23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
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!
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).
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.
Like tomatoes, squash, eggplant etc watermelon is a fruiting vegetable. There are 4 commonly used signs that a watermelon is ripe. 1. The tendril where the stem attaches to the vine has dried up . 2, the area where the melon sits on the ground has changed color(easy with dark colored melons, more difficult with white melons) 3.The filmy glaze has faded. 4. Thumping (takes a good ear and experience but quite effective when perfected).
Ripe means a watermelon has completed its reproductive cycle. Sweetness is a characteristic of the variety and its growing conditions. There is wide variance among varieties for sweetness. Growing conditions including shade, stress, incomplete pollination etc can severly affect sweetness.
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.
Very interesting... I just watched a documentary last week on Monsanto and their GMO corn.... apparently when gmo corn crosses with non-gmo corn the results can be mutated corn... and the result is what you have growing in your compost.... they referred to this as "trans-genic" corn.
I would pull it out and destroy it, as in burn it.
I am going to see how it turns out. I am growing it more for decoration than eating (though it can be used as popcorn). I am the only one in the area with any vegetable garden, and last year I had 3 varieties. Glass gem, which is an heirloom variety, purchased from Native Seeds - a nonprofit in Arizona, and 2 varieties I likely got from Burpee and could have come from Monsanto - strawberry corn and caramel-krisp corn. The 3 varieties had staggered maturities and I didn't have any cross-breeding problems last year, though this plant sprung from a discarded ear from then. These are the only two years I have grown corn, though, so I wanted to make sure this was something unusual and not something that happens and I just hadn't seen before. The picture doesn't show it, but this plant also towers over all my other ones, even others that sprouted in the compost (lesson to self, careful what I toss in there).
If anyone else has any thoughts on this, or has seen it before, would be glad to hear it. I will post an update once I see how it turns out.
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
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?
thanks again Dave. more great info. Yes, the grasshopper population is lower here than where I lived before. So that is a plus. Reading that they eat heavily for only about 2 weeks is small comfort as I think the garden would have been wiped out in about three days.
nhbabs, seems like these critters emerge from the ground so netting over top would not be a good defense though useful for other varmints.
Do all blister beetles eat grasshopper eggs? I have seen some of the larger, black blister beetles and I have a ton of grasshoppers. It would be nice to know that something out there is working on them while I wait for the Nolo bait to work.
That's the information i'm looking for! You could make a pond to hold the water? You have to understand, it's extremely difficult to try and imagine your situation. Do you have neighbors sorrounding you from all sides? You in the sticks, next to city hall, or what? Pictures would be very helpful. i'm sure there's a halfway easy, reasonably cheap fix to your problem. You could just make a new drain, but that will probably cost a fortune.
See I have a ditch running right behind my back fence. I plan on putting In a little orchard in my backyard. The problem is water pooling. Peach trees hate standing water, some even go out the way making individual raised beds for their trees. I was planning on just digging a ditch in my backyard, directing the water into the other ditch right behind my back fence. That seems like the easiest fix for me, it would be for you, unless you have neighbors on all sides and don't have any ditches for the water to go. I guess you would have to pay a mint to have them regrade your entire property, or perhaps just around the gardens and house. What are your options you considered with your neighbor?
It strikes me that "flooding" may be the problem with my asparagus. It has been doing well for five years, but this year, the lower half (lower as compared to the higher side) did not produce much. I was thinking to blame it on the carpeting that I put around the bed, to make a path and to stop weeds, but maybe the bottom half of the bed flooded. Anybody agree? We have had a phenomenal amount of rain here in SW PA.
The FAQ is called something like "Why are the blooms falling off..." It may say tomatoes as that is where it is most common. Plenty of info about Blossom Drop available via Google too.
It is a common and wide spread condition that affects all fruiting vegetables as the high heat and humidity make the pollen 'tacky' and non-viable.
Dave
I've got a watermelon that looks a lot like that. Small yellow flowers, fuzzy small vine, and the melon looks about like that. I planted a Sugar Baby, so they're on the smaller side. Been years since I planted a pumpkin and I dont really remember how they start out, but I agree... looks like a melon
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.