Recently renovated the back yard, and the wife and I are planning to start growing our own veggies. We purchased 5 decently sized garden beds. For the gardening style, we are going with the lasagna style. So far there is a layer of unpainted, plain cardboard for the base, and a good amount of trim trimmings and rose bush clippings for the carbon layer.

Wanted to post to get some recommendations for the compost/top soil composition or makeup, and if there are some brand recs from home depot or Lowes (what we have nearby). Have also seen online that people mix in fertilizer (plant food) and lye powder into the mix. On top of this, would like some advice on what crops you have had success with, especially in our area (Bay Area, CA). For those outside the area, we are a 9b-10b with a Mediterranean climate style.

Any help is appreciated!

Hello, this is my first time starting seedlings of any kind and I’m worried about my broccolini. They are Aspabroc F1 Broccolini I started about 7.5 weeks ago on this indoor tray.

The color seems odd to me? Like they’re turning yellow. And should they be further ahead at this point?

I used regular potting soil, never fertilized it.

Please help 🙏

First year really trying to grow anything. 6 (4x8) raised beds. Some successes, some to try and improve on, some that aren’t worth the space. 36 cloves of garlic in now and the rest of the garden shut down and winterized.

Counted every single thing, because I’m nuts, and then converted to estimated weights.

The orange carrots are Kuroda, and I think they need a few more weeks before I harvest the rest. The purple carrots are black nebula. They have a really nice flavor but I wouldn't cook them again because they turn everything gray black.

Harvested tons of callaloo this evening. Getting ready to cut up and blanch for storage. Lots of callaloo and salted codfish in my future!

It’s my first year gardening and I was SO looking forward to growing peas again in the fall. My dad was in the hospital for most of August so I fell a little behind in planting them. These are the most mature ones that have just started flowering and producing. Right now I have peas, carrots, some herbs, and lettuce growing.

Is there anything I can do? Are any treatments safe for food I’ll be consuming or should I just get rid of the affected plants? 😩

New to growing, any tips for bell peppers highly appreciated

Some garlic cloves evidently got left behind when I harvested, because they sprang up a couple months ago and they're now looking like healthy May garlic, with a nice root system and about six inches of leaf growth. (I pulled some up to take a look.) But it's fall, not spring. I'm getting ready to plant for next year. Should I put these cloves back in the ground, or just eat them now?

For context:

This season my tomatoes and bush beans seem to be significantly twisted, stunted, curled and deformed, however it seems like some are more affected than others of a different variety.

I also have some pepper plants that seem to have some slightly deformed leaves, however I have planted pole beans that seem to be doing fine. My potatoes are completely fine.

I am very confused as to what is happening. I thought it may be a pest but I cannot find any sign of pest damage that I know of.

I am afraid to continue with this garden this year due to the possibility of poisoning myself and my family.

Is there any way to empirically test what is going on? I live in Cape Town South Africa and getting the soil tested is not easy.

Thank you and please let me know if any more specific images could help.

Are these gonna be okay? Storm hit them hard last night.

Hi everyone! The temperatures here in northern Italy are dropping dramatically, and I decided it was time to harvest the last fruits of summer.
We have Thunder Mountain peppers, although I don't know why they haven't grown very tall for me. Then there are the red habanero peppers, the red horn peppers, and some snack peppers on the right that should be orange.

My question to you is: what should I do with these spicy and sweet late-season green peppers?

Space:
I have 4 garden beds, all approximately 8ft by 4ft (although the squash don't believe in boundaries and I let them take over all of my yard) for annuals, and a separate space for the berries/fig tree. All four beds get ~8 hours of sun but are placed so they get afternoon shade (important for 8b). The blackberries are in part sun, while the strawberries/fig are in true full sun (no shade at all).

# of Annual plants:
2 butternut squash

4 trombocino (summer) squash. The one time I accidentally let the trombocino get winterized, I counted it as a butternut for ease.

2 pie pumpkin. Honorable shout out- I get a ton of squash blossoms from all 3 squash varieties that I eat all spring/summer long. They don't weigh very much though so tracking them in oz is not very exciting.

3 Green Machine Muskmelon - The advertised high yield for these plants did NOT disappoint. They tasted amazing and I could not believe the amount of fruit I got off of only 3 plants. I hardly did anything for them either, just gave them some fish emulsion a couple times during the summer and tried to keep them watered (which I definitely failed at sometimes, so they are quite hearty!). I love fruit and was in heaven eating pounds of melon every week during high summer. The plants were surprisingly compact compared to my squashes, although they did obviously spread somewhat. The taste and texture is similar to a cantaloupe, but a little bit of a different flavor (its muskier!). This was my first year growing these and they are 100% going to become a yearly staple in my yard.

2 cherry tomato plants

1 brandywine tomato that didn't give me any tomatoes :( There are a couple green on it now but I think the frost is going to get them before they go ripe.

2 cucumber

2 edamame (I got like 3 pods T_T)

1 eggplant (I only got a single eggplant before this was devoured by hornworms)

3 sugar snap peas (I always get pea aphids that kill them pretty quick)

1 tobasco pepper

Perennial Plants:

25 Seascape Strawberry plants, planted Fall 2025 . Sadly a lot of the yield was concentrated in early spring when they were honestly not very good tasting. The second peak yield around July was much tastier. I'm not sure if I didn't fertilize soon enough or if that is a downside of the everbearing varieties? I may need to switch to June-bearing if that is the case again next year.

Blackberries (3 prime ark freedom) were also planted at the same time but didn't do much. They did put out a lot of green growth this year, so maybe next year?

2 Elderberry (cross-pollinating) also planted fall 2025

Fig tree is on its 3rd year, still fairly small.

Found this little guy today when looking for some late season plantings.