Questions tagged [organic]
For questions about organic gardening or when an organic solution is required.
112 questions
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Will a plant eventually die if I keep it cut right back
There are a few plants / trees in my new garden that I don’t want. One for example is Cherry Laurel. I’ve cut them back to the stump but they keep sprouting new leaves. If I keep cutting them back, ...
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Create sprayable diaulte solution from concenrate of Eucalyptus sp oil intended for a "palm crown misting"
In Hawaii we are having a huge issue with this pest called a "rhino beetle" These beetles eat the heart of palms, eventually killing the palm completely. Soon Hawaii will have little or no ...
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Paving with asphalt where you grow food
I have a plot in an organic community garden, and the city had the bad idea of paving an area with asphalt to pile up the compost we receive. Plots are around that area.
With some other gardeners I'm ...
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What could these gelatinous deposits on organic Brussels sprouts be?
I recently purchased a full stem of Brussels sprouts grown without pesticides in Kanagawa, Japan. Upon preparing the sprouts for cooking, I noticed that many of the sprouts, from the lower part of the ...
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Is it true that you can't add too much natural fertiliser such as Fermented Plant Juice to a potting mix as opposed to synthetic fertiliser?
I have been making "fermented plant juice" (FPJ) as explained in Nigel Palmers book - The Regenerative Growers Guide to Garden Amendments. Basically, you mix plant material with sugar, 50/50 ...
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Baby bottle gourd falling off
Why baby bottle gourd is falling off from bottle gourd plant?
The green color baby bottle gourd turns yellow from green color and then falls off. Only 1% success I have. There are lots of flowers ...
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Inter-veinal chlorosis in AllMix and CootMix potting soil
The soil
Stage 1:
BioBizz AllMix with some additional Perlite. Around 50% as a total. AllMix is originally 30% perlite with mostly peat moss and some organic matter.
The containers were 2 gallon ...
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Dwarfing rootstock and bone meal
I have some fruit trees on dwarfing rootstocks. By the nature of the rootstocks they have a lesser overall root foundation than other trees. If I apply bone meal or other things that encourage ...
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Organic bottom for an elevated garden bed
I am about to build my first elevated bed out of untreated cedar. My goal is to keep it as toxin-free and organic as possible. I need it to drain properly as well.
On the very bottom, on top of the ...
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What's a balanced homemade fertilizer I can use in my house plants?
I have a garden with a composting pile and also plenty of indoor plants, everything organic. These indoor plants will need fertilizer on a regular basis. In order to avoid plastic consumption and the ...
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Small tiny white / amber mites running around the sides of the pot
I have found in my pots some kind of tiny white bug, kind of mite I think. They are very very small, like a grain of dust, and they do not seem to be on under the leaves or on the stalks. They do not ...
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How to treat lawn diseases (brown patch, leaf spot, melting) without fungicides?
Google tells me "stress your lawn", meaning cut the water for some time.
But wouldn't that hurt it even more, given we are in mid summer?
I live in Calgary, AB - Canada. Fungicides are a no-...
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Are synthetic fertilisers necessary in potting plants?
Is it possible to have healthy plants (edible ones) flourishing in pots without the use of synthetic fertilisers? I have concerns regarding fertilisers polluting nearby water sources/soil from ...
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How do you make conventional (non-organic) Okinawan sweet potatoes sprout?
Organic
I've got no trouble sprouting organic sweet potatoes. Just place them in a cup of water and put them in front of a window sill. Nearly every variety of sweet potato is available as organic for ...
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Imidacloprid treatment and best time to return Haworthias to my garden area
The scales (belonging to the family Coccoidea) have been feasting on my Haworthias for the last year. They were treated with more eco-friendly solutions, as I posted earlier, without success. In fact, ...
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Low cost, liquid acid fertilizer
I am growing strawberries which I read prefer acid soil to alkaline one. I also read that using water that were used for beans soaking is recommended as a fertilizer. Will using it make my soil more ...
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What's wrong with my cucumber?
brown water-soaked, and it starts from the top of cucumber leaves. I put them into a wet condition, but no symptoms of bacterial disease or fungal disease.
Really need help
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What's the best way to eliminate slugs on strawberries?
I am new to strawberries, but I have about 50 plants (maybe was too aggressive with my order)that have just started producing fruit. About one in five berries has a chunk missing - I'm assuming this ...
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Tomato leaves turning purple
I'm growing some organic tomatoes (mostly cherries), and noticed the other day that there were small purple spots forming on the leaves, and they are gradually turning purple and curling inwards. It ...
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Is this scale on my English ivy? How to prevent spreading to other outdoor and indoor plants ? Should I just uproot and throw them out?
I live in an apartment. I have a few climbing plants - English ivy, star jasmine and lonicera out on the balcony in the setup shown here.
Last year I got aphids on my outdoor plants - there were a ...
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To Line or Not To Line a raised bed's perimeter?
Novice gardeners here. Already feeling overwhelmed. So, I'm taking over hubby's raised bed. It gave us tomatoes over 3 years ago, since then its been sadly neglected. He lined the inside walls with ...
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How can I eliminate this large grass organically?
The pictured grass is growing in a paddy field which has been abandoned for several years. The leaf is in the background and the seed head in the foreground. A fully grown plant can be sized up to ...
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Root barrier suitable for organic vegetable garden
My neighbor has a line of tall arborvitaes next to my vegetable garden and I'm getting invaded by the roots. I think I need to install a root barrier. The products I see are generally reprocessed ...
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Should I tell my vineyard consultant to spray my fruit trees with the sulfur he sprays on the vineyard?
We have a very small (450 vines) pinot noir vineyard that we are raising organically.
My vineyard consultant has people spray the vines with sulfur a few times each season.
Last year, one of my ...
