for making even more sphagnum 😅 You can easily propagate it by sprinkling small chunks on other substrate.

It took a while for me to get the hang of it. I've killed lots if it, mostly by overfertilizing or letting it dry out too much.

But now, it grows very fast and I already got my first harvest.

Some of it uses a few cm of LECA as substrate, and others have peat as base layer. I noticed that peat works way better, mostly due to the inherent low pH and nutrient buffering capabilities.

I'm also testing coco coir as a substitute for peat right now.

The moss is in plastic deli containers without drainage inside my grow tent. I'm growing weed there, and the boxes get lots of very bright light because of that.

They are getting flooded regularly and are then allowed to dry out a bit. Sometimes, I add a splash of hydroponic fertilizer to them when flooded. This makes it grow extremely quickly.

As soon as I notice the moss is getting too dark green, I flush it and stop fertilizing for a while. If I don't do this, it will get nutrient burn as soon as it dries out a bit and die.

Here you can see different shades of green:

My goal is to get regular big amounts for harvest. I wanna use it as a sustainable replacement for peat, because many carnivorous plants NEED those specific conditions to survive.

It's also very decay resistant and holds on to water like a sponge. I could use it for propagation, e.g. cuttings or air layering. It has so many uses!

I also have some growing in front of my window in a glass vase. It started with a few cm of LECA and now colonized the whole jar. I use it in this case as substrate for my Nepenthes and Drosera.

I'm thinking about buying a few fabric pots and would like to hear some user experiences.

But my main concern is sustainability.

Does anyone have experience using them outside at harsh conditions, e.g. UV radiation, freezing temperatures, all year around?

1. Can you wash them in the washing machine? Are they hard to clean?
2. How well do they work for perennial plants in winter? They are pretty airy after all, does this insulate the cold, or makes it even more destructive for the hibernating roots?
3. How long do they last under those conditions? Will they disintegrate after some time and shed microplastics?
4. Do they dry out significantly faster than regular pots? How is the water consumption?
5. When using coco coir, should I use less perlite?

Thanks a lot!

My basil plants are thriving too much.

This is my thai basil:

And in the same pot lemon basil:

I've topped them quite a lot, as you can see in the bushy growth pattern.

They already started flowering months ago, even before I put them into the big pot. I read online that you just have to snip them off, and done.

But there are basically only flowers coming, and I don't want them to waste all their power into developing seeds.

Is this normal and just a part of their lives when they reach a certain size?

I haven't had a deep dive in chilis (or paprika) yet. I've got a bit of experience, but my knowledge is still lacking.

This is why I'm asking you chili/ pepper nerds out there to fill my knowledge gaps :)

I've noticed that, of course, not only the fruits look and taste different.

The vegetative growth type is different too. The leaves are different sized/ shaped, some plants are compact bushes, some others are tall and leggy.

Just look at those. Thai chili (Capsicum annuum) left, Habañero (C. chinense) right. I topped them both at least once a while ago to initiate more node formation if that information helps.

That doesn't wonder me much at all, since they're different species.

On the plant label, same supplier and same label, it was said that one has a high, and the other a moderate water need for example.

My question is now: do different varieties (species, hybrids and breeds) have different needs in general? Light level, temperature, water usage, pruning, and so on?

Is there something I have to keep in mind when I look at the lineage of each? They probably come from different habitats after all, how does that translate to gardening conditions? Or, do I just treat them all the same?

How about overwintering? At the end of the season, I'd like to put them at an unheated greenhouse. It shouldn't freeze there I guess, but it will be really really cold. Like, just a bit above freezing. Would they survive in there? Pro: very bright, cold temps inhibit growth Con: could sometimes be very cold.

Or would a dark corridor at roughly room temperature be better? Pro: relatively warm Con: warm temperature and lack of light wouldn't stop growth and it might die a slow painful death due to lack of energy.

Should they get pruned before?

Transplanted my tomatoes into 7-gallon grow bags on Sunday of last week (8 days ago).

• DIY potting mix w/ approximately equal parts store bought garden soil, peat/coco mix, and compost, w/ a few handfuls of perlite and a touch of granulated all purpose fertilizer mixed in.
• Mid-Atlantic region of the US (zone 7). They currently sit on my back porch, which faces northeast and gets about 4 hours of direct sunlight per day before they're in the shade. Weather has been mostly sunny w/ highs in the upper 80s to lower 90s.
• I watered them right after transplanting plus two more times since then (no fertilizer, just straight from the tap or hose), so about every third day.

