23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

I believe diotomaceous earth is considered organic, and controls most insects with a hard exoskeleton including stinkbugs - which are a relative of kudzu bugs. It's worth a try.

Maybe I'm reacting from having 35 acres filled with invasives. They are totally out of control here and I do miss our natives. Maybe it will all balance out in 1000 years or so.

Not warm enough.

Cucurbits need warm temperatures to take off. I would say 70s ++ and night temps over 50.
All these years gardening I have killed more cucumbers than any thing else, by planting too early, from seeds, from store bought starts

My vines are growing slow. Only 1 1/2' long!

I planted the seed directly in the garden in mid June.

The first seed that I planted in May, got ate by some creature so I had to replant.

It's been hot enough, so that's not the problem I have.

Concur. Piros hybrid is sold as a bell pepper but has the classic cheese shape with multiple lobes and somewhat flat.

This post was edited by farmerdill on Sun, Jul 27, 14 at 17:06

Very interesting!

Do they taste like a regular bell pepper?

At least 1 study has shown that commercial vegetable washes are no more effective than tap water for removing pesticide residue. Rubbing the produce (and using a brush for thicker-skinned vegeables) helps more b/c it's primarily the mechanical action that removes the residues and dirt, not the "solvent".

I wouldn't wash any food with soap (though the study did use 1% dish soap, it didn't say anything negative about it but it wasn't any better than plain water), but have used vinegar to remove wax. Though I try to buy things without wax (I won't even touch grocery store cucumbers) - in fact, I don't buy a whole lot of produce except for apples, carrots, frozen veggies, and canned beans.

I'm not sure about salt, but soaking veggies (not something thin-skinned that might absorb too much water and then split) does help get the creepy crawlies out. But salt won't hurt unless you use a lot of it (salt ice water soak makes cucumbers crisper by drawing water out of the cells).

I think you'd have to wash with bleach solution like you clean countertops with to do any better at removing/killing Listeria like on the fruit that was just recalled. I know some growers use a bleach solution on cantaloupe but I wouldn't use it on peaches. And the FDA is saying not to wash the stone fruit that's recalled, just throw it away (they said the same about cantaloupe a couple years ago) since it may be contaminated internally not just surface.

Here is a link that might be useful: Washing produce

This post was edited by ajsmama on Sun, Jul 27, 14 at 21:17

I always wash melons, apples and cucumbers from the store with watered-down antibacterial dish soap. But I don't with the ones I get from my own garden, those just get rinsed and dried with a paper towel before being refrigerated. I think I'll give the salt-water bath a try. Thanks for sharing that great idea!
Edie

I assume the OP is in Texas due to the username but I could be wrong.

Rodney

It's a caterpillar of some sort, possibly an armyworm. Can't tell you whether it was there eating or just passing through, but one isn't anything to worry about. Just toss it out of your garden.

I spray before hand because it is almost a guarantee that cucurbits will get PM so as a preventative, to hopefully avoid it, I spray with 20% whole raw milk and the rest water when they are seedlings (about 4 weeks old) and then after they are planted and again every two weeks or after it rains. Some people also use baking soda and others use potassium bicarbonate which is similar to baking soda. Raw milk works best for me. If only a few leaves have it, I snip them and spray the others. The only problem with snipping is that you can only snip so many leaves and then your fruit risks scald. Whether you decide to keep the infected one or not, I would definitely spray all cucumber plants that don't appear to be infected. Spray entire plant, tops and bottoms. If you have squash, pumpkins and melons, I'd spray them too. Good luck and hope you can maintain your plants and get lots of cukes!

Thanks! I will add spraying to the routine starting today. Glad to hear they aren't lost ;)

I put the melons where I had the squash last year (maybe not a good idea but had no other room in house garden where I have water). Squash where the mustard and kale was last year, on the east end. Now east end might not be getting enough sun, but west end should be.

Maybe it has been too cool for melons, if they like it warmer than squash, but it's been low 80's. I know the cukes haven't really taken off yet. I just thought the watermelons would be bigger after a month, I don't recall how long it took the 2nd seeds to germinate. I'll give it a couple more weeks and might just pull them and put fall crop in there, or 2nd crop of squash - hoping that Sept stays warm enough for summer squash. It was chancy getting melons by Labor Day anyway, with having to reseed mid-June.

