thrawn21

I'd say the one on the right looks pretty close for harvesting, though you could probably leave it another day or two. My general rule is I pick them when they're as long as the distance between my thumb and pinky when outstretched (gently, not as far apart as they can go), but obviously hand sizes vary!

Excellent article, all good and easy things to do. Personally, we've swapped our lawn for a veggie garden and in it, we don't use any pesticides or herbicides, and we've mulched heavily using Chip Drop.

You wouldn't believe the explosion of different types of insects we've seen since adding that mulch, worms and grubs and millipedes that used to be rare are now everywhere! This has in turn brought more birds, including an annoying crow who repeatedly yanked out my pepper seedlings to get at tasty morsels below. We ended up having to put mesh from old window screens around them, which thankfully was enough discouragement.

Our cat also gets supervised yard time, and my fiance has managed to train her to respond to "inside!"

Hah, it does kinda look like it doesn't it?

One of the things I appreciate about the internet is the exposure to views different from my own. Though I don't agree with many of this author's points, it is interesting to see their perspective.

I think the comment by Rididill does a fair job of dissecting the post, and is worth a read in it's rebuttal.

Very cool, appreciate you sharing!

I'm in inland southern California, and I've never thought about growing bay leaves. I don't think I've seen it at my local nursery, where did you get yours?

Easiest are herbs that are perennials in my Mediterranean climate, like thyme, oregano, rosemary and sage. All those I keep in planters right next to my door. Harder are ones that bolt and die off, like basil, dill, cilantro, parsley. Hot summers mean I have to constantly be starting new seeds, which can be troublesome to keep up with.

That is so cool! I've thought of getting a tattoo of a tomato plant, I love how yours looks.

Probably like 2-2.5 months.

Try Google Lens if it's available to you. I was curious about a houseplant at a restaurant not too long ago, and Lens was pretty good at identifying it.

Very beautiful! Two recommendations though (if you don't mind). Your tomatoes look good and healthy, but their lower leaves are quite dense and some are touching the soil, two things that encourage leaf spot disease. I'd recommend pruning everything that's touching the ground, which will eliminate that vector and greatly help with airflow.

Secondly, I would strongly suggest moving the mint that you have in the center of the bed into an isolated container/pot asap. Mint is highly invasive and can choke out the other plants in your garden. I once planted mint in a raised box, and when I went to go pull it out, I found runners as long as 5-6 feet going everywhere. I was very thorough in my removal, but I still found little sprigs of mint in that whole area of the yard years later. Even grown in a pot, I once found a runner snaked out of a drainage hole and making its way down into a crack in the concrete.

That would be fun! These I added to jeweled rice, where extra color is totally on theme.