23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Frost doesn't hurt them at all, but there are numerous animals that will eat, or at least gnaw the kernels. The longer they are out the more likely to be discovered.

I take some starting about now and make super-fresh cornbread.

Sounds good -- like I've got some leeway.
Thanks!

Hi,
Finally, I got about 5 BMs. Now, the new small BMs are turning yellow. What could be the reason? Too much fertilizer, lack of space(because they are growing in pots)??

Thanks
a

may be the small BMs are not ripe .they r unpollinated flowers

That makes sense zeedman. I never entertained the issue that they might be self-pollinating, as I have a colony of bees, and they are on my bean plants like paper on a wall. They also visit my corn, even though it's wind pollinated. I might add to others who have mentioned trimming bush beans for a second crop that it is not necessary. All you really need to do it to keep picking the pods as they mature to keep them coming on. Mine are always good for at least two good flushes before they start to get spent. I still sow them in succession so that I can enjoy them and can them from early in the season until the first killing frost. I just picked from my youngest (and last one of the season) batch two days ago and will be good to go for an equally heavy harvest before the cold sets in.

Bees can pollinate beans - and occasionally cross pollinate them. However, the flowers are mostly self-fertilized before the flower even opens.

Persimmons, your beans have a good pod set, which is the reason new pods stopped forming. Looks like they are close to maturity.

When beans are let go for seed, the leaves too tend to yellow & fall off as the pods get close to maturity. I've noticed though that if the pods are picked in the shelly stage (before they dry) that the plants will sometimes begin putting out new leaves & flowers. This seldom happens if the pods dry on the plant.

Let's be careful here. I used to live in 8a (Western Oregon), and I now live in 8b (Central Texas). TOTALLY different. In Texas we have high 90s in the summer, dipping to high 70s at night. In Oregon, we had 90s in the daytime (well, not that often, but sometimes) with temps in the 50s and 60s at night. That will make a world of difference for peas. Peas don't mind heat, as long as it isn't sustained heat.

Super sugar snap seems to do best for me. It seems that if the peas are not producing during very hot weather, the plants, if keep watered well, do fine. I try to time the pea production to when the cooler weather starts.

And yes, it's likely the temperature difference can be substantial enough to succeed in some areas and fail in others. I sure hope that sharing my experience doesn't encourage anyone to try something for themselves......

It doesn't change what you get, but from decades of experience with horse poop, I can tell you that most weed seeds do not go unscathed through horses except for grass seeds. But a lot of the weed seeds in hay get dropped into areas where the horse eats and into the bedding. And a lot of seeds happily grow around a poop pile left in a field to get picked up there too.
I found if I pick up the manure daily, I get almost no weed growth.
But the unlikelihood of a non-horse person to be that selective about the manure they get means it doesn't matter in the end- you get weeds unless you get the compost pile hot enough.

I get some partially rotted horse manure that has quite a bit of hay in it...no wood shavings. Yes, I get some clover seedlings sometimes....not weeds. I work it into many areas in the late summer or fall. I do avoid lettuce and spinach areas and also lima beans, sweetpotatoes, and melons. The reason for avoiding melons and sweetpotatoes is to cut down on fungal diseases. For limas...it makes them grow too big and bushy and delays bean bearing.

Another option is to put your coop bedding on top of your garden and allow it to decompose over the winter (don't till). Then in the spring, you simply plant in the soil underneath the un-decomposed wood chips and leave the chips on top for mulch.

Since the coop bedding is a combination of manure and wood shavings, and well aged if you only muck once a year, I would put it straight onto the garden, till it in. In the spring it will be well decomposed.
I've actually side dressed things like corn with this stuff straight from the coop, in a thin layer and had great success. I wouldn't use it on legumes and would probably avoid putting it on greens until it's completely decomposed just due to the nitrogen and bacteria issues.

bart, how did you control them? (the voles)

Zones have nothing to do with average first and last frosts or summertime weather. They are simply based on the coldest temperatures seen in that area. For example, some of the Pacific Northwest is in zone 8, which is the same zone as parts of Florida. Obviously, the climate is far different in the PNW as in Florida.

