24,795 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Are you sure you have adequate drainage holes in the window box? You should be able to water until water comes out the bottom. You have fungus gnats because of the soil you are using, which is not really a good soil for containers in spite of what the label says. Push you finger deep into the soil mix and see if it is soggy or just damp. If it is soggy, your plants can develop root rot.
It would be better to use a sol-less mix that doesn't include the organic ingredients like bat guano and poultry manure. But, since you have already planted, I recommend adding mosquito bits (or crumbled up mosquito dunks) to your water and using that a few times on your soil. They contain Bt, a very safe organic insecticide that is the only thing that can kill fungus gnat larva in the soil. Fungus gnats won't kill your plants, but they won't help either.

<I have a 12" plastic planter and two 36 x 6.7 window boxes.>
Not nearly big enough for banana, bell, and Jalapeno pepper plants. 5 gallon buckets or equivalent are the very minimum for for those varieties. All 3 types are easily 3' to 4' tall plants, easily 2' to 3' wide and with a root ball 12-18" wide. I strongly suggest you invest in much bigger containers to transplant them into and as Ohiofem said, fill those containers with a good quality soil-less potting mix, not a potting soil for best results.
Dave


Agree. leaf miners. They don't pose any real threat to the plants. As mentioned just remove the leaves and/or squish the worm.
As for the yellow bottom leaves, that is usually from over-watering, a common problem when using containers as you are. Since nutrients leach out of the pot every time you water you need to replace them regularly and make sure your water pattern is one of consistency - not too much and not too little.
Plus there is clearly lots more room in your pot for more soil. The more soil in the container the easier it is to stabilize the watering.
Lots of info about all this over on the Container Gardening forum here.
Dave

Honestly, most all seed vendors - even the big box stores - now offer many heirloom varieties of seeds so you can probably buy many locally.
The problem is that for marketing purposes many vendors label them "heirlooms" when they really are not. They are open-pollinated varieties, not hybrids, but don't have the age or documented history to really qualify as heirlooms. So it is a shopper-beware situation if true heirlooms are what you want.
Dave


Very strange weather indeed NHBabs I wish I could send some of this rain we are getting to the NE. I'm just the opposite here in Kansas City area (where it is currently raining again), other than watering in a few seeds I have not had to water my garden at all this year and it is a good thing that I raked up raised beds in my in ground beds or everything planted in them would be drowned. I can't walk on the paths between the raised rows even though I put down cardboard and grass clippings over them. Things are looking up though with the 10 day forecast showing only a small chance of rain any day. I think most of the farmers around here managed to get their corn planted, but I don't think many soy beans have been planted yet.



Hard to say without a picture as there are different patterns of yellowing and they mean different things. I will say that putting potatoes out in Albuquerque just 3-4 weeks ago sounds rather late. Admittedly though, New Mexico is not conducive to potato growing but it is fun to keep trying.


Many tomato growers do advocate preventive spraying for fungal diseases. Chlorothalinil or Daconil is considered most effective, but I am nervous about using it. So I have used actinovate, neem oil and serenade with some success to slow down early blight. I haven't had problems with other diseases, so I don't generally use fungicides on anything but tomatoes.


I couldn't understand why I've had luck with planting onion at the end of May and I didn't think there would be that much difference between our zones, but I found out the reason why.
"...the US zones are based entirely on average minimum temperature, and the zones are not subdivided. The Canadian index is far more complicated, and is based on a complicated mathematical formula that takes into account snowfall, wind, rainfall, the warmest month, etc."
From a different site
"The hardiness zones are informative: the extremes of winter cold are a major determinant of whether a plant species can be cultivated outdoors at a particular location; however, the USDA hardiness zones have a number of drawbacks if used without supplementary information.
The zones do not incorporate summer heat levels into the zone determination; thus sites which may have the same mean winter minima, but markedly different summer temperatures, will be accorded the same hardiness zone."
Of course I am also in a slightly cooler zone so I am sure that is the biggest factor now after hearing you say it's way to late. The ground is still frozen in April here half the time. We just had 0c temps on Friday, last year had snow on Mother's day and killing frost on Sept 1st, year before frost at the beginning of June. The old couple I buy my hay from said they never do seeds and almost plant in June because they've had frost in middle of June here. Luckily I haven't seen that yet, and hope I never do. I was devastated enough to go from middle of October frost dates for a 5b zone to early September for 5a. It was a shocker that first gardening season for sure. We do also have a bit of a micro climate here with a almost 50 foot elevation level between the upper and lower garden so that could be part of the reason since this is the first year I've had onions in the upper garden we'll see how they'll do. So far the sets have grown 8 inches in about 2 weeks with three frosts in that time.
With all that jibber jabber said, I'd still much rather prefer a pearl onion to bitter carrots. Only reason I put some seeds in now was for the livestock. I guess it's a preference thing though.



Champion is an early red radish and yes it is a cool weather crop. That means daytime temps consistent below 90. If you are in a cool summer climate they should do ok. Tops make decent greens when treated as a turnip green. They don't have very large tops tho.