Just getting some slicer cukes now (maybe a day or 2 longer to fill out), pickling cukes just 1/4" long, I have 1 cantaloupe about the size of DD's fist now so I won't pull that. But the other cantaloupe and watermelon plants are just starting to flower - is there any hope for fruit off them (75-80 DTM), maybe if I can put row cover on in Sept? It was a chance reseeding in mid-June when the ones I started Mem Day didn't germinate, was hoping to have watermelon by Labor Day.

If these aren't going to do anything I can use the space for fall crops - in fact, I planted so far apart I could seed something else (maybe more summer squash?) in between the melons. Is that a better plan than pulling them?

I planted beets and chard where I had pulled the bolting lettuce last month, kale where I had more lettuce and then had tried basil a couple of weeks ago (no germination - probably got washed out by the heavy rains even with hay mulch - kale was planted in shallow furrow so I hope yesterday's heavy rains didn't wash those seeds out).

More storms today, maybe next Monday too so I'm waiting with fall lettuce and other tiny seeds. May do some more carrots and cover with burlap as the ones I seeded at the beginning of the month burnt up a little in the heat though I had good quick germination (they're just starting to show ferny foliage now).

Thanks ajsmama. The foliage on the Blue Lake poles is incredibly lush.......just not much else going on. There are some tiny beans at the very top. Hopefully it will all fill in with beans!

Maybe mine need N. I didn't manure that row - though the Cherokee Wax bush beans at the end of that row (trellis doesn't go the whole length) are very lush. Pity since we really liked the taste of the bush BL last year so I thought I'd try the pole to get more production this year. Hope mine fill in too!

Maybe yours got too much N? Have you got a lot of flowers?

Sorry you said Kentucky Blue not Wonder - I was reading and posting on my phone last night and didn't catch that.

I had a rat problem last year. My son went out with his pellet gun and within an afternoon of flushing the holes, he had them all taken care of. No poison, no traps, no mess.

If anyone wants to borrow a 15 year old and a pellet gun, just let me know.

guavalane

So, it's war in the garden! I've spent hours and hours and hours pouring over webpages, gardening books, talking to gardeners and it's a funny thingâ¦it's really hard to find a definitive solution.

Folks either say they have never had a problem or a trap solved it. But, I keep the garden clean and protect the fruit treesâ¦so hard to protect tomato plants effectively! Your solution seems like the solution I have been looking for!

I've trapped and trapped but alas the rats are still eating my green tomatoes.

I see the item that you purchased from Harbor Freight and it looks simple enough.

How is it working for you these days!? Any changes you would make?! What wire did you select?

Here is a link that might be useful: Solar Fence Controller

In fact if you try to grow celery in the desert you can expect trouble. I do believe that my invasive celery is Utah. I never plant it, and it grows in near full shade, where now it has its own bed since last year. It is very strong, but we freeze pillow bags of the stuff every year, and it reseeds at an astonishing rate. A handful of leaves and a tbsp of salt flavor a whole chicken, and we have solved for good the problem of having greens for stock (we have soup every day in winter, and several times a week in summer). My wife also puts it in her juices. If I were to plant it in the sun surely I, too, could sell it at the farmer market. I am amazed at how trouble free it is in heavy, moist soil in Michigan.

Just try not to eat too much raw celery as there are some known carcinogens in it.

Nick, after you have a meal with your fresh beans you will knock yourself on the forehead that you didn't plant more!!!!!LOL
They will grow really high, but I usually make my trellis no more than 5-6 ft high so I can reach them without a stepstool! They will droop down and climb again!
This year, rather than a teepee type structure, we made the structure with the X on the bottom, and the taller parts on top so the beans hang down where I can reach them from the outside. Works great! Nancy

No worries. They just love each other. : )

I also bought something similar with the same idea- natural so organic. I thought it was labeled as twine but threw away the packaging so I'm going to stop in the store to see exactly what it is. I had thought about just cotton string, like what a chef would use, but was thinking to stay away from the bleach. What are other people using in their vegetable gardens for string?

Both sisal and jute twine are fine IF they are under tension. When put under tension in the rain, sun ..they can become elongated and loos, unless they are real thick.