i need gardening tips!! Aarrrggg!!

[beebop]

i have a couple pots lying around so i thought i would plant a few things in them. Been experimenting with green beans, soy beans, sour sop, dragon fruit and a few other things. Now what sux so much it that when the seed starts to grow i get all happy and excited untill after a few days when i wake up in the morning i go to see how its doing and.... There is only a stalk left. All the leaves are gone.
I suspect there is some type of insects having a go at my effort but how to stop it? I have tried using soil from various locations to no avail. Or do i have to buy specific potting soil? I tried planting the stuff directly into the ground in a few places but the result is still the same.

[bad_azz]

It is unlikely to be the soil if the stalk is still left and the plant was thriving and healthy...
If that was happening in the UK I would be blaming slugs and snails. They love tender young leaves.
Do you get slugs and snails ...?
If so then there are ways to prevent them... Slug pellets are effective but somewhat controversial due to them being potentially harmful to other creatures. You could try putting a ring of salt or sand around the base of the plant...

It may well be some other bean leaf eating Indonesian creature that I am not aware of. Did you check for caterpillars?

[beebop]

ya there does appear to be some critters in there, but i have no idea what they are and how to stop them :(

[marcus]

I am also new in this field , but I succeeded with almost all of my plants , but not from seeds . I ask my wife to buy them (+ organic fertilizers) at the many places here where they sell plants . Sometimes I have to kill (manually) some bugs eating the leaves . I sometimes also clean the leaves with white or black spots .

[Puspawarna]

I do a ton of gardening here, with only partial success. Snails and grasshoppers are both big problems and are probably what is eating your plants.

I have not found an organic solution to insects ... although I dislike doing it, once in a while I become Malathion Angel of Death, and that keeps the grasshopper population down for several months. Snails you can deal with by finding their hideouts (at our house, they like to lurk in the cavities of the cinder block that forms the walls of my compost pile) and killing them, which is pretty disgusting but organic. You can lure them out with dishes of beer, but with all the rain we have, the downpour may leave you with a slug-free dish of water instead.

If you find better solutions, let me know!

[Carrot Cake]

Snails are the biggest enemy for my herb plants. I read it somewhere about beer. Found out fresh beer works better to attract those suckers than stale beer... apparently, they too have a taste for beer. But who wants to waste fresh beer? Then I tried yeast, honey water mixture. It works as well, but then i found a frog in the trap can then I stopped. Now I am just using raw potato slices or cabbage leaves and put them under a slightly tilted board or upside down pot near the infected plants in the evening. And early morning I revisit the trap with salt shaker in hand. Result: Loud scream and many casualties. No, no. Snails don't scream. I do.

[beebop]

oh yes and what Marcus mentioned about white spots is another huge problem. What is that stuff?

[bad_azz]

oh yes and what Marcus mentioned about white spots is another huge problem. What is that stuff?
Not sure yet until I see it - my guess would be aphids or fungus.

[Carrot Cake]

The white spots might be powdery mildew. I never have them in my garden, but my father's Anthurium had this problem before.
Cure: cut the badly infected leaves off then dispose/burn and wipe/spray milk water mixture (1:5) to the rest of the plants.

Is it white white, or slightly grey?

[beebop]

it is white white. I will try the milk thing and see if it works. problem is i am growing from seed, so the plants are always too small to take care of without damaging them.

[Carrot Cake]

New bedding ya. Hmm... curled and twisted leaves? Spreading spots? Is it fuzzie and powdery? If yes, then it's a problem. You could have fungus or bugs.

But if the white spots have no fuzz, no webbing, just white spots and not spreading, it doesn't need special treatment. It could also just mineral deposits from watering/fertilizer residue or the new plants are freaking out of too much sun their leaves and flowers bleach white. If so, just do water wash and move the pots into the the place with less direct sun, at least until they are ready.

But i think it's unlikely the white spots is your problem right now, beebop. Fungus or not. Some crooks making the leaves their feeding station. I suspect tiny winy snails and insects.