23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
I've got parthenocarpic cukes, and glad of it,they're fruiting nicely. Wish I had parthenocarpic melons. Males and females both abundant and plentiful, but the bees are over in the echinacea and won't visit. Little fuzzies all turn yellow and die off from lack of sex.
As for zukes, I've got the all-female problem. Although mine tend to turn yellow and die before flowering.
I knew he said plastic, I only have paper plates on hand and was thinking "out loud" why those would not be a good substitution. ;) Is it hard to balance a big squash on a brick? I may be able to salvage some from next door. I rediscovered the lids to my buckets in the tunnel, so that will take care of 10 fruit.
Blossom end rot (BER). Most often seen on tomatoes early in the season, just as the first ones are ripening. The Virginia Tech publication linked below gives details. Google to find pictures of BER on peppers.
Here is a link that might be useful: Blossom end rot of tomato
I'm not convinced it's BER.
Thanks for the better pic. That was the reason why I asked for a closeup.
It COULD be BER, but the beige portion leads me more towards what everybody else thinks.. sunscald. Happens more to large fruited annuums, like bells. Best way to deal with it is acceptance.. You're almost always going to get a fruit or 3 that get it. Another way is shade cloth -- Peppers love sun, but some shade cloth during midday will help.
If it's BER, you'll see see rotting at the tips on many, if not all, the fruit. Hard to deal with BER once it's there since most forms of Calcium take so long to break down and be usable. Bone meal(or lime, but lime raises ph) added months in advance of planting is recommended to gardeners with Ca deficiency.
Kevin
Do you plan to grow these outside?
If so, wrap those pots up with duct tape and get them outside and start hardening off, then transplant to a muck bigger container. The yellow spots could be from overwatering, but could also be a Magnesium deficiency. Are there MICROnutrients in that fertilizer?
Plants look great otherwise. They just need to get outside. Google hardening off if you don't know how.
Stop watering everyday from here on out. Peppers like to dry out between waterings. A good way to tell if they need water is to stick a wooden skewer a few inches deep into the soil. If soil comes out on the skewer, don't water. If no soil, water thoroughly. Let dry out completely before watering again.
Kevin
Depends on your definition of "heirloom" It is an open pollinated commercial variety released in 1956. To save seeds, just remove seeds from a ripe melon, wash them, and let them dry. store under cool dry conditions. Devloped in California, it is not well suited to the southeast.
Thanks. That's what I needed to know. Yes, I was using the word "heirloom" to describe something open-pollinatable. If it's not well suited to Texas, I guess my plants never got told that.
The seed-saving potential of many vegetable species is not something advertised by the seed companies. No big surprise, I guess.
When you have just a few melons, you watch each one...I know I do. The first clue to ripeness is that the given melon has stopped growing. Also the CLOSEST tendril to the melon has turned yellow and then brown...about a 4 day process. Then check the melon [carefully turning it] on the bottom. It should be creamy/ yellow where it lay when ripe...better to wait a couple days extra than to pick early...if in doubt.
With baby type melons the bottoms may or may not turn colors so conclusively.
Your plants generally look healthy in the photos and bugs are a normal part of gardening. They only become a concern when the damage they do is severe - yours isn't - of when there are lots of them. Your melon leaf in the first picture shows some signs of very early Downey Mildew (the yellow spots). Otherwise I wouldn't worry about the problems you have described.
Splits in stems aren't caused by bugs but by inconsistent soil moisture levels. Just leave them alone and they will usually scab over. The stem base damage in your last pic is due to slugs or snails and there are organic controls for them but it doesn't seem to be hurting the plant.
New gardeners too often over-react and that can lead you to doing more harm than good so developing some patience and tolerance for less than perfection goes a long way toward successful gardening. :)
Dave
When one half of the tops have fallen over, gently push the rest of them over. In a few days pull them and let dry in the sun. We have had good luck the past few years, keeping them in our spare refrigerator. Store them in a netted onion sack. Check them often, usually have them keep till mid Dec.
Taste it -- even if they sold you a cross pollinated plant, it may still taste good. You could try using it young (green) like you would zucchini, and once it's orange you could use it in any recipe that calls for pumpkin or winter squash. I usually taste stuff raw, and if it's passable raw, it will taste better cooked and with seasonings.
Or look up recipes for Columbian squash!
Just as with fruit splitting, vine splitting is caused by inconsistent watering practices. Excessive wet periods followed by very dry and then wet again - whether it be rains or gardener-supplied. As the moisture levels move from one extreme to the other the stems swell then shrink, then swell again and crack/split.
To prevent it we have to do everything we can to stabilize the soil moisture levels.
Dave
In my experience, asparagus seeds left to their own devices will germinate in July. Yes, you will not progress as fast, but the plants will be just as healthy. Treat as you would any seedling (water frequently).