Gardening With Sal

 I’m Choosing My Plants Over the Noise Invasive Series – Part 4 - The Final Plunge 📝 Opinion| by Guy Saldiveri | March 18, 2026 This installment is a little more rant‑flavored than the others, and it may come across sharper than I usually write. I’m not trying to pick a fight—I’m just out of patience with the dogma that gets tossed around like gospel and repeated as if it were carved in stone. For years—decades, really—gardeners, horticulturists, ecologists, and foresters have been arguing about native vs. non‑native vs. invasive. Not just in the U.S., but across continents. People are passionate about this topic, and their heels are dug in deeper than a pine tree’s taproot. And here’s the thing: the native/non‑native designation doesn’t just shift from country to country. It shifts locally. Sometimes dramatically. As it turns out, the “Granite List” we treat as sacred might have been written by a guy who simply didn’t walk down your riverbank in 1815. The Definition Problem (Agai...

Dino Sized Caterpillars, Beautiful Moths, Total Destruction 🦋 Garden Pests | by Guy Saldiveri | March 14, 2026 I remember the first time seeing a hummingbird moth. I was stunned. I honestly hadn't known things like that existed. I stared at it for as long as I could, completely mesmerized. Was it a moth or something else? It looked like a moth, but I swear it looked—and acted—more like a weird type of hummingbird.  Time for some research! Yep, it was a Sphinx Moth. Exactly which one though, I have no clue. There are a few in the family, and all are amazing to look at.  Sphinx moths belong to the family Sphingidae (hawk moths), which is composed of over 1,400 species.  The ones most commonly found here are the: • Carolina Sphinx (Tobacco Hornworm) • Five-spotted Hawkmoth (Tomato Hornworm) • White-lined Sphinx • Hummingbird moths (Clearwing Moth) Most folks call all of them hummingbird moths, and to be honest, that's just fine by me. I don't know any entomologists,...

 Tough, Destructive… and Some of Your Best Pollinators 🐝 Garden Pests | by Guy Saldiveri | March 10, 2026 The B‑52’s of the bee world! Carpenter Bees: Tough, Destructive… and Some of Your Best Pollinators  Carpenter bees are a tough one. They’re very prevalent and VERY destructive, but they’re also some of the best pollinators you have in your garden.  I used to hang traps, but I found killing them was too detrimental—the pollination loss wasn’t worth it. And besides, they aren't harmful to anything but some old untreated wood. I know, I know—if that wood is a beam on your porch, it’s not just some old untreated lumber… Depending on how bad they are, I either let them be or use a non‑lethal way to stop them. Over time I’ve learned what actually works and what doesn’t. 🎨 Paint the Undersides Painting or sealing the undersides of the wood they like to burrow into helps a lot. They strongly prefer raw or weathered wood. A good coat of paint makes the surface feel “wron...

 Why This Benchmark Belongs in the Compost Pile 📝 Opinion | by Guy Saldiveri |  Updated: March 11, 2026 This is another opinion that will probably ruffle a few leaves. That’s not the goal. My goal—as always—is to give you the most accurate and reliable information I can, even when it bumps up against tradition.   I've said before: I don’t sow seeds or set out starts in February. I usually treat February and March as cleanup months: clearing beds, prepping soil, getting everything ready for the year. And most years, I stick to that. The times I don’t? Those are the times when science says it’s safe to take the chance. I don’t follow folklore. I don’t follow “grandma said.” And I definitely don’t follow the Farmer's Almanac, which—let’s be honest—is just folklore with better marketing. What do I use? Let's take a closer look. It's not Easter, and it's not Good Friday. It's not any holiday or tradition that has absolutely nothing to do with meteorology. I use loca...

