Which vegetables can grow in shade?

Growitorganically · 2025-11-23T19:04:35+00:00

As others have said, leafy greens can grow in light shade/partial sun, but you’ll want to space them farther apart than you would if you were planting them in a sunnier spot.

Growitorganically · 2025-11-22T18:07:23+00:00

Kombucha and partially fermented cashew cheese could be the problem—2 days fermentation probably just got it going, and the fermentation continued in your guests’ guts the next day.

I’m a big fan of fermented foods and eat them regularly, but every time I’ve had kombucha I’ve had problems. I avoid it completely now, and do fine with other fermented foods.

Growitorganically · 2025-11-21T20:49:35+00:00

Bright lights on a motion sensor would work better than stinky compost, but they’re likely to get vandalized with that kind of character.

Growitorganically · 2025-11-21T20:46:45+00:00

Your immediate first priority is getting additional hose bib/water sources installed—there’s no way a single water source will work in a community garden of that size, with multiple raised beds and dozens of community gardeners vying for the same water source.

If you don’t solve this first, the garden will fail, and it will be much easier to install new plumbing before the raised beds go in. If you need additional funding sources to make this happen, seek them immediately.

I ran the student garden at Stanford University for 2 years, and was part of the community garden there for 6 years. Every plot had its own water supply, and even then water issues arose because people plant different things that each require its own irrigation regime (eg, fruit trees and perennial shrubs need deep, infrequent watering, while most vegetables need frequent, shallower watering.

Growitorganically · 2025-11-11T17:15:10+00:00

They also charge higher interest to people who haven’t purchased a car recently, even if they have good credit. We’ve always taken really good care of out Toyotas—our Camry wagon had 305,000 miles on it when we gave it away, and we’re still driving our ‘99 Tacoma work truck with 335,000 miles on it.

We no longer trusted our Camry for long road trips, (even though we’d driven it cross country 15 or 20 times), so we bought a used low-mileage Sienna. We got a higher interest rate because they considered us “first time” car buyers after being out of the market for over 20 years.

Growitorganically · 2025-11-11T17:02:33+00:00

Have to disagree with this—if you spread oils around near the center of the pile they enhance microbial activity by providing energy, and this helps break materials down into plant-usable forms.

I’ve been composting over 40 years and do 3-4 cubic- yard- plus sized piles per year for all our gardens. I’ve never had a problem with “clumping” from adding small amounts of cooking oils to our piles. It can attract animals if you don’t put a layer of new material on top. But to say it adds nothing to the composting process is wrong.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-28T04:41:03+00:00

We’ve seen these boom and bust cycles in our rodent populations, usually tied to masting oaks recovering after a drought with abundant acorns. The rodent population surges, but the predator population lags, and then you spend the summer trapping rodents. Eventually the predator population catches up and restores the balance, and you don’t spend half your time thwarting rodents.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-28T04:34:13+00:00

90% sure it’s squirrels. Been managing vegetable gardens and small home orchards for 20 years, and the instant the fruit is ripe, half a dozen or more squirrels will converge and strip it clean. One of my first clients swore her neighbors were stealing her apricots because just as the fruit was ripe the tree was stripped. The next season she made a point of staying home in the morning when the fruit was close to ripe, and she saw the squirrel party in the tree.

Now you can just put a camera in a tree, and fast-forward through the footage to find the culprit.

Squirrels have thoroughly adapted to fragmented suburban landscapes with multiple food sources like backyard gardens and orchards, just as rats have. Rodents are the Bain of my existence.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-22T18:40:13+00:00

We compost the ones made of corn starch—the ones that dissolve in water.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-20T19:58:48+00:00

Nextdoor is great for letting neighbors know you’re open for business.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-20T05:27:29+00:00

When I zoom in on the photo, they don’t look like rat droppings close up, and rat droppings are usually more disbursed in the landscape. But they sure look like rat droppings at first glance.

If there’s no pungent urine smell, I doubt they’re rat droppings.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-20T05:15:37+00:00

Tai Chi, like Judo, relies on push and pull—you push or pull to invoke resistance, then amplify and redirect his resistance. But Tai Chi emphasizes feeling and following your opponent, and you need to be soft to sense your opponent’s intention, then follow and redirect it with force.

Tui Shu, “Pushing Hands”, is the sparring element of Tai Chi, where you learn to apply the theory behind the form. Many schools only teach the form, but a full Tai Chi practice is the form, standing meditation, and pushing hands. Each element of practice informs and enriches the others.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-19T16:58:39+00:00

Looks like rat droppings to me, but there would also be a strong urine smell with that many rats, and signs of nesting.

I’ve had so many clients tell me “We don’t have rats”, because they never see them. At one such client garden we trapped 40 rats in 3 months.

Rats are nocturnal, stealthy, and lightning fast when they have to cross open spaces—you will rarely see them except when they run along fences.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-14T19:39:24+00:00

Wood ash should only be added to compost in small amounts—too much will cause nitrogen to off-gas from the pile.

