24,795 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Maybe... But I just find that hard to believe... I just got soil test results that showed that all the nutrient levels were fine. And, the other cucurbits in the garden, including the large squash on the right are getting the same amount of water and are in the same soil and they're thriving. Add the spots on some of the leaves, and to me, it seemed like it must be disease. But, this morning suddenly the sick plant has begun to flower, so maybe it's not down for the count just yet.

We had similar damage to our tomato plants and thought it was my herbicide spraying in the lawn at first. But upon closer look, there were copious amounts of aphids on the backside sucking away the plant. If you don't have any bugs on the leaves, then it must be herbicide drift.
Our plants 2 years ago looked extremely similar. The leaves were curled, deformed and shriveled but it wasn't herbicide. Look very very closely at the leaves.

As Jean says, it could be either contaminated potting soil or compost, or herbicide drift. I'd set aside any amendments you used when potting up those guys, maybe plant some beans in the leftover soil and see if they crinkle up as they grow. If they grow fine, you can rule out aminopyralid or chlorpyrolid in the soil.




Depends: If you add ground limestone (Calcium carbbonate) it does take time to react so you would not get immediate results. If you add slaked lime/hydrated lime ( Calcium Hydroxide) results will be very quick. Most vegetables do ok at pH 5.5 but there are a few like beets, limas etc that like pH 6.5 or more.

Well, I think it is solved. Saw some nice pepper seedlings at the nursery that looked a whole lot better than mine after 3 weeks so decided to just pull them out. Sure enough, they came out easily and the peat pot had only a couple thin roots that made it out, everything else was balled up inside. So replaced them with new peppers, but decided to try and see if I could save these as well. Peeled off the peat pot from each- was surprisingly not that interwoven with roots- and replanted. Probably a lot for some pretty sick peppers to endure but will see what happens. Thanks for the suggestions!


The scape can be edible if it's *really* young. If it is already big it's probably woody, as Peter mentioned. Leeks make beautiful flowers that attract lots of bees, so I'd vote for letting it go to flower/seed. When it drops the seeds, it'll plant you loads of new leeks, so you won't have to start any indoors next winter -- just dig these up and plant deeply to get good white parts.

And you don't even have to start it indoors. You can direct sow lettuce outside. Put a sheet of clear plastic or glass over the soil to warm it up for a earlier start. For those planters you could just sprinkle a small pinch of seed and and start getting cut and come again salad quite quickly.

Have you considered that the underlying cause of such an infestation is excessive use of nitrogen fertilizes of some type? Excess nitrogen attracts them in droves.
Never had such an infestation such as you describe as I only use very low dose N in small amounts. S o the water hose and just stripping them off with fingers works fine for me even with hundreds of plants. The lady bugs take care of the rest. Corn is the only crop I ever have any real issues with them because of all the high N feeding it requires. But both peppers and eggplants require minimal N.
I assume you know that Neem and Safer Soap can also kill ladybugs so could be reducing your natural controls?
Another effective way of controlling them is taped fingers (masking tape) rubbed up and down the stems lightly. Picks up hundreds at a time.
Then there is Surround, a kaolin clay dust used to control various sucking insects. Quite effective but messy to work with.
Otherwise about all you can do is bring out the big gun pesticides like malathion and permethrin which I never advocate doing. Do keep in mind that the majority of the damage done by aphids is appearance type and usually tolerated by the plants unless the infestation is quite severe.
You might use the search to pull up all the 100's of previous discussions about 'aphid control' on this forum for additional suggestions.
Dave


May be my groundhog is a weak one, but it doesn't bother any beds that surrounded by 18 inches decorative wire fence and covered with black plastic bird netting. He can easily rip it off - but it doesn't happen, I guess it is just same unpleasant to him to touch the netting as for me to set it up).

A beautiful garden....
The first step would be to know what it is you are trying to deter so you don't waste your time and can be successful. Have you seen anything that looks similar to a beaver in your yard?
A woodchuck can be trapped in a Havahart where a deer cannot, so the approach is different. What kind of plants where eaten?
Do a google search one woodchuck/groundhog to get an understanding but they typically don't stray far from their hole in the ground. It can be under a shed, a deck, near the foundation of the house, or may be hidden in brush, etc. The hole will be almost 1ft wide so if you see a large hole and notice path in/out of the vegetation that could be the hole. It will go straight down for almost 3ft then out to to rest of the tunnels. It could come from the neighbors yard too.
You can buy smoke bombs at Home Depot or many garden centers that will create carbon monoxide that you drop into the hole. But you have know where the hole is. You can be sure they will ALL be in their hole after sundown.
If it is a groundhog (or deer) you likely have more than one. Which is why the smoke bomb is a better approach (I think). Because you will take care of the whole fam damily and not have to touch one. The hole should be filled in after tho - for safety and it will be used again.
IF you trap one in Havahart then you have to do something with it. I think it is rude to transport it to another place so it can be someone elses problem.
If you think it is a groundhog/woodchuck you have I can tell you a way a farmer told me what to do.
btw - woodchucks have been known to climb over or sun themselves on a fence. Or just dig under it.

I wouldn't risk with fresh chicken manure - it is too strong. The best way is to compost it with straw or leaves first. Or make a really high bed, to make sure roots will not reach it - but then it is a waste of manure... Also keep in mind that decomposing manure produce heat - if you in the warm zone it could be not good even if you put it deep down. I wouldn't be concerned about bacteria at all - birds are flying above your garden anyway and poop there... Just wash your veggies - as usual.

No if showing yellow they are past ideal picking. Different varieties are ideal at different sizes, both length and diameter. Which is why I ask the variety name. National Pickling for example tend to be fatter and lighter green while Boston Pickling are much darker green and shorter. Both will do well for dill spears and whole pickles. I prefer using slicer types for B&B pickles as they aren't as hard rind.
You can find much more about this over on the Harvest forum here. It is the canning, pickling, and preserving forum.
Dave

Then plant them and cover them to protect them from the night time lows. His point is a forecast low and an actual low temp at ground level are two different things. Much colder at ground level. Not to mention the soil is still too cold so they likely won't do anything growth-wise anyway so you gain little if anything by planting now.
So if you don't pre-warm your soil and/or you don't protect them from night time lows you are risking unnecessary environmental damage to the plants.
But is waiting until next week to plant really going to make that much difference? Very likely no.
There are all sorts of season-extension tricks that you can use to both plant earlier and harvest later when one lives in a short season area.
Dave

Probably best to just wait a week to plant then. If you;re still having lows in the 40's, then the soil temp is likely colder than ideal for tomatoes and cucs. The garden center seems to be warning you about possible cold damage to your transplants. Warm-season crops might be damaged with temps in the low 40's, especially if they were not hardened off well. A freeze certainly isn;t needed for damage to occur. Or maybe plant 4 of each this week and the others later.

If you get this much, it's too late to panic...

Sure. Once they begin to break down the all the soil residents quickly go to work on them. Or field mice, or voles, or maybe it was a message from the garden gnomes. :)
Dave
Last night I went to plant some more various garden beans (Burpee brand) and noticed that the soil in my beds was crawling with ants. Not your typical house ant but a bit lighter in color. So after planting my new beans I decided to apply DE to the entire area with my puffer applicator.
Still wondering why my Rocdors germinated just fine and not my 274s? The Rocdors were listed as being treated with Captan (don't know what that means) in the seed catalog meanwhile the 274s were untreated.
I just realized today that it may not have been the best idea to sow the new beans last night with the good amount of rain we may get between Sun and Tues.