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With plants, you would be doing yourself a disservice.
The average potted plant takes up moisture (water, salts and other substances from the soil) from the soil with their roots and a significant part of this water is expelled by the leaves and evaporates. In short, the plant acts like a humidifier. This is why we water our plants.
How much water a plant ...
14
Provided that you are feeding the soil/plants the macro and micro nutrients they need there shouldn't be an issue. Epsom salt (1tbsp/gallon) every now and then helps with some of the micro nutrients.
Minerals for your plants can be supplemented via plant food, rock dust, azomite or greensand if needed or through the soil/potting mix of the plants unless ...
12
I'm revising my answer again, but this time with an opinion based on my observations of peppers (not bell types specifically):
My opinion is that they'll continue to live as long as they're healthy and pruned. If they're in a small container and not pruned, they might die after they produce ripe fruit the first or second time, but if you prune them ...
12
This is the Prayer plant (Maranta leuconeura), named because the way the leaves fold up at night is reminiscent of hands held together in prayer. This particular plant is M. leuconeura var. erythroneura, which has the prominent red veins and white spine on the leaves shown in your photographs.
Care tips:
They're native to the tropics so they don't like ...
12
The aloe is not growing in that medium. Sugar dissolves, rice and coffee decompose, when exposed to the conditions required for a healthy root zone. They would sour and kill the plant roots. Not suitable at all for growing plants in. It's either temporary, or someone doesn't know what they're doing, or the plant is in an inside pot.
What you could do, if ...
11
My summary of the various information sources would go something like:
Light outside the range 400 to 700 nm is less useful.
As all the light shown below is in the 400-700 range you are not spoilt for choice.
.
All light in the range is useful but
that in the middle may be somewhat less so
that at the right hand end may perhaps be slightly more so
...
10
Moss on an indoor pot is a sign that the mix surface is constantly damp, and that isn't good. Use a fork or toothpick or something, and stir up the top layer to get rid of it. Always allow the top 1/2" or so to dry between waterings.
Competition shouldn't be a problem except for very small seedlings, and the flavor should be fine.
10
This is the rubber plant, Ficus elastica. It has white sticky sap and can grow into a tree (100 - 200 feet 30 - 60 M) tall when grown outdoors in the tropics.
This plant will tolerate shade, neglect and more. A nice appearance and good health is maintained with
diffuse high light
regular watering
fertilize lightly once a year
repot yearly if you want a ...
9
For what it's worth we have a local greenhouse that grows bell peppers and tomatoes year round. They use plants for 2 years. I think they trash them after that because the amount of woody stems starts to get out of hand. Since an individual grower isn't as concerned about production per square foot, you can probably extend this by at least another year.
...
9
I went to Tractor Supply, a farm store, I'm sure there are others, and bought a 50 Lb bag of oat seed (hull on) for about $14.00. Horses like it.
I put a 3/4 cup of seeds in wet dirt in a 12" clay or plastic pot drip tray catcher with some holes drilled in it for drainage. Cover the holes w windowscreen to minimize dirt leakage. Dirt's about 1.5 inches deep. ...
9
We get a lot of questions about member of the citrus family. Some varieties will flower and set fruit indoors. So, yes, you can grow citrus indoors but they are challenging to keep looking nice at the size of your plant without a greenhouse.
is the pot the right size? This depends on whether it is pot bound or not. It sounds about right. This is part of ...
9
I'm by no means an expert, however I am pretty sure that, at least for Zucchini, Cucumber and peppers 1% more light = 1% more growth. Thus in order to increase growth, maybe you should start moving these into full sun.
8
Actually.. Here's a study that shows tomatoes do pretty well in a 24 hour continuous, but they varied the temperature and they didn't get the spotting that had occurred with 24h lighting in the past. Did better than the 16 hour light / 8 hour dark, anyways.
http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/40/2/374.full.pdf
8
Looks fine for a tomato plant indoors. Is there anyway you can get that guy outside? They grow well in pots, you'd be able to get a few yummy tomatoes but they need a heck of a lot more light. Is that a grow light? Not strong enough, though. It is long and leggy because it is searching for more light.
8
You are overwatering. I can see a line on the pot, in the saucer, where the water level usually is. The soil also looks very wet. That is far too much water for a strawberry plant. The leaves are also showing signs of nitrogen burn. It may be too late, but you can give it another shot.
You should immediately dump out that saucer, and repot the plant as ...