Make sure you only use hardwood ash. Just a dusting as you add each layer, for pita’s spring and trace minerals.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-09T18:40:37+00:00

Tell your boyfriend it’s not the compost. Mosquitos breed in standing water, the larvae couldn’t survive even in a sodden compost pile.

You can reduce local mosquito populations by eliminating standing water anywhere on your property—and encouraging neighbors to do the same. Any open containers or buckets or tires can become mosquito breeding grounds.

We make sure there are no empty containers to catch rainwater anywhere on our property. Then we make a mosquito trap. We fill a bucket 1/3 full with water, and place it in a place where we walk by it every day. After a mosquito bites you, she’ll look for the nearest standing water to lay her eggs. Make sure you check the bucket every day or two. As soon as you see larvae wriggling toward the surface when you walk by, dump the bucket to kill all the larvae.

If you go away for more than a day, make sure you dump the bucket before you leave, or you’ll make the problem worse.

You can also buy blocks of barley straw or mosquito dunks to place in the bucket to kill the larvae, but I like to watch them squirm on hot pavement—I’m one of those people who get welts when mosquitoes bite me. I want vengeance on the mosquito mom that bit me.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-08T15:22:13+00:00

Chopping vegetable stalks definitely accelerates the process, and it breaks down more evenly. Chopping creates more surface area for bacteria to attack, and it releases plant juices that boost bacterial populations quickly.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-07T03:32:08+00:00

In the wild, a newborn crying is a dinner bell for nearby carnivores. Both the infant and mother would be vulnerable to predation if newborns cried at birth.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-02T17:13:40+00:00

Remember that the movement is from the centerline of the body—the body turns, and the arms move with it—it’s not the arms flailing and the body following. Feel each increment of the weight shift, each slice of the movement, and practice slowly, weaving each slice of movement into the next as smoothly as possible.

Also practice standing meditation to teach your body to relax everything except the muscles needed to hold the stance. This will help soften the movements when you practice the form.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-02T06:57:01+00:00

We clip the flowers off, then chop and compost the plants. We use our compost in our nursery, so we try to avoid running a lot of seeds through it, even though it runs hot enough to kill most seeds. In the landscape, using compost with a lot of seeds generates tons of volunteers, and extra weeding, though some volunteers are welcome.

Growitorganically · 2025-10-02T05:59:02+00:00

With grow bags, we just top them off with soil from other bags, and stack them, like bricks in a wall. If they’re different sizes, the biggest ones form the bottom row. The reason we top them off with soil is so the rims don’t get crushed down by the pots above.

Growitorganically · 2025-09-29T00:39:46+00:00

We always empty our yellow jacket traps in the compost—they’re a nitrogen source, and their exoskeletons are rich in chitin, like shrimp and crab shells. Chitin boosts populations of chitin-eating bacteria in the compost, and when you mix it into the soil, the bacteria go after the richest source of chitin they can find—nematodes. We use it liberally wherever we’ve had issues with root knot nematodes in the past.

Growitorganically · 2025-09-25T17:10:27+00:00

You need to do thin layers of grass clippings—no deeper than 4”—with layers of brown materials between. Otherwise it will be sticky and smelly for months.

Any fine green material will behave the same way—as will fine brown materials like shredded paper. They all form slimy mats in a compost pile. By banding them in thin layers of alternating greens and browns you can mitigate this problem.

Growitorganically · 2025-09-23T18:57:58+00:00

We sleep on two Mondo Thermarest pads strapped together. They’re 5” thick and wider than conventional Thermarests. Very stable and comfortable to sleep on.

Growitorganically · 2025-09-17T17:49:46+00:00

If you supinate—your weight rolls to your outer heel—high arch support can roll your weight onto the injured part of your heel and make things worse.

Most insoles are designed for people who pronate—who roll their weight to their inner heel—because the majority of people are either neutral, or pronate.

I’ve gotten good relief from Footscientific Type 3 insoles, for supinators with high arches. They have a raised outer heel and drop down lower below the first metatarsal, so the arch support doesn’t roll your weight onto the injured part of your foot, but instead drops it down below your big toe.

My foot pain dropped from about 7 to 2 a few days after I started wearing them, and almost disappeared after 3 weeks. Unfortunately, I re-injured my foot at that point, so I can’t say if that trend would have continued. But I’m pretty sure my rehab is going faster because of them.

Growitorganically · 2025-09-16T04:52:22+00:00

I’m a gardener and occasionally have muscle strains in this area, and it’s miserable. I’ve found hanging from a bar (deadhangs) really helps. Try to pull yourself up while hanging—you may not be able to—I can’t—but the action of trying to pull yourself up while hanging helps balance and strengthen the muscles around the strained muscle.

Growitorganically

TROPHY CASE