23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Welcome to the adventure of gardening in Florida. :)

It looks like your tomato may have a virus and your pepper ha fungus or dense bug eggs. You might need to start over with the tomato.

Right about now is the time to start the fall tomato crop from seed, in flats. Get a good seed-starting (not potting) mix.

That's strange stuff. I guess before I put that on my plants, I might like to think about what that tree died from. For example, fungal blight detritus is not something I'd want to spread around on my veggies.

You might want to let it "age" for a year or two, maybe in a real compost pile.

i'd be careful, because there is a good a chance that disease caused that tree to die. I would leave it be.

I don't think anyone has suggested earwigs. They usually eat decaying matter, but will eat young plant leaves. I think I solved my green bean leaf eating problem.
Earwigs! I was told to use the damp rolled up newspaper method to irradicate earwigs (on a different site and different problem. I personally used 7 dust. (no patience)

could it be both beetle and earwig? Probably unlikely though. Maybe either/or.

Hey Kevin, it's only after 10AM and it's so hot I feel sick. You must be boiling out there. How do your toms do in heat like this? Guess what I'm doing-after I use up a gallon of spring water I fill it with tap water and have quite a collection now. It's for if we get told we can't water our plants. I'm going to keep doing this until I have about half a garage full of gallons.

Thanks grandad!

Deeby: Yep. It's hot. My maters? They'd be doing excellent if it wasn't for this fricxin Tomato Suck Bug! Actually, I water a bit more(maybe), but I'm still on one good weekly soak. Mulch does wonders!

Kevin

If you hill some dirt to the pegs, you can likely speed up the pods starting to grow...important to speed up things here.

Hello Mav72 in your post of Sun, Jun 22, 14 at 16:07--- did you finally harvest peanuts? I am experiencing the same thing as PdOxGard and his pictures are just like taken from my own plants. I water them manually as I have not installed irrigation lines. Could that be washing out or hurting the flowers that cause them to wilt? Besides my plants are not getting tall but just running here and there... Having a hard time hilling them... Will appreciate any encouraging comments.......

Steve349, I've never seen those bumps before but I want to hear what it is so I hope someone else chimes in.

James416, your problem is entirely different. Next time please post in a new thread so that people know to respond to your issue and not Steve's. The damage you have pictured is classic leaf miner damage, not too much you can do about it but you can google the pest and come up with more information about it, at least.

Ok, those bumpy looking things are actually fruiting spores for a disease called Southern Blight. Its soil born. So I will be solarizing my patch next year. I removed the spores into a bag and burned it.

concur and add arugula to the list.

I just planted some lettuce seeds yesterday. I plan to plant spinach and bok choy in a few days. Our first frost date is Oct 21. I ordered some lacinato kale seeds and hope they come in soon.

catherinet: These are plants from the Spring, correct?

If so, do what I suggested. You have nothing to lose except a bit of time and water. Like nhbabs said, Packman does a pretty good job at side shoots. You probably noticed that when it was flowering. That's the key to the side shoots --- check them daily... if you see any separation at all, it's time to harvest. If you don't, within a few days, the stalk will get woody and they'll start to flower.

Kevin

Yes, these were planted as plants in the spring. I did get alot of side shoots from them, after the main part was cut. I'll give it a try!

Thanks for all the advice guys! Unfortunately, 2008 was not my great year (it was 2003) - which is why I keep thinking it's nutrient rather than weather / site, however, Platanus is right about there not being enough warmth this year for my warm site stuff (so, naturally, this is the year I plant okra and sweet potatoes...). I might have picked the wrong year to ask this question, but the issue appears to be the same as in previous, warmer years.

I have great sun, have had plenty (more than plenty this year) of rain and have a growing season that is a little longer than the place I used to try and grow okra, Massachusetts (now that was a challenge!). I notice that my soil pH is a little lower than the optimal that was reported by the link jean001a provided (thank you for that!) and so I might pursue that.

Thanks for all the great advice. I'll follow it and see what I can get. :)

Soil-borne wilt is a persistent problem in my area, especially for okra & eggplant. It seems that cooler temperatures are the problem, the wilt generally starts after a few cool nights... I believe the cool temperatures weaken the plant's immune system, and the wilt quickly takes advantage of the weakened state.

I never found a variety that was fully immune to the wilt, but I did find one that is highly resistant. In Cornucopia, A Sourcebook of Edible Plants, "Pentagreen" is listed as a cool-tolerant okra. I tried it based upon that recommendation, and it has done consistently well. A few plants succumb, but most will bear until frost. In warm years, there is almost no wilt at all. The short plants branch heavily if given space, so the harvest really picks up late in the season... which allows me to freeze a few batches for the winter.

Thanks everyone. Can't find seed potatoes anywhere so I'll just buy some at WallyWorld and see what happens.

NC is too far north to get much (if anything) from planting potatoes at this time. If you are going to go to the trouble of filling large pots and lugging them inside when frost comes might as well choose something that will give results.

Primary difference are in starch , moisture, and sugars. By the way the term Irish potato is used to differentiate them from sweet potatoes for those areas that grow both. Both French fries and chips are prettier and lighter when the high starch type potatoes are used. A chip made from a high sugar potato tends to be brown in color. Both Irish Cobblers and Kennebecs are in the middle and usually referred to a s general purpose potatoes. Kennebec is larger and has much shallower eyes than the Irish Cobbler.

Here is a link that might be useful: Irish potato characteristics

Don't be afraid of the Irish Cobblers. If you are boiling them, of course leave the delicate skins on and keep a close eye. If they are over cooked they will tend to fall to pieces and thus have too much moisture. If cooked correctly they have a wonderful almost nutty undertone. Amazing.

I am from PEI which of course is potato country and just from my own personal experience I would say that Irish cobblers are pretty much exclusively eaten as a "new" or "early" potato. That may be why people have had experiences with a "dirty" taste in later months. There are plenty of tasty spuds for long storage. Enjoy those cobblers in their prime :)

Are you going to be able to trim/remove some of the trees to drastically improve the sun exposure? How long do you estimate it will take you to get the area cleaned out and tilled to be ready for planting? Is there a local source for some compost?

You could try some beets or turnips, maybe some lettuce or spinach as they will all tolerate some light frost. Much of anything else will have to be covered to keep the frost from killing it before it gets to maturity.

Dave

You might want to get a plot in a community garden to start your gardening experience! Some of them in my area provide compost and have classes!
You certainly need more sun! If the community garden experience is good for you, and you fall in love with gardening, you might want to....1. cut down all the trees that are shading your garden....or 2. MOVE to a sunnier location in order to have a garden! LOL Nancy

Yow glib, don't send those temps this way! We already got the rain (TWC revised it to say 1.79" yesterday and 0.5" the night before but I could believe we got more than that). I have to get some ripe tomatoes to market!

So funny, the day after I mentioned our drought we got our 2 months of missing moisture... In a 15 minute deluge! Luckily I pulled all of the breaking tomatoes before the rain and only the cherries are splitting. The bad news I'm gonna have to shovel the driveway back out of the neighbors yard!