23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
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!
Any of the many common vegetable fertilizers will work. Whether it is too late or not depends on what sort of and how much soil prep you did in advance of planting and even more on if you thinned them out properly.
Unfortunately, as with successfully growing most any vegetables, some preparation in advance is needed. The type needed depends on if you are growing in the ground or in a container. There are lots of good guides on "how-to grow carrots" available and many discussions on this forum the search will pull up for more details.
Dave
I am going to robust up the fence some this weekend. Hopefully it isn't too late. I know he'd eat my tomatoes and peas no problem. I can't do it all the way around though without pulling up good stuff. Hopefully he won't try to come around the front.
I second the leaf miner possibility. I've had my first experience with those just last week. That was my suspicion, and I picked some and soaked it for a couple hours (mostly because I was busy doing something else and I left it there). When I took the leaves out of the bowl, I had some drowned larvae in the bottom of the bowl.
In my garden in Colorado, they used to eat the bean seedlings right after they sprouted. I saw them on the sprouts and never saw any evidence of a slug there at all. Now that I'm in WA though, slugs are my problem and I don't think the pillbugs misbehave too much. Then again, I have had to use Sluggo while stuff is little otherwise nothing would survive.
Once my Colorado beans made it long enough to have a couple of leaves, they were fine. I never did treat them with anything, I just replanted.
Squirrels are eating my unripe strawberries this year. And last year one of my chihuahuas wandered through my garden and helped himself to every ripe cantaloupe.
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!!!