Diana Wais

Is there a website that helps one to identify common plant diseases and pests? My indoor herbs are getting one problem after the other, and by the time I have figured out what the new problem is, my plants have died. The website I envision would have a decision tree to help diagnose common pests and problems. maybe it already exists?

Dear Wiliam,

thank you so much for your brilliant suggestion, I just ordered some of this earth. If applied outdoors, would I run the risk of injuring beneficial insects or earthworms with this?

Hi,

I am growing kitchen herbs indoor in Switzerland. I am sticking to natural and organic, but almost all my olants are dying, some already have, some are about to. In the soil, I see these extremly fast running tiny little brown-redish spiders, they are a little bit smaller than aphids. There are a lot of them all over the soil of several of my plants, looks kind of like an infestation. Can I save my plants, what can I do?

Hi there,

I purchased an automatic sprinkler system, that lets you add as many little feeder tubes off the main hose as I had pots, and more if I add more pots. I used the one from Gardenia: http://www.gardena.com/uk/water-management/micro-drip-irrigation-system/ It is a micro-irrigation system and lets you feed very little amounts of water directly to the root of your plants, minimising water use. Also, drippers can be adjusted to release more or less water, depending on the needs of the plants, and season. Finally, a timer lets you adjust how many minutes a day you want to let the system run, so you can again adjust it for the season.

In addition, I found that using effective microorganisms (developed by Dr. Teruo Higa from Japan) is a natural and incredibly efficient way to get good soil organisms into your pots, and over time, these organisms help keep your soil alive and water absorbent. I discovered it takes a few years of using EM to really see the result, but then it suddenly became an exponential wow effect...just like all the books describe.

You can also add some biochar into your potting soil, if you spray it with EM1 before mixing it in, it helps the effective micro organisms develop faster, as well as adding soil carbon. The microbes also sequester carbon from the atmosphere into the soil, so that helps too.

What I would like to know, if there is a layering technique that could be used in pots, similar to the ones used in Hügelkultur or Raised Beds, that would help also?

Best, Diana

Thank you for your reply. I looked into getting a worm farm, but I have a bit of a space problem. I heard the worms need to be indoors over the winter, and I have just a very small flat. Do dried out garden plants make good mulch? I am not sure though, if some of the plants died early because of some fungus, so would that then contaminate the soil of my pots?

Hi,

so I grew my first vegetables in plastic containers on my balcony in Switzerland. Now the plants are dead (tomatoes, peppers, etc), what should I do with all the dead plants and rootballs? I don't have space for a big compost tumbler on my balcony, can I just mix the dead plants with bokashi and seal them in a container and in a few weeks they are fermented, or do I just chop them up and mix them into the soil of my plastic containers, and that will be fine, or what can you suggest? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Diana