My garden has suffered snail infestation, fungus gnats, fungus and caterpillars. Okinawa environment is a perfect breeding place for all the above and then some. I am actually amazed that I have any plants at all.
To be fair, I fuss over my garden every morning for about 30 minutes unless there's something that requires immediate attention other than my usual water and pest lookout routine. The great snail pellet fiasco comes to mind. I had to remove the top soil of all my plants because of the pellets I sprinkled in all their pots to keep the snails from eating up all my plants.
Not sure if all snail pellets do this or not but after a rain shower, the day after I applied pellets to my pots and yard, all of my potted plants had a scary top layer of fungus on their soil. Nasty white and grey spider web looking fungus. It ended up killing half my strawberries, most of my four leaf clovers and did a number on my mints and succulents.
I had to use up all of the bagged soil I had left to save what I could. For about two weeks my stuff was on the verge of dying.
I then decided to blow through all of my rain water reserves to make compost tea. I water everything every morning with it. I re potted strawberries in the compost that was left. I did this for about a week and a half and my garden bounced back and then some.
Strawberries look very green and leafy, the baby strawberry plants are sprouting new leaves like mad. My mints are flowering and my clovers made a new blanket of growth to cover the yuck that happened to them. I ripped out two thirds of my clovers to replace the soil.
Catastrophes happen to gardens, especially newbie gardeners that do dumb things like I did and go nuts on snail killer. Lesson learned.
Let's discuss COMPOST! Yes, let's. My family and I live in a rental home. Small yard...tiny! Compared to typical American yards. Actually in Japan the yard I have is quite large.
So in case some are wondering I do not have a large yard. I do not have animals. I have just yard grass, a nearby jungle forest and whatever produce I buy for dinner. I still make compost. Its crazy easy.
My method, on the Internet you will get many different answers, is roughly 1 part brown to 1 part for every green thrown in. I may use a little more green at time but I try to keep it even. I try not to sweat it too much.
I use everything I can find that is free or just going in the trash bin. Last weekend, since I used up all my compost for the fungus eradication, I had to rebuild a new batch. My husband and I went to the jungle forest and scooped up bunch of grass clippings and small twigs. Our produce availability is nonexistent since we haven't bought any supplies for the kitchen yet. Then my daughter and I cut up a brown cardboard box into small pieces and threw in half of those with the grass clippings. We then added some extra soil we had bought and watered it all down. Our compost bin is a large plastic pot we keep on the driveway where it can get sun and rain exposure. I usually turn my the pile every 4th day if I remember. To be honest, I am very forgetful but the compost I've made in the past worked very well. During the time as, I wait on thing to break down, I will add coffee grounds and more produce with brown paper bag bits.
I also read or heard somewhere that adding fertilizer like blood meal speeds up the break down. I want to say that really helped my last batch but I had also threw in worms to finish up the job. Not sure but I will just say, watch videos on compost methods. My experience with creating this wonderful stuff is that it doesn't need PRECISE measurements and on the spot watering and turning. My method works for me in the Okinawa environment. Its muggy all day, rains and the heat is pretty intense. That's my conditions here. I encourage you to try! A small pot with veggie and fruit scraps mixed in with brown cardboard or untreated wood shavings and a little extra soil.
Any how that is my way of composting and here are the results of my garden thus far. You can still see some damage from the fungus but things are on the upswing.
