Sara's Garden MarketSustainable Living, Gardening, Flowers, and Food

So, I noticed a big difference when I used dirt from my garden to grow some of my indoor garden this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And it wasn’t good. 🙁

I now highly recommend using only sterile, baged indoor potting soil for indoor gardens. Either that or you have to go through a process for preparing your soil to be indoors. (Such as treating it with a pesticide for a few weeks every 5-7 days and then letting it rest or washing it before bringing it inside. – much easier to just get some potting soil!)

Same is true for wintering over. If you have an indoor garden *and* you want to try to winter over some plants from your pots or garden I highly recommend keeping these plants separate from each other.

This year I used some soil from my garden for my indoor garden and I brought in a lot more than just soil for my garden! I also brought in some pests that put my indoor growing season way behind. There are bugs in that soil!!!

In particular Spider Mites and a type of Fruit Fly were what did the most damage to my indoor garden. I actually had to resort to using pesticides to get rid of these little buggers. (I got some that were highly recommended by organic gardeners that are specifically for food, and specifically for indoor use.)

So! Grab that potting soil, you’re not doing yourself any favors by trying to use raw outdoor soil for use in your indoor garden!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sara

So last year I had a small (kind of) infestation of those metalic/green/copper beetles. I think the soil that my roses came in was harboring some larvae. I am thinking they may be back if there were enough eggs in the soil that over-wintered. If they do come back I am going to just pick off every single adult I see!!!

I really do not want to have to resort to a pesticide. Also, when I was researching last year I found out that there are very few pesticides that can kill this type of beetle. AND even if it does kill the larvae and the adults, it still won’t kill the eggs, so you need to do repeat applications.

I will keep you posted if I see any this year and I will be sure to take pictures of the beetles and any damage they get away with.

Keep your fingers crossed that they just don’t come back!!!

Thanks for stopping by,

~Sara