8
Is leaving them in there better or worse than taking them out?
In a pot, definitely take them out if you can. They will put out chemicals while decomposing (usually) that slow down the new plants (a kind of allelopathy). In a garden bed, usually this process only takes a couple weeks. Also, in a pot, the roots have the potential to mess with water movement, ...
8
English Ivy (hedera helix) climbs by thin roots penetrating whatever it clings to. So if you want to use rope, it would be better to use natural fibre rather than nylon which may be too smooth for it to get any grip. It won't climb by wrapping its stems around the rope or net like bindweed, honeysuckle, etc.
Another issue is that ropes will presumably move ...
7
Here is a brief symptoms guide which may aid you:
not enough water: older leaves die and are dry and papery
mealybug infestation: white cottony tufts in the axils of the leaves
natural aging: older leaves close to the base of the stem yellow and dry, rarely more than one or two at once
too much water: many leaves yellow, oldest ones first, leaves retain ...
7
Does the basil on the left side have any chances of survival? It doesn't seem likely, but there is still some green on the leaves.
The plant on the left side is too far gone. It will never fully recover, and should be disposed of. The plant looks like it either took some cold, or got basil fusarium wilt. I think the latter is unlikely, but I'd keep that ...
7
There are plants that improve air quality - some remove chemicals from the air, formaldehyde for example, but as for removing smells, I can't say I've noticed they're too good at that, though claims are made that some do. There is a list of 19 plants I know about from research done by NASA, but some of those have barbs or thorns, or are very fussy about ...
7
I assume that you yourself will be the only one watering the plant.
Most people use a saucer under the pot (without gravel) and avoid too much water build up by watering the plant only as needed.
If you do over water the plant you can carefully empty the saucer or leave it until the excess has soaked into the soil (it's very unlikely that you will get ...
7
Firstly, most grasses won’t do well indoors, so you’ll probably have to go along with a look-alike. Secondly, I don’t have edibility info on the plants I will recommend. Do not ingest any parts of those plants until you have it from a reliable source that the part is edible.
The plants listed below should last indefinitely with proper care, rarely need ...
7
Here's the solution I went with. A local plastic company custom-made this clear acrylic "display riser" for me. It's 12 inches high with an 8 inch square base. Cost about $20.
These display risers are the things you usually see in stores that raise merchandise off of a table (think a jewelry department, for example).
One great advantage of this shape is ...
7
It's dangerous to use a set amount of water per day, when watering potted plants. This is because they may use different quantities as they get older, and also because it is very easy to overwater, which could be fatal. It's better to water until the mix is wet, and then leave it until the top ½" of soil becomes dry. Use your finger to test this. You ...
7
Yes. Decomposition smell comes from anaerobic decomposition. Keeping your compost oxygenated should eliminate odors. For my normal compost I do this by flipping it regularly, more at first (every 2 weeks) tapering off to every other month. Slimy sections are an indicator of anaerobic decomposition. Aerobic decomposition should produce no (low) smell, ...
7
The only plants that can live and grow without being directly watered are called epiphytes. Some common ones grown as houseplants include:
Ferns, especially Staghorn ferns
Bromeliads, especially Spanish moss,
Jungle cacti, like Rhipsalis
Orchids, (Cattleya and Cymbidium come to mind)
All of these plants, however, require light, preferably right filtered ...
7
Lighting a plant from beneath will cause the plant to grow towards the light, ergo, downwards, if it grows at all. Phototropism is the name of the process induced by lighting or sunlight from above - the plant wants to maximise the amount of light it receives, and therefore grows up towards the light. If you place the light to one side, the plant will ...
7
Two in a 5 gallon pot is going to be pretty cramped. If they are going to live in the pot their whole lives they will choke each other and you'll potentially get less production than you would from a single plant.
Your bamboo setup could be more open at the top but what you have should work, when the plant gets to the top it'll train outside the sticks and ...
7
Unlikely to recover - not impossible, but unlikely, and waiting to see if there's any regrowth will take some time. Given you might want some basil between now and Christmas, its probably best to get another plant. And instruct your wife to always leave some leaves on the plant next time... or buy two plants so its easier to leave some leaves in place and ...
7
Those probably aren't "worms", but inchworms or, more precisely caterpillars of geometer moths. This is a very large family of insects, found in many places of the world.
They are easily recognizeable by their characteristic mode of movement: They use only the legs at the front and rear of their body, forming a "loop" like the greek letter "omega", then ...
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