Hello my friends

The tomatoes I planted this year did a very good job at growing very high very fast. They reached the roof of my balcony while I was on holiday and now I don't know if I can just cut the top, so that the side branches will grow more or if that will hurt the plant a lot. In the picture you see one of them. I already left several side branches in the lower part, but they also grew very high already. They all have some branches with fruits or upcoming ones.

Any advice what I can do to geht the best out of them?

Thanks for any help =)

Hi all! Wondering if anyone recognizes what's going on on the underside of some of the leave of my baby Olive tree. The tops look fine. I can't figure out if this is a fungus or some kinds of insect eggs or something else.

Thanks so much!

My house in Chicago proper has a garage-rooftop deck (on top of a two-car garage, so there’s a good amount of usable space for plants). I don’t have any plants up there currently, but would like to use the space to grow a few veggies - tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.

The main conundrum is that the garage upon which the deck sits opens onto an alley… an alley that stretches a full city block and is lined with trash cans and dumpsters. Additionally, phone lines/poles run parallel to the deck about a foot away from it, spanning the whole alley. AND our neighborhood is full of large trees - beautiful, but obviously attractive to urban wildlife. As a result, rats, pigeons, and squirrels are VERY populous. When we were cleaning the deck in the spring, we found 3+ rats that had a made a nest over the winter behind a large trellis we had up there; they climbed the drain pipes. Pretty sure at least one squirrel has a residence on top of the telephone poles RIGHT next to the deck.

I love our animal friends (yes, even the rats… they’re just trying to survive in these streets lol) but I would like to actually succeed at growing veggies without them being eaten or their dirt becoming a nesting ground.

Tl;dr: Advice for keeping a rooftop veggie garden safe from VERY nearby and populous rats, pigeons, and squirrels? Thank you!!

I was just granted an 8 by 4 plot after waiting since 2019! I was single then and now I have grown to a family of 4. How many plants should I sow per veggie/herb to feed us? It’s me, husband, and two toddlers, 2.5 & 1. We want zucchinis, obvi tomatoes (beefsteaks), basil, peppers, and a few defensive flowers/ herbs for the ever present rodent issue in NYC.

No roots out the bottom but they’re a getting so big! Got them at the size of the rosemary in the bottom right.

Hi All,

I'm looking for some ideas on what fruits/vegetables/herbs I can plant on my two patios here in Houston, TX. The first patio gets a moderate amount of sunlight, and the second one gets little to no sunlight. I'm thinking since there's no sunlight maybe that second patio needs to be a reading/smoking space.

I've also included what gear I have (What I could take from my parents shed) but I know I'll definitely need to buy more. Ideally I want both patios completely filled with edible plants.

Any advice is welcome.

Patio with little sunlight.

Patio with little sunlight.

https://preview.redd.it/7t0xk8yzfs6d1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e00c5e544285d268432295638af47038cc68cbb

Patio most ideal for garden.

I wanted to pick your lovely brains and see how concerned you would be in our situation!

My partner and I live in an apartment with a small shared backyard. We’ve always wanted to have a little garden and have tried to get space in our local community gardens every year for four years without any luck. We’re talking about using our backyard instead, but I have concerns about soil toxicity and toxins.

I don’t know what’s being sprayed, but i know that once a week the apartment maintenance is coming through and spraying the edges of the apartment and the patio with a chemical. Likely related to bugs, but I’m not sure. I’ve been worried this whole time that if we gardened in the back yard we’d be exposing ourselves via whatever produce we grew to the chemicals they’re spraying.

My question is this— if we did garden back there, do you think there are severe-enough concerns with chemical exposure to warrant going fully contained, fresh soil in containers, with no way for roots to go into the ground below them? Or could we do a raised bed with a layer of fresh soil and plants able to reach the soil below them as well?

In both cases, we’d need to surround the container/bed with a greenhouse of some kind to prevent more chemicals from being sprayed onto the plants; I don’t trust the maintenance folks not to spray it because I’ve seen them spray whatever chemical it is on the food bowls I use for the feral cats. So they’re clearly not worried about others’ exposure.

Hi - beginner balcony gardener here. My tomato seeds have just started sprouting but I will be away from home for a week.

I water them 2x per day now to keep the soil moist. I’m worried that while I’m out the soil will dry out and the plants will die.

Is there something I can do to avoid that?

Thanks.

New to gardening and I found potato wireworms in my planted potatoes. I planted some cut potatoes I had bought but didn’t notice the worms until a couple weeks later.

I’ve planted them in a small planter box but I’m wondering if I should just toss my soil and start fresh?

Thanks in advance!

I live in Thailand and have a big balcony that I fill with tropical potted plants. I have a couple of large nice looking decent sized ceramic pots that don't have holes in the bottom, so they aren't ideal for soil. I'm thinking of filling it with water and putting some water plants in it like water lillies. But, I'm worried about mosquitos. Our balcony has netting and our cats spend a lot of time on the balcony so mosquito eating fish aren't really viable. Could I use an electric pump to avoid this problem? Also, what is a good water plant for low to medium light?

They are also eating my tomatoes. What would be the best organic way of getting rid of them? Thanks in advance for the help!