Love It or Hate It—If You Have It, You Know It Loved by some. Loathed by others 🌱 Plant Talk | by Guy Saldiveri | March 6, 2026 This is one plant I find myself at odds with when it comes to my stance on invasive species and allowing nature full control to do as she sees fit.  I love having it in the yard. I think it makes the lawn soft and a pleasure to walk on barefoot. I absolutely hate it when it comes to my raised beds and hardscaped flower beds. In the gardening world, it's called pennywort. You can even find it in some stores as a health supplement (although I think that may be a slightly different cultivar). In the backyard, though, most will simply refer to it as a WEED. Yep—dollarweed. Without a doubt, one of the most prolific weeds, plants, things-that-grow (or whatever else you call it)—you can ever have in the yard. This stuff grows so fast you'd swear it was being mass-produced on Ford's assembly line. One day there is one, the next day you have 300—and that w...

  Two Very Determined & Very Serious Pests 🪲 Garden Pests | by Guy Saldiveri | March 4, 2026 These are without a doubt the most serious foes I deal with in my garden. The squash bug and the squash vine borer deliver more damage pound-for-pound—or is that ounce-per-ounce—than any other pest I have ever dealt with. The vine borer is by far the worst of the two.  Some of my favorite things to grow are winter squash, zucchini, and pumpkins. These two pests just love to wait—or it seems so—until the plants are full, healthy, and producing fruit.  They’ll attack and can kill a plant within three or four days—at least the SVB can—if you’re not on your toes. These two pests are both serious, but they attack in very different ways. The squash bug will pierce the vine stem and suck the sap. While there are many other bugs that do the same, squash bugs are usually present in high numbers, and they’re much more voracious. They can easily cause an entire vine to wilt quickly an...

 The Longest Beans You’ve Ever Grown 🫘 Plant Talk:| by Guy Saldiveri | March 3, 2026 Asparagus beans—my all-time favorite crop. They're also called yard‑long beans and Chinese long beans. They have an edible pod and are technically a type of cowpea in the legume family. Their long, slender pods taste very similar to regular green beans but with a slightly nutty flavor. While they thrive in hot, humid southern climates, I've found that they do better in my area (Gulf South) if I keep them in partial shade or dappled sun. If left in full midsummer sun, they can suffer sun scorch and slow or stop production. They are very prolific from April until the first frost. This is one crop that benefits from picking—the more you harvest, the more they produce. Seeds should be sown about a week after the last expected frost date. They will require a trellis for support as they are true vining plants and cannot stand on their own. A trellis around six feet tall has worked very well for me....

 The Conventional and Not-So-Conventional Way 🥔 Plant Talk | by Guy Saldiveri | March 2, 2026 Who doesn’t love a good sweet potato? I know I do.  Baked, French fried, mashed, or baked into a pie. The pie… I almost like that even better than pumpkin pie—almost. If you’ve never tried growing your own, I highly recommend it. They’re easy to start, easy to maintain, and extremely high-yielding. Plus—and a lot of folks don’t know this—you can eat the leaves too. Clearing up the big confusion Let’s start this one off by getting rid of the elephant in the room—sweet potatoes are NOT yams. They look and taste different, and they belong to different families of plants. Sweet potatoes are grown throughout the world. Yams, on the other hand, are generally grown in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America. Sweet potatoes are root vegetables in the morning glory family. They have sweet, moist flesh and smooth, thin skins. Yams are large, starchy tubers with a rough, brown, bark‑like sk...

 Various Layouts Used Throughout my Yard 🌿 Garden Talk | by Guy Saldiveri | March 1, 2026 Over the years, I’ve had to modify how and where I grow things. For this reason, I prefer to use containers or grow bags for most of the vegetables, and fixed beds for things that I use for permanent crops like garlic and onions. The fixed beds also serve well for some other plants such as okra, corn, and sometimes squash.  These layouts allow me to move things around fairly easily if weather patterns change or get to a point where the plants will be damaged for some reason. Using cattle panels for trellises provides very sturdy support. They also make it easy for me to provide shade (with shade cloth) if needed. I can also create greenhouses for winter use without having to build other structures.  This method also gives me more, and easier control over the soil environment when it comes to amendments or dealing with disease, and saves a lot of work when it comes time for weeding....