One of my tomatillos has grown, in a 5-gallon fabric container, into a beautiful little tree. The other, while it has tons of blossoms (which are just starting to dry up, so I'm not 100% sure if they'll fruit yet) is scraggly and viney. I'm thinking about moving the tall lovely one inside as a houseplant, but was worried about separating them since I had heard they weren't self-fertile (which I thought was odd since they were quite clearly in possession of both male and female parts). This has given me a bit of hope that I'll be able to take this lovely thing inside, put it in my ridiculously sunny bedroom in front of the full-length window (and maybe give myself a little extra privacy in the process) and possibly still get some fruits. Either way, it's such a pretty plant I think I'll be happy.

Tomatillos are easy to grow, They like warm weather. Mine usually get about 1/3rd the size of my tomato plants. I give them about 5 feet between plants and just let them grow with no support. I planted Tamayo R hybrid variety this year. The fruits were very large and the plants seemed less aggressive. They were wonderful. Almost 150 lbs from 4 plants so far with one more picking before the end of season. I will be planting this variety again and recommend it.

I mixed older pea, cat grass (wheat), radish, and a few other types of brassica seeds together and scattered them over a bed, raked over it, and called them my fall cover crop. They will all grow in cool fall weather but the extreme winter temps will kill them. In the meantime they will keep weeds down, hold on to nutrients in the soil so they don't leach downward, add some organic material to the soil, and maybe the peas will even add some extra nitrogen if they get to grow long enough. In the spring I'll just turn the area over and be ready to plant....hopefully without the weeds that often come in through the fall and winter.

All great replies, thanks !

I think your plants got just the right amount of nitrogen, pulsed at the right times. Crimson clover can produce 150 lb N per acre, so with two years under crimson clover let's say you hit 225 lb N per acre, with much of that held in safe reserve by the soil. This is pretty much the ideal level for peppers, plus you added more, a good move in a warm climate with a long growing season.

Additionally, you probably got a flush of bioactive N from the clover residue in early summer, when the soil warmed up. Extra N provided while the fruits are small gives you big, thick-walled peppers.

Here is a link that might be useful: N levels for peppers

I think you are probably right planatus.

Only like 3-4. I tried brushing, but they didn't come off and I don't want to brush too hard and rip a leave off or something. I also want to tackle this soon, since I had a pretty serious aphid infestation of my brussels over summer and don't want a repeat.

So far it looks like the seedlings survived the insecticide.

Even if the soap causes a little leaf damage, it's better than letting cabbage aphids get out of control. The plants can recover from leaf damage better than those drat aphids.

I'm in Ca where we're in year 3 of a drought, but I have a deep well, so I can carefully water as needed.
We were gone the last week of May and the first week of June, so though I showed my daughter how to do the watering, it might not have been done properly, but there was plenty of time to catch up when we got back! Our tomatoes are usually 5-6' tall and produce tons! This year they are barely 3' tall! Our purple cherokes were close to a pound each last year and this year are the size of golf balls!
I got 2 peppers out of 12 plants (that could be the fault of the soil in the huge raised up beds we bought)
Eh! I won't go through it all....everything was OK, but not so great!
I'm going to really work on my soil this year. I have moved some of the compost bins right on top of the beds that will be vacant this winter, and I'm going to finally meet the lady that raises rabbits! Nancy

Elisa makes a good point about the native soil beneath the beds. Your soil mix is probably too light, without enough gritty soil particles, plus you need to fertilize. Time will help cure the first problem as along as you do a deep digging (to mix in actual soil) and keep adding compost every time you plant. Also get a balanced organic fertilizer and use it according to the needs of the crop you are planting. Plants make best use of fertilizer when they are young, so fertilizing should be a pre-planting thing.