Camilo Vallejos

I have been picking plants for mulch on my backyard from everywhere and I am worried that I may bring alelophatic (have substances toxic to other plants) to my garden. Is there any site on the web with lists of alelophatic plants? or any way to recognize them easilly (other than having your plants die).

Thanks in advance.

Hi, I have plenty cempasuchil flowers left over from día de muertos (day of the death) and although I don´t need it now, I am curious about a way to extract insecticides from them. Any recepi?

I almost wish I had some infested plants now, I´ve been unable to find out if my idea worked or if it was just ´´luck´´. I have many small cold compost piles around the garden and the ants are frecuently searching through the less buried kitchen scraps.

Thank you very much. I suspected that was the case, but since I have a small garden and few plants I didn´t wanted to take a risk. I´ll harvest as needed but will save one for the next year as an experiment and for the amusement of a big taro. I also read about the leaves and soon will try one, recipes?

I´ve planted some Taro plants all at diferent times hoping to harvest them in sequence in order not to store them. The literature Ive found says I have to wait for the leaves to turn yellow before I harvest, but I don´t allways want to wait untill the max size has been reached.

So I want to ask, Is there any other way to know if Taro is good enough for harvesting? Is size a good indicator?

Thanks in advance.

PD I have the variety that has some purple in the center of the leaves and other one that don´t.

Thanks

I just saw this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPBspIak7fY

It shows that shitake colonizes the biochar under the conditions mentioned in the experiment. I think biochar could be used to inoculate other logs and maybe shitake will even create conidia (asexual spores) inside the char if left unatended for long periods of time working as a long term inoculum.

Very interesting

And I am looking forward for confirmation!!! (or refutal)

For fruit threes I think one can put an upside down clay pot full of straw (cap the little hole) and that serves as a predator refuge.

To make them with wet clay and not make a mess you should be carefull with the amount of water you ad. In order to choose how many seeds go into a ball you can make a flat thick circle on your hand put the seeds at the center, fold in half and roll to make the ball.

Good luck

The one time I made seedballs I made them with wet clay. They worked very well with most seeds and were very hard. about making many, There is a video of a machine to make them on youtube.

Good luck

First I want to say hello to the forum, I think it is a great resource and comunity!

Now about the aphids. I know they come when plants are stressed and avoiding stress is enough to prevent them, but when not using irrigation we can count on some stressed plants even if for short periods of time. I also understand that ants take care of them underground and also protect them on the plant.

So I thod: How can I make ants stop helping the aphids and since the aphids provide sugar to the ants I started droping fruit prunings at the base of the afected plants. Two days later the aphids were alone and another two days later there were no aphids on the plant! (presumably predators got them). Plus the ants are now protecting in some way the base of the plant.

I am not sure this would work every time since I had very few plants with aphids (3) but it may be the case. Maybe this could be used in trees too? I imaging geting a small basket in the three with some sugary thing.

Please tell me what do you think.