Is this transplant shock or do I have some other problem? I've tried following this guide (Why Your Tomato Leaves Have Brown Tips), but since the brown tips affect all the leaves (oldest and youngest), I'm unsure of the most likely issue, so in the absence of a clear indicator I'll likely just keep doing what I'm doing and hope for the best.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Clarified some things and fixed a few typos.

Why solarpunk?

Solarpunk has many aspects, including technology. We want to use refreshingly simple tech solutions to make our lives better.

Sure, you could just use a dripping line, plug it into the hose, and add a watering computer/ timer/ smart home. That's what many commercial solutions offer.

But it also has its disadvantages.

• Dependence on water and electricity grid. You often don't have that conveniently nearby, or even at all in many cases.
• You have to use tap water. In many places, it includes very harmful stuff for plants (chlorine, etc.), and in most places moderately harmful stuff (alkaline minerals, causing nutrient lockout). You also can't use collected rain water.
• More expensive and less modular. Can break.
• No moisture metering. It just blindly pumps water into the dirt, resulting in too much or not enough irrigation.

The methods I show you now are low-tech and "just work", even off-grid!

Why automatic irrigation?

"Why even start automatic irrigation in the first place? What are the pros?"

Using the watering can or garden hose is intuitive and quick. At first. But if you have to water a lot, it adds up. In summer, you often have to water twice a day, and that can be backbreaking work if you have to do it in a greenhouse for example with lots of thirsty plants.

Automatic watering also saves you lots of water. You'll only need 1/3 compared to surface watering. That's especially handy if you have limited access to collected rain water. Regular watering is more wasteful, because the surface moisture doesn't add much value and evaporates quickly. Automatic irrigation on the other hand gives it directly to the roots where it's needed the most. The surface stays relatively dry.

This also makes the life of weeds harder. They can't sprout or grow much when the surroundings are dry.

And, it can reduce pests like fungal infections, because the leaves don't get wet and no spores are released into the air. Tomatoes and melons for example benefit from this.

Now, that you're hopefully convinced, let's see what options we have :)

Oyas and other terracotta stuff

Oyas have already been around for thousands of years. It's a pot made out of unglazed terracotta that gets buried in the ground. You fill it up with water, and it gets drawn out slowly by surrounding soil.

The drawing action is dependent on surrounding moisture. If the soil is dry as heck, the oya will be sucked out in days. If it's moist enough, it can last over a week sometimes.

A "modern" version of this are cones with wine bottles.

Sadly, the terracotta is not frost resistant and will break in winter if you don't dig it up again before.

The moisture radius is also quite small, particularly the bottle cones.

But especially in pots this works very well!

Wicks

Include a wick (polyester) into the pot and suspend it above water. It will draw it up and supply the substrate with the correct moisture.

Blumat dripper

The moisture isn't released by the cone itself. It only checks the surrounding soil moisture. When the substrate dries up, the internal pressure changes and a valve opens, the tube starts dripping. As soon as the surroundings are moist enough, it closes again.

You connect it to a water tank suspended slightly above the soil line, and physics does the job.

The main advantage is that there's no cap on how much water it can release. This makes it ideal for open setups without containers, like a greenhouse or bushes.

Going fully hydro

The above solutions are mainly meant for gardening soil (or similar substrates).

But what, if you don't even need soil? Let's go fucking hydroponic!

As I try to teach in ![email protected], hydro doesn't need to be complicated. It can be as simple, passive and robust as you want!

Here I use old glass bottles to grow lettuce and basil Kratky style:

I already made a post about that topic.

I don't need to refill it up to the first 2 months, and after that, about weekly or so.

I also have many plants in coco coir, which is also a hydroponic medium. It can store absurd amounts of nutrient solution, and thanks to the added perlite I can't get root rot. I only need to water it every few days, using bottom watering. Quick and simple.

I also love "Semi-Hydro", where I use LECA (expaned clay pebbles) as a substrate, which is partially submerged in nutrient solution. The moisture is drawn up via capillary action, resulting in a perfect mix of ideal moisture and extreme aeration. I use it on my ~100 houseplants and a few other ones.

And, last but not least, my solar dripper.

Based on Semi-Hydro, it holds 40 l LECA, 15 l reservoir, and a small cheap pump powered by a solar panel, recirculating the nutrient solution.

This creates an environment only comparable to aeroponics, but more simple and robust, proven successful by years of harsh outdoor conditions.

The growth and vigor is just insane!

Full post on ![email protected]: https://slrpnk.net/post/38667023

This is my second year trying to grow tomatoes on my balcony. Last year went alright but had some end rot on my romas. This year all 3 of my tomatoes have leaves that are turning brown like this. Can anyone tell what would cause it?