23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
I personally have not, but I have friends who live in the "not quite gentrified" parts of Atlanta where they have had rose bushes, Mums, Hostas, Veggies and even a porch swing stolen. Basically any flower planted at the mail box would be pulled and stolen within a few days.
Yeah it is 'romaine' here but usually the 'cos' is included in the name or label in some way so I think many know what you mean. :) And yes, I have had aphid issues with it as they love any high nitrogen fertilizers like often used on leafy greens. I just wash them off the plants with the hose a couple of days in a row and cut back on the feedings. They seem to especially love my red leaf varieties.
Dave
Can't say without seeing them but Google images of 'leaf edema potato leaves' and see if it matches.
Dave
I have seen edema on another plant before, so that was my first thought. This does look like the photos I found, although most of the "warts" were on the underside of the leaves and these are on top. But this happened overnight to almost all the leaves on 10 different plants. It's shocking. In the other case I saw, a houseplant, the leaves were ruined but the plant was fine. I hope the same happens here.
As Dave said, "But all the wood chip mulch right up against the plant stems doesn't bode well for the future." Is that mulch or did you mix that into your clay soil to amend it? In either case it can rob your soil of nitrogen. And touching the base of the plant can cause disease.
My lettuce seeds all over the place - I currently have more than 40 Rouge d'hiver lettuces planted in beds that re-seeded themselves in my walkway. Sometimes I just get too busy to pull the plants and lettuce doesn't hurt anything. The way I look at it - free food!
Fish emulsion is one of, if not the most benign supplements out there and it is honestly almost impossible to overdose with it (unless perhaps you used it daily). Not only is it a low dosage of the primary nutrients but it is in a form that encourages a slow and only-as-needed absorption by the plants. Plus it has the advantage of multiple levels of dilution. As many of the past discussions here about it show, many gardeners use it diluted to 1/4 strength each time they water plants or 1/2 strength every 10-14 days.
Lots of discussions about using fish emulsion
On the tomato growing forums it is often recommended as a foliar spray as well as a root drench with no concerns. So unlike many of the mass market synthetics used to excess by so many, fish emulsion has few if any negative side effects (other than odor).
Dave
I've grown potatoes in grow bags. 14" wide seems a little small, but that pic seems fine. It will look crowded, but you will get a lot of small potatoes. That is okay, you will get potatoes. Maybe 3 small seed potatoes should have been the max. Steal some out of the dirt after they flower, eat them new. You could try pulling up one of the groups after they flower and eat the small new potatoes, with the idea of letting the others have space to get bigger. Not sure it will make any difference, but you could try that and see what happens.
So when do you start picking your peppers - in March?) I don't think so. I start my peppers in late Feb- early March, to start picking at the end of June. I pick them till first frost in October. Keeping in mind I only have 6000 sq foot yard, that also includes house, 2 sheds, 8 dwarf trees, few berry bushes and other veggies I can't plant more then 30 peppers. And I need about 10 5-gallon buckets to be picked by the end of the season for my canning/freezing needs. This is why I start them early, and plant them out in late May with almost every plant having several peppers on it. But that comes with the cost - when I start them, they have all the room and air they need. By the end of the "in house" period, it is jungles there. If weather is not cooperative to move them out to portable greenhouse I set on the deck(only unused space in my yard) like this year - we struggle. But anyway, it worse it, as they start producing much earlier and give me more for the season. Actually, even powdery mildew doesn't set them back much. So short season in zone 5 is comparing to warmer zones, where you can start your plant a month before transplanting without worrying about PM in crowded environment and still get good crop for the season.
The only need for conditioning, it seems, is to get it through any hot decomposition phase before putting plants in it that you don't want to cook. Just wet it and monitor the temps. It's not a fad and can work well, just think of it as container planting. Very messy container planting...
Thought there was some kind of fert. To put on it first.