23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
I had a rat problem last year. My son went out with his pellet gun and within an afternoon of flushing the holes, he had them all taken care of. No poison, no traps, no mess.
If anyone wants to borrow a 15 year old and a pellet gun, just let me know.
guavalane
So, it's war in the garden! I've spent hours and hours and hours pouring over webpages, gardening books, talking to gardeners and it's a funny thingâ¦it's really hard to find a definitive solution.
Folks either say they have never had a problem or a trap solved it. But, I keep the garden clean and protect the fruit treesâ¦so hard to protect tomato plants effectively! Your solution seems like the solution I have been looking for!
I've trapped and trapped but alas the rats are still eating my green tomatoes.
I see the item that you purchased from Harbor Freight and it looks simple enough.
How is it working for you these days!? Any changes you would make?! What wire did you select?
Here is a link that might be useful: Solar Fence Controller
In fact if you try to grow celery in the desert you can expect trouble. I do believe that my invasive celery is Utah. I never plant it, and it grows in near full shade, where now it has its own bed since last year. It is very strong, but we freeze pillow bags of the stuff every year, and it reseeds at an astonishing rate. A handful of leaves and a tbsp of salt flavor a whole chicken, and we have solved for good the problem of having greens for stock (we have soup every day in winter, and several times a week in summer). My wife also puts it in her juices. If I were to plant it in the sun surely I, too, could sell it at the farmer market. I am amazed at how trouble free it is in heavy, moist soil in Michigan.
Very interesting... I just watched a documentary last week on Monsanto and their GMO corn.... apparently when gmo corn crosses with non-gmo corn the results can be mutated corn... and the result is what you have growing in your compost.... they referred to this as "trans-genic" corn.
I would pull it out and destroy it, as in burn it.
I am going to see how it turns out. I am growing it more for decoration than eating (though it can be used as popcorn). I am the only one in the area with any vegetable garden, and last year I had 3 varieties. Glass gem, which is an heirloom variety, purchased from Native Seeds - a nonprofit in Arizona, and 2 varieties I likely got from Burpee and could have come from Monsanto - strawberry corn and caramel-krisp corn. The 3 varieties had staggered maturities and I didn't have any cross-breeding problems last year, though this plant sprung from a discarded ear from then. These are the only two years I have grown corn, though, so I wanted to make sure this was something unusual and not something that happens and I just hadn't seen before. The picture doesn't show it, but this plant also towers over all my other ones, even others that sprouted in the compost (lesson to self, careful what I toss in there).
If anyone else has any thoughts on this, or has seen it before, would be glad to hear it. I will post an update once I see how it turns out.
Nick, after you have a meal with your fresh beans you will knock yourself on the forehead that you didn't plant more!!!!!LOL
They will grow really high, but I usually make my trellis no more than 5-6 ft high so I can reach them without a stepstool! They will droop down and climb again!
This year, rather than a teepee type structure, we made the structure with the X on the bottom, and the taller parts on top so the beans hang down where I can reach them from the outside. Works great! Nancy
I also bought something similar with the same idea- natural so organic. I thought it was labeled as twine but threw away the packaging so I'm going to stop in the store to see exactly what it is. I had thought about just cotton string, like what a chef would use, but was thinking to stay away from the bleach. What are other people using in their vegetable gardens for string?
thanks again Dave. more great info. Yes, the grasshopper population is lower here than where I lived before. So that is a plus. Reading that they eat heavily for only about 2 weeks is small comfort as I think the garden would have been wiped out in about three days.
nhbabs, seems like these critters emerge from the ground so netting over top would not be a good defense though useful for other varmints.
Do all blister beetles eat grasshopper eggs? I have seen some of the larger, black blister beetles and I have a ton of grasshoppers. It would be nice to know that something out there is working on them while I wait for the Nolo bait to work.