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Hyper soil carbon accumulator for backyards
I am curious, what people could do with a small piece of land like their home backyard (say originally it is a regular lawn smaller than 20m^2, in temperate continental climate (so pretty harsh)) to ...
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Please explain how leaving turf 1/8" longer equals 30% increase in leaf area
A number of eco-friendly turf management sources say something along the lines of
Increasing grass height only 1/8 inch adds about 300 square feet more
energy-collecting leaf surface for each 1,...
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Can crushed rapeseed be used instead of rapeseed meal as fertilizer?
Traditionally, the Japanese use rapeseed meal as fertilizer. This is a non-waste production, they extract oil from seeds and use the resulting meal as fertilizer. But I wondered: is it possible to use ...
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Can plants raised with hydro still be considered organic?
I have access to certified organic seeds. I want to raise the organic seeds in a soilless, hydroponic solution. I'm just wondering if I raise the plants like this would I be deceitful to market the ...
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How do I naturally or organically add iron supplements for my plants
From another question it looks like my avocado plants are deficient in iron. I'd like to explore and try natural/organic ways of supplementing iron. (I know organic is carbon and carbon compounds) So ...
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Using own hair and nail clippings as fertilizer?
There is a lot to hear about using horn shavings as ecological alternative to conventional fertilizer.
I was wondering - since my hair and nails are basically the same substance, could I use them in ...
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Is Vigoro Triple Mix safe for growing tomatoes?
I planted some kale and hot peppers in containers in my garden. A couple of days after filling out the containers I realized the soil I bought wasn't an organic soil, just a Triple Mix type, Vigoro ...
user26022
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Organic matter in organic fertilizer
Is organic matter (OM) in organic fertilizer important?
Is higher OM better than lower OM? For example: NPK 3:2:2 OM 71% better than NPK 3:2:2 OM 60%?
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does fruit tree absorb pesticide and fungicide from the root level and will persist inside the fruit it produce? (specifically lime and date trees)
The specific situation is where there are two trees -- one lime and another date tree plant among the grass in the backyard where the grass area will get sprayed with conventional pesticide and ...
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Options to kill/remove invasive buckthorn
I have a large number of mature buckthorn shrubs in my yard that were there when I purchased the property. This is classified as an invasive in North America. Not only is it problematic in terms of ...
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Organic lawn fertilizer available in the UK?
Lots of organic fertilizers on the market but very little information to help choose between them. Can anyone recommend a good one that is available in the UK. Read great things about Milorganite but ...
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Zucchini skin disease (holes)
For several years now the zucchini in my amateur garden have always failed in the same way. The fruits start to grow but stay in an arrested development state (their size never
goes beyond 12cm, the ...
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Questions from an organic lawn care beginner
My lawn was sodded last year during the summer and there was a drought, so this spring the bare spots have revealed themselves. I'm trying to figure out the best plan utilizing organic products.
...
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Definitions (criteria/requirements) of "organic" growing throughout the world [closed]
The US Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program has a set of regulations which determines if an agricultural production can be considered as "organic" or not:
205.200 General.
205.201 ...
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Why are some of my pumpkin plants wilting, and showing what looks like stem rot?
Up to this date we have had a healthy crop of about 500 flowering pumpkin plants, however, over the last 3 days we have lost maybe 20 of them. They will simply wilt over 24hrs and then die:
Closer ...
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What is happening to our potato plants? (going black, wilting)
We have a row of 3 different heirloom potato varieties, 50 originally, of which we've lost about 15 to a problem we'd like to identify.
The following photos show the start of the issue, through to a ...
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Organic Gardening: Best Practices
So this is a kind of open-ended question, if it's too broad I'll try to be more specific, or remove the post.
Do any of you have good resources for information on organically growing peppers?
Do you ...
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Amend soil with wood chips - is there anything to be aware of?
I plan to amend the soil with wood chips by tilling them up to 40cm into the soil(should I go depper?) , going heavy on nitrogen fertilizer and planting alfalfa while decomposition takes place. I did ...
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What is mushroom compost, exactly?
I just bought 25L of a product labelled:
Organic Mushroom Compost.
I know what I'm going to use it for, but am curious about the name.
Today alone, I've read (and been given/told) at least 3 ...
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What is this ladybug-like insect that is damaging my kale, and how can I control it?
This insect has seriously damaged my kale, and almost killed my brussel sprouts in less than a week. What is it, and how can I control it. My garden is organic, so a non-chemical solution is ...
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Is manure from farm animals acceptable for organic gardening?
I've done a little brainstorming about organic gardening, and came to conclusion that your garden stops being organic the moment you add manure in it.
I am not some animal protector enthusiast or ...
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Will a low growing cover crop work under tomatoes or other nightshades?
I'm curious if anyone has had any luck with planting a cover crop like clover under tomato/eggplant/pepper plants... I garden organically and have issues with early/late blight that always takes out ...
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Can Nicotiana alata be used as an aphid "honeypot"?
I have a problem with aphids. Some of my plants are too weakened to be sprayed with a high-velocity hose to knock them off, and I really don't have the time to keep spraying with various insecticides,...
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Planting non organically grown plants in organic garden
I have some raised beds that I use for vegetable gardening. I don't put any fertilizers or pesticides and I grow all vegetables from seeds. Lately I have been thinking of purchasing young vegetable ...
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Organic mulch for raised bed
I have 3 raised beds in my backyard where I am growing vegetables (tomatoes, bell peppers, etc). Right now, I don't have any mulch covering the soil but am thinking that would be a good thing to do ...
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Diatomaceous earth: food grade or not?
I have been told that Diatomaceous earth will help with the many slugs that enjoy the buffet that is my garden, since the micro-fossils irritate their slimy bodies. But will it help with other insects ...
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