23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

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!

You will need few days of good rain to soften the soil. OR you keep watering everyday , for a while to make it workable. I have made garden under such situation that even a pick hardly could make a dent. Now that it is the end of season , wait until later in the fall after a lot of rainy days.
Simultaneously I would work in lots of compost, manure, ..

We don't have that kind of problem but I have found it easier to just follow some Lasagna Garden methods of building a raised bed without solid sides. I prefer to have several manageable size beds instead of one big garden. Some people call it sheet composting. The first year when I had time, I kept layering whatever I could to build up a pile about 24 inches tall. In the spring we added composted horse manure that had bedding and kitchen scraps mixed in during the winter. Great craigslist find we have been back to every spring. That original bed built in 2007 in now level with the grass area. It compacts a lot over the first winter. I have tons of earth worms and wonder if you can just let good composting principles and Mother Nature do the work for you. I have friends with salad tables that are quite shallow who brag about how productive they are. After a first hilling of potatoes, I just pile on straw. Here in NH we have trees growing out of crevices in rocks so I bet plant roots and earth worms can eventually make a dent in that solid layer. Also, if you have a raised bed, that should help alleviate drainage problems. You don't have to have solid sides.

I had 2' paths in my first veg garden and it drove me crazy. Now I always insist on 4' and I love my nice, wide paths.

If you have the room I highly recommend making the paths as wide as you can. Think about maneuvering a wheelbarrow full of heavy compost between your rows, and then having to get around in front of it to start with the spreading. Also, are you going to invite outsiders into your veg garden? The more space they have to move the better, because non-gardeners can be like bulls in a china shop. I don't know how many times I said: 'look out for the seedlings' and then watched someone step on the plants I had just pointed out.

My neighbor is a real farmer and she has a 1/2 acre vegetable garden. The plot is perfectly rectangle, fenced in. The rows run east to west. The paths are wide, like 4-5' (could be wider), to at least allow wheelbarrow to get in. Not sure if they run the motor cart. Make sure the paths between the rows allow maintenance and picking equipment to get in.

They do grow medium size sunflowers on the north side. With the wide paths, tomatos do not look tall. They also grow beans, peas, peppers, and some flowers.

In an open plot, the orientation is not very important. Just make sure to space the plants correctly and having the tall plants on the north side.

I have not tried Auburn university to see if they have a group that continues older varieties, I have grown three of the 4 they developed. Au Producer, Golden Au Producer and Au Sweet Scarlet. Was going to trial Au Jubilant but Willhite discontinued it before I got around to it. Sweet Scarlet was my favorite. Really could not determine that Au Producer did anything better than Crinson Sweet. Same was true with The yellow fleshed producer versus the Yellow Crimson. Sweet Scarlet was unique and did not imitate any variety that I am aware of. I trial some hybrids but so far have not found any apprecailbly better than their OP counterparts. Most imitate Crimson Sweet, Allsweet, Charleston Grey or Jubilee.

If you'd like to try a REALLY good melon, better than anything mentioned so far, try Big Stripe. Wilhites sells it.