That's the information i'm looking for! You could make a pond to hold the water? You have to understand, it's extremely difficult to try and imagine your situation. Do you have neighbors sorrounding you from all sides? You in the sticks, next to city hall, or what? Pictures would be very helpful. i'm sure there's a halfway easy, reasonably cheap fix to your problem. You could just make a new drain, but that will probably cost a fortune.
See I have a ditch running right behind my back fence. I plan on putting In a little orchard in my backyard. The problem is water pooling. Peach trees hate standing water, some even go out the way making individual raised beds for their trees. I was planning on just digging a ditch in my backyard, directing the water into the other ditch right behind my back fence. That seems like the easiest fix for me, it would be for you, unless you have neighbors on all sides and don't have any ditches for the water to go. I guess you would have to pay a mint to have them regrade your entire property, or perhaps just around the gardens and house. What are your options you considered with your neighbor?
It strikes me that "flooding" may be the problem with my asparagus. It has been doing well for five years, but this year, the lower half (lower as compared to the higher side) did not produce much. I was thinking to blame it on the carpeting that I put around the bed, to make a path and to stop weeds, but maybe the bottom half of the bed flooded. Anybody agree? We have had a phenomenal amount of rain here in SW PA.
The FAQ is called something like "Why are the blooms falling off..." It may say tomatoes as that is where it is most common. Plenty of info about Blossom Drop available via Google too.
It is a common and wide spread condition that affects all fruiting vegetables as the high heat and humidity make the pollen 'tacky' and non-viable.
Dave
I've got a watermelon that looks a lot like that. Small yellow flowers, fuzzy small vine, and the melon looks about like that. I planted a Sugar Baby, so they're on the smaller side. Been years since I planted a pumpkin and I dont really remember how they start out, but I agree... looks like a melon
I plant Little leaf and Adam Gherkin Hybrid, they both parthenocarpic, we have bad cucumber beetles issue, so I have to plant in a screen house. Little leaf is a little slow to start and not gynoecious, but very dependable for me. Adam did OK, at least started earlier and it is gynoecious. Also tried other gynoecious European cucumbers, but they seem not to like even our zone 5 b summer heat. Not sure how Little leaf and Adam will do in zone 9.
Brussels sprouts that develop hollow stems is caused by either a severe boron deficiency in the soil OR excessive nitrogen and a rapid rate of growth while still very young. That leaves the plant susceptible to any number of soil-borne fungus and bacterial diseases.
IMO your plant is displaying some of the classic symptoms of Yellows (Fusarium Wilt) and there are also other potential fungus issues at work. At this point of advanced disease the plants cannot be salvaged. Sorry.
Dave
Thanks Dave.
I pulled them today and split apart the stems. A couple of observations.
1) Black specks inside the stems. Maybe frass? My son found a couple of cabbage worms on the seedlings a few days after we got them from the nursery.
2) Molted skin - Brown black inside the stem
Overall, they went quickly, so I think (and use that lightly based on my amateur status ) that there was a pest that helped a fungal issue take hold.
This was my third time in 5 years trying to grow Brussel Sprouts. One year the soil wasn't right, One year the soil was good but I planted out too soon and we had a blazing hot summer (bitter plants with loose heads), now this year. :-(
Thanks for your input!
Slimey (love the name BTW!) send some rain our way! Severe drought!
Lori- I think we got to 98*ish Fri. Today was cooler, but still 90ish!
So, will my beans and tomatoes suffer? It's supposed to stay warm for a couple more days. Nancy
Like tomatoes, squash, eggplant etc watermelon is a fruiting vegetable. There are 4 commonly used signs that a watermelon is ripe. 1. The tendril where the stem attaches to the vine has dried up . 2, the area where the melon sits on the ground has changed color(easy with dark colored melons, more difficult with white melons) 3.The filmy glaze has faded. 4. Thumping (takes a good ear and experience but quite effective when perfected).
Ripe means a watermelon has completed its reproductive cycle. Sweetness is a characteristic of the variety and its growing conditions. There is wide variance among varieties for sweetness. Growing conditions including shade, stress, incomplete pollination etc can severly affect sweetness.