Q:husband built a beautiful porch with planter boxes on the side I want to grow spices can anyone give me links with how to info and pictures of the plants

You probably mean herbs, not spices. Most spices grow in tropical or subtropical areas. Herbs can be grown in the home garden in Northern America and Europe. I've listed a link for growing herbs. Just stay away from the mints-they are too invasive for a planter box.

Q:Ho is my garden angel?

DO YOU SPEAK ANY ENGLISH?

Q:We are moving to a town house, it's so nice, so happy, the only thing is there is no space for a garden BUT we have this huge patio that I could have 2 big planters filled with flowers!Can you please give me some tips as well as flower suggestions for the planters? I'm in NW Pennsylvania so no tropical flowers unfortunately. I love Impatients and marigolds, tho!

Petunias are reliable container plants. Impatiens will do fine in a container and so will Marigolds, Begonias, Coleus, Million Bells, Sweet Potato Vine. Most any annuals that you find in a garden center will perform nicely in a container. Just be sure to match the plant with your surroundings, just as you would in a garden. That is, if it's a sunny area use sun loving plants and use shade lovers in low light. And, if you get bit by the plant-loving bug like me, you will wind yourself having more than just two planters. I tell myself every year: no more container plantings! Yeah, right. You can plant bulbs in those containers now and have blooms in the spring: Daffodils, Grape Hyacinth, Tulips, Crocus. I get carried away with my planting ;) Sorry so long: look around at containers that are professionally planted, both at garden garden centers and in public places like municipal buildings or on Main Street. This mightl give you inspiration for the plants you want.

Q:We moved in a rental home which does not seem very old.Does the heating system need to be serviced?

Hardly any info here so let's say that rental home owners are not exactly concerned about maintaining their equipment until a tenant says something about it. Change the filter.

Q:I tried to grow an organic garden last year but had no luck, all that happened was bugs eating my food.

Use flour instead of the product called SEVEN. It gums up the mouths of the bugs, they don't like it. Plant peppermint around your house and chicken coup. Rodents and Raccoons don;t like it. Shred orange peelings where you don't want your cats in the garden, the cats don't like the smell. Use cinnamon where the ants take residence. It won't kill them but it will make them want to move to another location. Sprinkle hot pepper powder where bugs are eating your plants. Wash egg shells. Let them dry out well as they break into pieces better when they are dry. Sprinkle it around your vegetable plants. They don't like crawling over the sharp edges to eat your plants. Ad compost to your garden soil. Compost is made from vegetable scraps like potato peelings, old pieces of lettuce etc... It breaks down and turns into soil. Manure is used but some contain pesticides that are causing leaves to curl funny and causing problems with growing vegetables. It depends on what the farmers use in the fields, or what the neighbors are doing with garden products, pesticides etc...may play a factor. The word organic is over used but I do understand what you mean. The government has such regulations on organic that they look at like a five mile radius and specific time frames before allowing farmers to sell there food as organic. If your neighbor is growing genetically modified seed in there garden, cross pollination with your veggies is a possibility. Organic by government standards means smaller vegetable production and less crop.

Q:i have a vegetable garden in my back yard.which seems to be doing pretty good.until about a week ago i noticed that something is eating the leaves on my plants.the only thing that i see so far is there was this ladybug and a few japanese beetles.how do i stop them from eating my plants?is there a safe homemade pesticide i can make or even buy?

don't bother the ladybugs!.. they're your best friends out there!....

Q:I am starting up a home garden and was wondering if anyone has experience and what are the best fertilizers to buy at the garden center. Is liquid better than granular? What brands are the best? Any advice would help.

I like fish emulsion liquid; you can buy it concentrated and dilute it. There's also a worm casting tea concentrate that's sold in recycled soda bottles, which is great. But the best fertilizers are the ones you don't have to buy - old tea, coffee, flat soda, stale beer, fruit juice that's gone off, water from cooking veggies, the bloody liquid from meat packaging (diluted until you can just barely see the pink) - all of these liquids have valuable nutrients and it's a shame to waste them by pouring them down the drain. Sprinkle used coffee grounds all around your garden - the worms love them! Start a compost pile and make compost tea to water your garden.

Q:Me and my wife just finished moving in to our first home and we want to have a vegetable garden next Summer. Problem is we both know absolutely NOTHING about gardening. Neither of us ever did any growing up, nor did our parents really do much either.I was hoping the community here could give some good tips to help us get started. We a do not have a ton of space, probably from a rough estimate I did a minute ago 12x50 at the max and that would need to include walking space since most of it is our side yard. We also live in Ohio so winter will need to be accounted for. If possible we would really like to do tomatoes and I have heard we may be able to grow them off the side of our garage saving us some space, and zucchinis would also be nice! Outside those we are open to any suggestions.Anyways if anyone has helpful websites, step by step guides, general tips, advice on fertilizers or pesticides to use/not use all of it is appreciated, since as I said we are completely ignorant on this subject!

My suggestion for first timers would be a no-dig garden. You should be able to find something on this via a search engine. Basically you build up layers of soil, manure and organic matter, and plant your seedlings into the top layer of soil, through a layer of mulch.

Q:Also have two cats and am worried about them coming into contact with the woodchuck

Buy a woodchuck beeper it a rig that is battery powered and you stick the tip in the burrow it sends this godawful beeping noise down the burrow and drives them away and you hardly hear it above ground ask you local gardencenter about them-i am sure they can help you

Q:I'm interested in saving money on groceries, as we all are and I'd like to do that by having a garden all year round. I just don't know if it's possible.

You certainy can with Hydroponics. You can get an Aerogarden for instance that will allow you to start the seeds, and the lights will go on and off automatically to simulate nature. Really cool stuff!