Questions not deserving of a whole thread

Absolutely, yes. Nuking the soil is something those of us who have had bad outbreaks of fungus gnats and spider mites start doing because big box stores sell pre-contaminated “sterile” mixes. Most of my potted plants are inside in windows or under lights, so a bad bug outbreak infests my whole house and makes me use insecticides to treat, which I hate to do with cuttings for food plants. Right now, there’s not nearly as much under lights as usual, but usually, I have pineapples, flowering shrub woody cuttings, rootstocks, seedlings, and zinnias growing inside. The zinnias in particular seem to draw bugs in, but at least they aren’t food so I don’t care what I dose them with. It’s still far better, in my opinion, to nuking it all and inoculate it again with the stuff I want. I use FoxFarm products with microbes to fertilize anyway, so I’m fine being aggressive to the native flora and fauna. Or at least I feel like I am and don’t know the difference if I’m wrong.

As someone who almost never has indoor plants, I hadn’t even considered the things you just mentioned. I do, however, have a special place in H_ll for the gnats (I’m never sure if these are fruit flies) that swarm around trash cans and any fruit and vegetable matter left out of fridge. So now I get why you would “nuke” your pots. BTW…have you ever actually produced a pineapple indoors? I’ve put some tops in water and seem them grow quite a bit, so it seems conceivable

So pineapple take forever, multiple years,similar to banana. I got some pineapple plants large, planted them out, and tried to protect them and failed. I had to start over, and the second time I ordered some slips in addition to tops. I grew them inside, where they haven’t done great, but grow nicely sized vegetatively. I got them to fruiting size, and promptly left them on the porch this spring because I was so worried about protecting prune fruitlets I didn’t think about the pots, and lost the second and third largest. The largest was still keeping my dog away from the front window. This year, I buried large pots in the landscaping added gravel for drainage, and set my plants out into the yard in their pots, in the buried pots. If I see a fruit spike coming up, you better believe that there will be pictures everywhere. These things have been a lot of work and taken up a lot of space for an impulsive project suggestion from Pinterest.

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I thought about trying pineapple, I think I will skip it. I did decide to try pomegranate, and keep them with my figs in the garage in the winter. Some dwarf cultivars exit too. They can get big

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I was catching up on this thread, reading about ofm. So I’m at my cottage and I see wilted tips on my elderberry. I inspect and a worm is in there!! Argh!! All the apple trees on the island are not sprayed and loaded with ofm. Can they attack the hollow elderberry canes?

Drew,
It looks like wilting tips of elderberry are damaged by cane borers that grow up to be long horn beetles. These pests are more damaging to elderberry than OFM to peach shoots.

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Does anyone have any idea of what this insect (beetle?) is? They are everywhere this year, and I don’t recall seeing them before, or at least in such numbers. They are on all my trees including an Alberta spruce.

Are they friend or foe? They are completely un-phased by Surround WP. I have found multiples on my trees even with heavy Surround coatings.

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The long narrow shape reminds me of the borer beetles, although I do not know for sure.

If you post the pic on the Insect and Disease Identification thread, it will attract more people who know a lot about bugs esp. @LarryGene.

click beetle

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I grew a pineapple many years ago. The plant grew just fine for years and years…i never did get a pineapple off of it. Made a decent house plant but started to get too big. In Miami people just throw the crowns in the soil and out pops a pineapple 18 months later or however long it takes…way too long a process here. I’m going to try pomegranate too.

It makes me never wanting to leave the suburbs. Here on the island everything is hard to grow.

WOW! So you’ve taken the pineapple thing pretty serious. I love the project, and would really like to see you grow one. I remember reading an article somewhere about a company in England that was in the nursery business. Every year (or maybe longer from what people in this thread are saying) they would grow and harvest pineapples just to give a gifts to their employees. Somehow, according to the article, they grew them in compost piles and completely covered them much of the year. Pretty neat. Good luck with your project!

UPDATE: I’m not sure if this is the same place I was talking about, but I find the pineapples to be amazing and the process very unusual. But it also sounds possible. Thought you might enjoy seeing this:

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We did grow a pineapple once and it took about 18 months. Rooted it in water then potted it. We did finally eat it but it wasn’t ripe enough to be good.

Katy

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I live in a suburb. Unfortunately, OFM, PC, CM, stinkbugs, etc. all find my orchard.

You may have more borers on that island if Host trees are not tended to by anyone.

I do have problems in the city. I had a huge aphid problem and white fly. Easy though. I can manage with backyard grower pesticides. PC too but hardly any this year. I only saw about 10 hits out of hundreds of fruits. I had a high bush cranberry at the cottage and some bug was eating the leaves. No leaves were left for 2 years. I moved it home and only aphids bother it. It barely survived the move, having no leaves most of the summer for 2 years.

Can anyone confirm if these look like whitegold cherries? I am concerned as there is no yellow left on the fruit and they are completely pink/red. First year fruiting.

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Not a fruit related question, but where is @hoosierquilt and @MuddyMess_8a?? Haven’t seen you guys for months, hope y’all are OK.

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White Gold can in theory do that, but they nearly always color up in patches and not uniformly like that. So I expect you have the wrong variety. If you wait longer they should darken a lot more. If you try one now and its very sweet and not sour it means its probably White Gold. Leave at least one on and see if it fully darkens, then you know you have the wrong variety…

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I failed to mention that I pulled one off the tree this weekend that was at a similar state and it was quite tart, didn’t notice much sweetness. The flesh was yellow which is inline with being a whitegold. Hmmm…

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