23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Agree that we need to know where you live as that tells us what your climate is like. That tells you how far ahead of planting you would add the manure.
Also agree that you should never use fresh manure anywhere in a food garden. Use well-aged, composted manures only. This is especially important when growing low level crops like lettuce and other things where the edible parts will come into direct contact with the soil.
Plus community gardens will usually have guidelines for when you can add/use manures.
So could you provide us with more information please?
Dave
Tx for the replies. Yes, the stalks actually snapped, though they are still technically attached. :-(
I tried to rreinforce the roots with more soil.
Honestly, I have no idea what I am doing.
My question now is, shud i cut off the tops at the juncture where they snapped? The rest of the stalk (the bottom foot) still seems healthy.
If they have snapped, it leaves room for disease. I believe defrost49 may be correct. But hey it's a garden and gardens of any type are experiments. Does your son like science? Perhaps, they will off shoot at the tops. I had a lab that ate the tops of some of my corn one time, some grew, some died. They were only about two feet tall. Also, I'm with Jim, I always wait three days. I like the number 3 such as 3 strikes your out- easy to remember. Plants will usually tell you what they are going to do in 3 days.
What zone do you live in? The United States Department of Agriculture has set up plant hardiness zones nationwide. For instance where I live in NC, our county has two zones, 7A and 7B. We have about 200 possible days of growing most things. Zones are determined by lowest average temperature. So in our neck of the woods, that's about 0 to 5 F. You can find out your zone by googling "what zone is...in"
Corn takes 60-100 days to mature, depends on the type. October here is a funny month, sometimes frost, sometimes not. I am planting cool season things now, but most others are finishing up, doing their canning, etc.
Don't let him give up on growing things! Barnes and Noble had Square Foot Gardening 1st Edition by Mel Bartholomew on sale for about $7.00 a couple weeks ago. There is a new edition out. There is also Strawbale Gardening by Joel Karsten. I started one set of great nieces and nephews on SFG, got them some miracle grow potting soil when it was on sale and added some peat moss. This stopped us from having to scour the countryside for vermiculite which was not at the big box stores. Another set, we started straw bales because they were easy to get in their area of the country, and their parents didn't want to give up a 4x4 area so we took a 3x10 due to yard layout, it worked great. The straw bales also gave them a great start on composting. They grew top crops and when those things were spent, planted root crops. They started in fall so they were able to get straw bales free or really cheap, planted spinach, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and then in spring potatoes. Now that set has gone on to take another part of the yard over-they got the bug. They are experimenting with traditional gardening, raised beds and something else with logs -I don't remember the name.
If the corn is not growing, teach him about composting. Besides this website, there are many, many more that can help. Though I prefer gardenweb, I would suggest starting with your agricultural extension officer for your county.
Elaine
Platanus:
I grow tomatoes from seed. Usually heirlooms with no
resistance to early blight. This year I have Reif's red heart from Sandhill Preservation in Iowa. Mighty tasty variety.
I agree with your statement on blight. Usually I prune off the lower branches when young as septora leaf spot seems to start on the lower branches and works its way up. I find that pruning my heirloom tomatoes up at the base (2' from ground level) allows good air flow and sunlight at the bottom of the plants.
This seems to reduce my chances of blight as I successfully get crops every year without spraying
chlorothalonil for blight control. My neighbors all get blight
every year but so far I am successful.
I have a bit of septoria this year (wet, cool growing season).
Not bad. My neighbor's modern tomatoes have early blight like crazy. He never prunes the lower branches.
Just an FYI to all that pruning up the lower branches in youth seems to really reduce some disease issues I see
on tomatoes in my area.
For those that want to spray, chlorothalonil does work well.
My sister lives in a commercial potato growing area so
lots of early blight around. She cannot keep a tomato plant alive without spraying.
I prefer no spray if possible and lucky so far.
I agree on the basal pruning, which I think helps set back early blight. I trimmed up my late tomatoes yesterday.
We had three badly-timed rainy intervals this year that gave the early and main crop tomatoes a hard time, but I've been pleased with 'Ruth's Perfect' from Turtle Tree (OP, biodynamic). The plants next to these melted down completely with early blight and septoria, but 'Ruth's Perfect' is still carrying on. Also blight resistant 'Plum Regal'(f1) made a huge crop even though it got hit pretty bad with septoria. Today I'll finish taking out the old tomatoes and cover crop with mustard.
I found that direct seeding did not work as well as starting seeds in plastic pots where I can control things. Out in the garden the flea beetles or something would half-way decimate the young seedlings.
I have already transplanted #2 planting of broccoli. I find them to have NO stress that way.
I have been growing sunflowers as a color-fence around my garden but I have finally learned that they do inhibit the growth of vegetables near them. I transplanted green and red pepper seedlings into garden ground near them in May 2014, and the pepper's growth just stalled out for over 6 weeks. I decided to dig up the peppers as a last ditch effort and to my surprise the peppers exploded with growth in their new pots almost overnight. It is early August and probably too late but I'll give the peppers a new start far away from the sunflowers. I plan to move the sunflowers back from the garden edge next year.
Easiest to prep in the fall. Do you want a raised bed so you can plant earlier or do you want to direct sow? Any chemicals thrown out under the shed? Are you going to trellis the cucumbers?
Do you have a good turning fork or garden fork. They are the easiest for me to work with.
Soil - Do you have access to horse manure (needs to hit 130F for three straight days to get rid of harmful bacteria), rabbit manure ready right from the get go, leaves - we have lots I run the lawn mower over them to mulch them up, breaks down easier. I have learned of a 40 horse barn that I'm accessing here in the South. I let the manure cook, add fall leaves and this year will be adding straw from my small area of straw bale garden. If you have no compost yet, straw bale gardening is a quick way to get lots of it by summers end. Worse thing about the horse manure - my dog thinks it's her personal playground and took livestock fencing out to get to it:)
Do you want to put some type of row covering over it so you can get earlier veggies? PVC or electrical conduit works fine. Have you started composting?
Yes, spinach is good. Also any kind of fast-growing Asian green like bok choy, tatsoi, gai lon. Other good choices are kale, cilantro, dill, radishes, chard, leaf lettuce. You may be able to pull off beets. Keep the soil moist and shaded to encourage germination.
So I emailed Ronnigers and got the reply that the Peanut fingerling can be an early or a late potato.
I'm going to enter that one in the Helpful Response contest.
In the meantime, I'm not going to order Ronniger's fingerlings, although I'd like nothing more than a 60 day fingerling.
I came across this information on facebook & thought it would be a great share here.
To make a Concoction (Egg Amino Acid)
Take 2 Organic eggs (without breaking it) in a glass container and soak them entirely with lemon juice. Seal it and keep it away from direct sunlight.
Open the Jar every 3 days to let the gases out.
At the end of 18 day period, you would notice all the calcium has dissolved and settled at the bottom.
You add 250gms of powdered jaggery, stir it (your eggs would have broken down during this period) and store it for a period of 10 days.
What you have is an effective concentrate. You would need to dilute in proportion and store the balance concentrate.
For spraying on vegetables - ratio of 2 ml to 1 lit of water
For pouring on soil - ratio of 100 ml to 3.5 lit of water.
Benefits:
Gives new Vigor to the plant, increasing flowering & gives good fruiting results.
Credit: Sourced from Mr Binuraj Purushothaman.
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This post was edited by ashok767 on Wed, Aug 13, 14 at 3:51
Protect from rain and critters. If in sun you might want to leave at least one layer of husk so it doesn't sunburn. If in a dry shaded spot I'd pull off all husk or hang by the husk with grain exposed.