I’d love to have fresh herbs available for cooking instead of buying them every time

I recently planted some herbs and while I was checking them I noticed some tiny green bugs on my thymes. Is there anything I can spray on them that’s safe to use on herbs? I don’t want to use something harsh since we’ll be eating the leaves and use it for kitchen.

See original post here.

I finally got my last 3 trees planted (persimmon, peach, and golden currant). My wife took a nice panoramic, so I thought I'd share. I'll have some winter pruning to do on a few of them for training and scaffold shaping, but I've got all my woody anchor trees/shrubs in the ground!

Edit: apologies for image quality. Uploading to reddit destroyed it. The original looks crisp.

I’m still a beginner in growing herbs and not really sure when I should start picking them. So far I have planted basil, thyme and rosemary. So do you guys just grab some whenever you need it or wait until the plant gets bigger??? Btw, I’m using it for my kitchen so I’m kinda excited picking them 😁😁

Do they only send up bulblets once a year? How do you recognize it so it doesn't get cut as you harvest leaves?

Starting my own little food forest in zone 6... I am in process prepping my ground for planting next spring. This spring I planted 3 apple and 2 pear trees.

For my raised corner bed:

- I have a mix of a few things to help me achieve the mound - which I put right on top of my yard. I put grass/dirt from edging the whole space and then I added dirt and stump grindings and I topped with extra compost I had from adding to my annual bed.

- I plan on planting 2-3 Chicago hardy figs next spring with some perennial flowers and maybe some strawberries.

My questions:
- should I leave as-is over the winter?
- Should I top heavily with wood chips to lock in moisture?
- Also wondering if I should add nitrogen to fuel the breakdown of the stump grindings?

Greets!

My wife and I inherited a homestead several years ago, which includes a half acre cul-de-sac that the previous owner never really grew anything on. This year, we began the first round of establishing a food forest.

It's been trial and error, as the soil is Caliche. Even digging pits for actual soil, a lot of plants - especially trees - seem to hate it. So far three figs, and four pomegranates, are the only things that seem to thrive - and it's gonna be a few years before any of them hit real tree status. Right now just shrubs.

I am looking at jujubes, and am currently starting two cherry trees from stone. (The cherries may not be transplantable until at least next late spring.) Are there any other trees people can suggest for growing in high desert Caliche, zone 8A? We DO get ice and snow here for about a month and a half every year.

Thanks!

I’m growing basil, rosemary and thyme so far. Thinking about adding parsley, chives, or oregano. Good choices or not?

Like any tips? Do you prune them or use any fertilizers? Wondering what’s been working for you?

Hi everyone, does anyone here know any good ways to create a subtropical/tropical microclimate in a Mediterranean/cold area without a giant greenhouse? this is for trees so a greenhouse just isnt practical for me. i have some trees already (jujube, black sapote etc that kinda thing) growing well but eventually id like to get jackfruit and possibly even mangosteen.

The space is pretty small like around 6x8 ft and it gets a few hours of direct sunlight during the day. I’m trying to figure out which herbs would do well in that kind of space.

I'm looking to add a few nanking cherry bushes to my fruit tree guild. Anyone have experience with Nanking cherry? Im thinking I want to plant from seed so that it develops a deep tap root. I've heard bare root and potted ones do not have it. I'm zone 6a. Any online seed company recommendations?

I've been gardening with (nearly) exclusively native plants to my area (Great Lakes ecoregion) for 6 years now, and I've begun branching out into turning some areas into a food forest. There's just one problem: juglone.

I've found the problems with juglone are usually overstated. There's little I can't grow under my walnuts when it comes to gardening. However, I have struggled greatly in the old vegetable garden I inherited when buying this home. Garlic seems to do well, but everything else has struggled. Even the Sunchokes are struggling if you can believe that lol (it is a full sun area). What plants do you recommend?

Currently also have several Pawpaws and Apple trees.

I have a pretty small yard and I’m hoping to start a little mini garden. I’m leaning toward herbs since I like having things I can actually use in the kitchen.

Hey food forest / permie folks. I just want to post a little image dump of my first season partially finished food forest! Its been alot of work transforming my suburban backyard into what it is now. It all started as a severely overgrowth thicket in the corner and grass lawn. We took several weeks to clear the ground and then sheet mulched the whole area in phases with cardboard, compost, and lots of arborist woodchips!

It still feels a bit sparse, but I'm missing a lot of the perennial herb and pollinator understory.

From the northeast double gate down, I have a bush cherry (carmine jewel), peach (redhaven, not planted yet), 5 graft apple tree (first actual planting!!), persimmon (meader, also not planted yet). The 4 cages along the east fence are 2 different types of everbearing raspberries. The tree closest to the stairs is a Standing Ovation serviceberry. Down in the dappled shade of the existing giant silver maple tree along the southern fence is a gooseberry and 2 different grafted pawpaws.

For understory, there's 6 strawberry plants scattered around the upper orchard area near the peach, service berry, and apple. There's 6 comfrey, one near each major anchor tree. Ive planted a few native pollinator plants (whorled milkweed, spotted bee balm, hairy mountain mint, wild bergamot, and golden alexander). And I just recently raked some wood chips aside in swaths to seed some white clover throughout several areas.

What's planned but not planted yet is the peach, persimmon, and a golden currant shrub.

Everything is still very young, so it feels like there's tons of space still. If anyone has any suggestions for any layers I might be missing, feel free to comment. I'm planning a grape vine Trellis eventually, and the southern fence line will be a long hugelkultur annual vegetable bed mound. And I was planning wine cap mushrooms in the wood chips and maybe innoculating some of the fresh cut logs from the two volunteer trees i had removed with some mushroom plugs (oyster or chestnut mushrooms).

Anywho, I'm proud of what me and the wife have been able to accomplish so far. The compost bins are filling up with tree leaves and twigs and occasional food scraps already, and its not even fall yet!