23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
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.
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.
You got good answers in your other thread.
Rodney
Here is a link that might be useful: Prepping soil in fall for winter?
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 agree with planatus that the best thing you can do is get them curing. If the necks are soft, you can knock them down and wait a week (weather permitting). If they're still firm you can pull the onions and cure them in a warm (if possible) ventilated space.
I'm not sure what a 'row and a half' is in quantity, but if you have a lot, you may want to go ahead and start eating them. Those onions don't keep all that long anyway and without going to full term, may only keep a month or two.
After a few weeks of curing I would check for soft spots and use those ones first.
Good luck,
-Mark
This post was edited by madroneb on Fri, Sep 26, 14 at 11:05
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.
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.
seriously -- don't till the asparagus. It is a perennial. It stays in the ground. Just plant what you want in other areas of the garden. You'll get your asparagus to eat in the spring -- keep on cutting it before it gets too tall, and you'll have a few weeks of great eating.
I agree about NOT tilling the asparagus! Cut it back when it turns brownish in the fall. Keep it mulched to control the weeds. Let it be it's own bed!
You really need to go over to the composting or soil forums to learn about different ways of composting!
Things like straw or hay (hay has seeds), different kinds of manure have weed seed in them and you want to find out from people you get the manure from if their animals are treated with certain things or their feed is treated.
Not sure about this "spot composting", but if you get as much as I do each day, you'll have little holes all over your yard!LOL. You might be referring to trench composting? (I hope I have that right) digging a trench and adding your kitchen waste as you go????
You will have to find a source of "browns" to go with all of those "greens". Your straw (chopped up!) lots and lots of leaves, also chopped as well as you can! UCGs are great also!
Anyway, make your way over to the soil board and do some perusing! It'll keep your winter full of things to learn! Nancy
Juicebox,
Hi there. I couldn't say for sure... But I grew a bunch of tobacco and had the same thing happen to one of them as they sprouted. I did ask a similar question to others. I was told it happens occasionally and it would grow up to be just like the others. And it did just that, was like all the rest. It being a different plant, I couldn't tell you whether the results would be the same. I took a picture of the one I saw and it grew just as the others...
Actually, there were 2 of them one in each cell - tooth pick for marker...
At Wal-Mart I have seen Purple Passion, the Washington ones and Jersey varieties. I bought some of the Purple and Jersey to fill in gaps in my beds and they did fine. However, the ones I received mail order were definitely bigger/more developed.
They did have Jersey Asparagus crowns/roots that I bought, and they didn't grow anything.
I bought the Bonnie asparagus in a plastic 6 pack planter. Not very developed, and I may or may not get Asparagus in the Spring... but they definitely grew nicely for the first year from what I have read.
Buying the stuff when they have them at the big box store is so much cheaper than online.... I save the online buying for the hard to find stuff that produces well enough to justify the price.
Overwintering peppers works great. I leave them in the ground and protect from frost. I've got peppers on the plants when other gardeners just have small seedlings. I'd be interested to know about eggplant. Eggplants are, I believe, less tolerant of cool temperatures than peppers. Peppers just stop producing. Eggplants may actually die. Now, I have heard of eggplants dying back and then resprouting in the spring, but then you're not really ahead of where you'd bee with new seedlings.
I've had eggplants and peppers live up to four years and production was better each year.
Mine were outside near the brick wall of the house. I used blankets, boxes and heaters on rare cold nights.
Habanero is very sensitive to cold and wet. The anaheims, jalapeño and poblanos seem sturdier.
I enjoy your screened in garden. My husband is looking to re-do ours for next year. I would like to use your picture in my blog as a perfect example of what we would like to use. I would like to ask permission to use your picture. I will lead people to your website if they are interested in doing the same thing.
If you have any tips and pointers to give my husband on how you did it please share.
Thanks in advance.
Dang! I regret giving away my old round redwood hot tub now that we're in an epic drought!
3 little 50 gal drums wouldn't last me a month!
Here in sunny No CA, we usually don't get rain from April til October!
I'm lucky enough to have a nice deep well!
I think I'll be looking for some large containers in case this drought keeps going! Nancy
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.