23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
It;s more likely to be gray mold, Botrytis rot since the fruit look like they're just covered in grey/white velvety growth. Powdery mildew growth looks different on fruit than that and you would also see it on green fruit also. Of course snip off the rotting fruit and dispose of it.
Sorry but I can't really tell much from your pictures. In the first one the dark edges and the crisping/rolling is often caused by too much nitrogen fertilizer. In the second picture I see a dark streak running through the one stem and maybe a couple of dark blotches on the one in the middle of the pic but it is difficult to tell how accurate the color is because the soil in your pics also looks VERY black and that is weird.
The dark staining of stems can often be a symptom of any of several different fungus diseases. If that is the case then that plant should probably be pulled and replaced while it is still early enough in the season because the treatment - regular spraying with fungicides - only has marginal success.
But if the infection is from your soil just replacing the plant won't help. So why is your soil so black? What mix did you use to fill the bed with? Do all the rest of your plants look ok? What have you fed them and how often?
Dave
For my soil I used 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 vermiculite. The compost was a mix of mushroom compost and earthworm castings. A couple of days ago I accidently sprayed a concentrated amount of neem oil of some of my plants including the tomato plant so is it possible sun damage caused the blackening?? I also had some blossom end rot 4 days ago on one tomato. I discarded it and added some crushed egg shells to up the calcium. I'm not sure if the rot is connected to whatever is happening to the stem and leaves though. As for my other plants they look fine.
Home grown broccoli can last a lot longer than a week in the fridge, IMPE. As LoneJack says, the ones @ the stores can be older than that & they keep in my fridge for another week, sometimes more.
I always grab a couple extra produce bags when shopping & store my harvest in those, in the vegetable drawer. I don't usually rinse until ready to use, but I do sprinkle a bit of water over greens to keep them from wilting. Harvest early in the day, too, when plants are @ their perkiest.
Once I got more and more into gardening (while I was still working) I didn't always have the time to process and freeze everything right NOW! I discovered Debbie Meyer green bags! They truly keep fruits and veggies twice as long (I'm not selling anything, just love them!) . They are a bit pricey, about 9.00 for 20, but you can wash and re-use them over and over. Sometimes the dollar store has pink bags, but they don't last very long. DM also has brown bread bags that keep French bread good for a week or more! I will usually share a package of the brown bags with the neighbors, cause how many "good" loaves of bread are you going to have open at any one time?
I actually bring my green bags to the grocery store when I have to buy something I don't have in the garden, just to save a plastic tree. Nancy
I watched a youtube video and a guy did an experiment on spouting spinach seeds. The conclusion is if you put the seeds in refrigerator half day and take them out for the other half day and keeps doing this process for 4 days, the spinach seeds germinate better than other methods. I had problem germinating my spinach seeds so I followed this process. Now it's spouting after two days of doing so. You will need to put the seeds in wet towel and then put the towel in a zip bag before putting the seeds in your fridge. I hope this will work well with your spinach seeds. I don't know how old my seeds are. I also have seeded my spinach outdoors and there is only 2 or 3 seeds out of 30 looking like spouting after laying in the soil at least one week.
Yes! I have had extensive problems with squirrels on strawberries and tomatoes... The frustrating part is with the tomatoes they wait until peak ripeness (like a day before I pick them)... take them up 45 ft in a pine tree.. take 1 bite and then drop them.. wasteful little SOB's!!!
Thank you GardenDan. I'm going to go check under the leaves and see if there is anything. I can't find any real evidence of voles. I've contacted the Clemson university to see if they can identify the issue and will post if I finally determine anything. My father in law told me he planted 50 tomato plants here about 3 years ago and he lost every one of them to this problem. Others seem to be wilting now.
Forecast yesterday was for a low of 34 and extensive local frosts. I put on a tarp and a heat tape intended to be wrapped around a pipe. It only got down to 43.
I guess that is good, but how incompetent can weathermen be! A wild guess would have been just as good.
In my experience, weather forecasting is done with possible extremes in mind, especially when it comes to frost. About five years ago we had a popular local forecaster who once predicted temps down to 38F. We had a hard freeze. The reaction from the local gardening (not just vegetable, but EVERYTHING) community was shock, hostility, and even abuse. The guy got his career handed to him on a cart. He left soon after. I think he's up in Denver now, where his unpredicted freezes can be more easily tolerated.
That's why I plant the dwarf varieties. No mess, no material cleanup, for a crop that has a two- three week harvest window. But then I can sympathize with those who have a variety that they believe has better flavor. I plant with tractor drawn planter and always plant twice what I can harvest. I also cultivate with tractor drawn cultivator, but picking is by hand. I prefer not to pick around trellis although I'll admit lifting and moving plants in the picking process often leaves the brittle plants injured. Usually by the second picking I'm pulling plants from the ground. A cumbersome trellis just doesn't fit in my growing routine.
I love scarlet runners and grow them somewhere every year. I like to eat the dried beans. Anyway, for hummers you should try a pillar of cypressvine morning glory (Ipomoea quamoclit). Easy to grow, NOT invasive like other morning glories, and the hummers love them. Renees garden, many others have seeds, they would have them at a box store seed rack I bet.
Since they're wet and sprouted, maybe fluid seeding would be easier: http://www.coopext.colostate.edu/4DMG/VegFruit/fliud.htm
I don't know what the problem is but it appears minimal from what I can make out in these pictures. Possibly it's even just some physical damage from the weather. But by snipping off leaves with a small amount of damage you deprive the plant of important photosynthesis capability. It isn't worth sacrificing that for cosmetic reasons. BTW your plants don't seem to have much room.
Well, I'll be in Oregon in late July, and we traditionally pick lots of (non-wild) blueberries, and make jam, pies, etc. So I think I'll be up to my neck in them by then. I really really really wish I could have blueberries down here, but the alkaline soil (not badly alkaline, just not enough acid) won't let me. I am delighted to learn, however, that blackberries grow just fine here, and I have put in a stand of Natchez that are going great guns. Probably should have put them in tires!
I don't care for kale smoothies personally but I love cooking with kale in all sorts of recipes and making dried kale chips - any kind of kale. We dehydrate a lot of it and add it to soupls and stews and salads and even chili. We grow a lot of Toscana, Red Bore and Dwarf Blue as well as Lacinato.
Dave
I don't make or eat smoothies either. I like to eat my fruit and veggies whole, including all the fibre. I generally just steam it or sweat it in butter or olive oil and serve as greens. I also chop it into pasta sauces for extra goodness. I don't freeze or dehydrate it either as it is available afresh all winter and I don't like frozen vegetables. I tried kale chips a couple of times but wasn't impressed. Dirt do you have a recipe I could try to see if I can change my mind?