23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
You mention you have a smaller garden and only one zucchini plant this year. You need to have a male and female flower both blooming on the same day (and each flower only blooms for one day). Having more plants ups the chances that both kinds will be present on any given day. So yes, having only one plant could be part of the problem.
A bit more on the multiple plants for more flowers story:
Zucchini can be pollinated by any Cucurbita pepo varieties which include acorn squash, spaghetti squash, delicata squash, many pumpkins, and some other vining squashlike varieties. So while having only one C. pepo plant can limit flower availability, you could add more plants to help with pollination that would produce something themselves that would not be a zucchini. Your squashes/pumpkins/zucchini would all develop true to type....just don't save seed and expect to grow uncrossed varieties from them in later years.
If you are ordering in the spring next time, I bought that mix Peas/Oats/Vetch from FEDCO and have been very happy with it. I have a stand of it growing in a raised vegetable bed right now. Although the point of using this mix is so you get a lot of voluminous green matter to turn in, so they suggest you plant it in the spring and get a lot of bang for your buck. I planted mine the beginning of July though and as much growth as I get I get. I plan to turn it under in the fall.
In the past I've used just Vetch when it was this late in the season. I would plant in August and it would germinate and I'd let it stand over winter and turn it under in early spring. It worked very well for me. Advantages -- it was easy to turn under with a pitch fork in a raised bed and it didn't really come back after that. And could plant fairly quickly after turning it in bc it breaks down quickly.
I would definitely say it has helped the fertility in my beds. As a matter of fact, this year we built new beds and increased the size of the garden x 3 and didn't have enough soil from the old garden to fill all the new beds and had to purchase soil. So two beds had soil from the old garden and three beds had purchased soil. It has been a very noticeable difference and I've been so happy to see my soil perform so well with nothing more than a little alfalfa meal added in the spring before planting and some fish/seaweed emulsion liquid used a few times over the season.
And now I have the three beds with the new soil in them in cover crop for the rest of the season to get a good start on next year.
Sorry to hear about your groundhog problem. They are the worst! Had one one season and that was so frustrating.
My first year with the Trionfo Violetto beans. Got 10 seeds in a GW trade, all 10 germinated! The leaves are colored much like the almost mature beans; dark green with a strong purple tint. They produce well and look healthy, so I guess they're supposed to be that way.
Wayne, thatâÂÂs a good idea. I can plant the starts between the mature plants and pull them when they are in the way. Thanks!
And saving me money on fertilizer too. :-)
Oldmobie, oh good that the purple cast on the foliage is supposed to be there. I am really enjoy our vines this year. They are a good size bean and turn green when cooked and I love how easily they pull away from the vine when you are harvesting.
That's a nice cattle panel tunnel you have there too!
I think I might have found a way. First, I disturbed their nest which was on my raised bed, and then I flooded it. They moved to the oppposite corner and have some satellite ant beds in between. I disturbed those the next day and flooded them again. Then they moved to I wasn't sure where, I couldn't find a nest anymore, but fewer showed up on my okra plants. They still showed up to chew on my okra. One developing okra had been trying to grow long for over a week now, and it's at like 2 inches only, all chewed up and ugly, I think I just may have to cut it off.
Then a friend of mine told me to use coffee grounds, oatmeal, molasses. I went to Starbucks to get coffee grounds, covered the soil with it. They still came. I had kelp+molasses+fish emulsion plant food in liquid form, I got that mixed with water and sprayed all the leaves and stems and buds, stems, everywhere. I also sprayed the coffee grounds so they splattered all over the stalks.
That was like a week long process! Today, I went out, no ants!! Hope they have moved on and don't come back. But some aphids eggs are back. I squished them all. How do they get up to the leaves to lay eggs??
it has been said.. in the garden clinic forum ... that many of the dish products are a detergent.. rather than a soap ... as we define soap in the garden ...
on the other hand.. if it works.. it works ...
i hope i quoted that properly.. if you are interested.. ask in that forum ... ask for kmmer ... lol..
ken
I realize this is a very old thread, however, it is new to me and I need a question answered I cannot seem to find anywhere.
Kandy Corn is a hybrid, the seeds are terrible at germination, so therefore, what on earth are Kandy Corn's parents? What are two corns I can plant and have the seeds of the two produce Kandy Corn?
The Raspa watermelons in the home garden are huge and nearly ready. The tendrils turned brown maybe nearly 3 weeks ago, but the other indications say wait....still growing!!!!, dullness, thump, bottom color. The bottom spot is more white than cream yet.
This post was edited by wayne_5 on Tue, Aug 12, 14 at 10:59
Kings (pleurotus eryngii) taste different from the others and is my favorite tasting oyster, it is a lot like eating a wild boletus. However it is more fastidious to grow then the other ones and may not produce unless the conditions are just right.
The other oysters are really easy to grow. I have cloned them from supermarket mushrooms with no problems, they also taste pretty good and are one of my favorite mushrooms.
Last have you tried Stropharia? They are extremely easy to grow and make a lot of big mushrooms. The taste of Stropharia was a little bit different at first, kind of like potato, but really grew on me after a season.
looks like a lot of plant in a smallish pot.
Plus reflected heat from the surrounding surface.
Where did you find those balls?
If connected to the plant, post of picture of that, please.
If in the potting mix, perhaps slow-release fertilizer.
Also I noticed these little liquid filled balls dropping from my plant
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do you have any grape vine overhead ?
Drying lower leaves in the dog days of summer is normal.
I agree, the pot is to small. Not for the nutrients but it can get hot, heating the soil, cooking the roots.
Since you water it frequently (right thing to do IMO), are you also fertilizing the plant ?
Tomato plants, are perennial by their nature, tho they are grown mostly as annual in the northern hemisphere.
Therefore, by their genetic program and data, they have no recognition of frost. And so they grow as if they will live perennially. In this case they could have made good use of every sucker/new growth they have. But as far as we, The Gardeners, are concerned and know there is a window of time for tomato plants to produce fruits for us. And that is our concern. In reality we know more about tomatoes than tomatoes know themselves. That is why we grow them our way not letting them to grow their way, as if there wont be a cool fall and a First Frost .
This, in my view, is a proactive gardening; where the gardener takes charge, intervenes. Pruning and keeping the plant size under control is one aspect of proactive gardening.
Not sure where you are, but in HZ10 eight foot cherry vines have a really hard time pumping water in midsummer. I top them at six feet to keep them green. I'm probably losing some fruit that would try to grow at the tips I cut off, but it seems to be beneficial for the whole plant.
I see no reason to cut off branches lower down, even if they don't have fruit or flowers. Useless branches? They're probably pretty useful to the plant, in that they are absorbing sunlight.
Both look too immature to continue ripening off the vine. They will look cute for a week or two and then start to shrivel.
Are these a cooking or decorative variety? You can see how they taste as summer squash, with the rinds removed. Probably bland, like spaghetti squash, but you could sauce it up if it tastes promising.
Most anything can be grown in a pot. But I think most any plant will be more vigorous grown in the ground.
Herbs are good ones for pots. I find pots are my best way to grow cilantro. But that's because I can bring it inside to try and delay bolting. I grow a lot of peppers in pots as well because I want to bring them inside over the winter without trying to dig them out of the ground. I also grow carrots because there are so many rocks around me that my options are either growing them in containers or building more raised beds than I can afford, or putting up with the consequences or rocky soil for carrots.
Angie
Make sure you have a layer of mulch on top of the pots.
Also, if you can put the pots inside other bigger pots, that will help. If not, maybe try to change the color to something lighter so it reflects the sun. Maybe wrap them in white towells??