23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

They produced well and there was nothing wrong with them flavorwise but nothing spectacular either. I prefer the traditional long green kind--easier to peel.

my vines are at least12 feet long. I pick about 20 cukes a week. Sell at farmers market

I know that smell loribee! It is a good one. Reminds me of fishing in the rain once when I was little.

I usually get a soaker hose set up, but gee darn, had to take 2 weeks in Hawaii!
I do like hand watering! It's "therapy" for me! (anything to do with water is therapy to me!) It also allows me to poke in around the plants, look for veges (especially hiding zukss! and hiding green beans!), look for bugs and critters!
Just FYI, Cath, there is a forum for disabled gardening. I check it out from time to time cause I have a bad back and contribute from time to time cause I've worked with many people with physical disabilities. My chiro LOVES my adapted things in the garden! Nancy

>>djkj -- most useful video, thank you so much. I was very reassured as that is just what my plants look like. I had thought they were spindly and unhealthy, but I guess that's how they are. I have to say I haven't fertilised every three weeks, though. Whoops. Would a tomato fertiliser do?
>>>>

Yes a tomato fertilizer does just fine. It will give the okra the nutrients it needs and will also help with the blooms!

ditto on farmerdill's comments. My experience with Clemson is the same. I too prefer Emerald.

Sweet potato leaves are very popular in Asian & Pacific Island cultures. The shoots are sometimes sold in bundles in Asian markets. The good thing about that is, you can pinch off the tip & tender leaves, throw the stems into a glass half full of water, and cook the leaves. If you like the flavor, the stems will root quickly, and you can plant them.

Not all sweet potato leaves taste the same. I've tried some that were horrible, with almost a chemical aftertaste. The ornamental varieties with colored leaves fall in that category, among others.

Filipinos have an edible-leaf variety called 'kamote', which is the one I usually grow. In hot weather, the leaf production can be astounding.

But for a hot weather green, I much prefer the closely related water spinach. It too is often sold in bunches in Asian markets, and the shoots root even more readily than sweet potatoes. Water spinach can also be grown from seed, but unfortunately, it has been declared a noxious weed in the U.S., so seed is hard to find.

You can find a lot more info on both vegetables in the Asian Vegetable Forum.

oh...My parents survived from famine by eating them. That's what they told me. Food shortage is no long a problem when I was raised. But my mother occasionally prepare those food by steaming sweet potato leaves mixed with corn powder and seasoned with peanut oil. They are absolutely delicious. But my father don't like them possibly he just ate too much. LOL

I use a two gallon sprayer.

The only things I spray are Spinosad (rarely), Bt (often), neem oil & clove oil for fungus (often), and micronutrients (occasionally during plant establishment - I have highly alkaline soil). I use the same sprayer for all these. If you use herbicides, make sure you have a dedicated sprayer for that.

Here's a little something to remember: many of the pesticides (insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc.) that we use in our garden are not stable once they are mixed with water. RoundUp, Bt, Spinosad, insecticidal soaps, etc. are perfect examples of products that lose their viability or potency quite quickly once mixed. This is very true with the strong, toxic chemicals, too.

That means that we should not be making up more solution at any time than we are going to use immediately. Each and every time we need to apply something, we should estimate how much water will be needed to get the job done, then calculate the exact amount of product for the volume of water.

Being careful about mixing up only what we intend to use at any given time solves the issue about what to do with the excess. There shouldn't be any! USE IT. However, should there be leftover stuff, it should be applied to the same location until it's all gone. Then, fill the sprayer up with clear water and apply the rinsate to that same area, too. It's not lawful to dump these products down a drain or on the soil.

I saw the subject line of the post--Prune Peppers--and what popped into my brain was, like, spicy peppers + prunes. (I know you can dry peppers but that's not what I thought of.)

Is this a new remedy to "keep you regular"? Give the Phillips laxative lady some competition! Sunsweet ad:

"Use in your favorite recipe! Flavor AND regularity! (Use at your own risk.)"

Prunes + hot peppers = Liquid Fire.

Thanks!

I'll probably try it just because I'm too tired/lazy to get a whole other bed set up.

Robinsons, in England, who grow award winning onions as well as producing seeds for exhibition, heritage and general edible use, have been maintaining a 200 year old onion bed. I, myself, because of endemic white rot on my plot, have a raised bed area where I grow garlic, every year. While crop rotation is a precursor to plant health, it is only one strategy out of many and for some crops (most notably beans) a permanent trench system has been in use for centuries.

I also committed the cardinal sin of growing potatoes in the same place for 2 successive seasons (and am still waiting to be cast down into purgatory by the god of gardening). Go ahead, Bart - life is too short to get hung up on everything....if it works, great and if not, well then, a lesson learned....but who is harmed by your little experiment?

Baby rabbits can get through a 1" hole! I've watched them. Whatever you use, make sure it's less than 1" - I use 1/4" plastic coated metal from any hardware store and sink it into the soil 6" and up over the rest of the metal barriers to a height of about 2". Bunnies are tiny!

They have special wire fencing called "Rabbit Fence" The opening near the ground are smaller but wider toward the top. I think its about 24" high. Anyway, it is designed to fend off rabbits.

Sold at HD.

The following link takes you to a video where the webcajun shows the five stages of the pink eye purple hull peas. He has quite a few videos on growing, harvesting and canning them. I pick my peas beginning at the "Racing Stripe" stage and continuing until just turning all the way purple but still soft.

This post was edited by yolos on Tue, Jul 29, 14 at 21:10

Well heck, what happened to my link. here it is.

Here is a link that might be useful: When to Harvest PEPH peas

Agree with Zach. That is why I was thinking of four rotating paddocks, so one is always fallow and ready for the onslaught. They clean it up in days anyway.

Our bird population is pretty healthy, although robins are generally seen more in January/February. I have plenty of other predators (lizards, skinks, garter snakes). I think this is probably one of those waves. The density I am seeing now is definitely an anomaly compared to the past. They are not swarming but the numbers I see are staggering, and these are just babies, I hate to imagine what it would look like if they all reached maturity.

The chickens are only going in 2 at a time when I can supervise, although if the grasshoppers they clean out everything, I may let them rummage some more. If I were to move and start a new garden, I would probably do the four paddocks for the chickens or a chicken moat around the garden.

Thanks @Peter1142 for the response. I didn't think it was related to sun stress due to the fact it has been raining for weeks. But it's totally possible, B/C when it is sunny.....boy, is it sunny. Very hot and humid over here. I did some additional research and found some photos of Thrip damage that looks like this. So it's one or the other I guess. I suppose in either case, the leaves are okay to eat? I hope so, my harvest is pretty modest. Thanks!

Well I'm not an authority on the matter, but my romaine had something similar going on, and you could see it was only on the outer leaves exposed to the sun in summer, the inner ones were normal. And it didn't happen to the lettuce that matured earlier.

I ate them all and lived to tell about it ;)

I wouldn't worry about it, just wash it well of course. You can't expect blemish free leaf crops....

I bought them many months ago, the leaves seam to have a powdery underneath. If the main plants cant be saved do I need to destroy all the runners also, I have so many and I was hoping to grow more for next years plants.

They have been well watered and some of the others that are starting share a bucket with healthy looking plants. I would like to be able to at least save the runners.

Chris

It sounds like a fungus...which is (probably) an opportunist due to stressed conditions. Treating with a fungicide and correcting dryness or wetness or whatever other environmental stress made them susceptible to the fungus in the first place.

However, that's a definite guess and please don't take it as authoritative.