23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

The best way to ID it is to take to your local Agricultural center. I know master gardeners get a bad rap on here alot, but most of them know their stuff or can ask someone on the staff what your bug is.

I have lightning bugs that spend the daytime on about any kind of plant. Just look closely next time and check out its abdomen (although that does look like one kind of ours just from the top). The abdomen will look like an unlit lightning bug part. Most bugs don't have that ;)

Mine don't ever hurt anything, although they do seem to like being near the pollen. I'd guess they eat it, probably. Or maybe they eat the tiny bugs that eat the pollen? Anyway, they don't seem to do much but sit around waiting for night :)

The Fedco seed catalog definitely talks about "real corn flavor" meaning old fashioned and not super sweet. Two I've tried from them have been Kandy Korn (I know it sounds super sweet, but it isn't!) and Silver Queen.

Both Kandy Korn and Silver Queen are sweeter than most Su varieties. A giant step up from field corn competitive with everything but SH2 types..

Sweet Chocolate peppers will NOT taste like chocolate but different varieties of sweet peppers do have other differences in taste. The chocolate pepper has a red interior when ripe. The color contrast makes for a fun addition to a veggie tray or salad.

If your plants are still small seedlings you are unlikely to get mature chocolate peppers before frost in New York, maybe green ones, though. You could try planting 1 in a large pot with container mix, at least 10-12 inches across and 10-12 inches deep or larger Then you could move it inside when the weather gets cold and let the pods ripen there.

My climate is somewhat similar to New York. Here, peppers are usually started inside at least 6 weeks before our last frost date, and planted out when days are warm and nights stay above 55 F (often a week or two after last frost date) They grow slower than tomatoes. You can always consider this year's peppers a learning experience. If you have seeds left they should be fine to plant next spring....try for early April in a warm room with proper plant lighting.

If you put them in containers, you can perhaps extend the season by bringing them indoors overnight when it gets close to frost and bringing them back outdoors only in the heat of the day.

I think it is better to let them cross each other than to cut them off. Be thankful the vines are healthy...melons are so disease suseptible after a year or two of raising them in an area.

Hand pollinate them...you only have two plants.

2 Cantaloupe plants, but also 2 pumpkins, a hill of Acorn, a hill of Butternut, and a hill of Summer Squashes... I saw a carpenter bee out there today but those guys are never out in the morning...

We decided to attempt a trellis, and they got beaten up a bit, but they should be ok... We pruned off the tip of one vine i had broken.

I would not attempt these in an enclosed garden again without a massive trellis in place beforehand.

The ones in the front are the cantaloupes.

Nick, how was the flavor? Sure great for the first planting.

It tasted great, much better then the grocery bought ones. I did nothing special, just fertilizer some compost and watering once a week.

Rose Gold potatoes can handle a mucky area.

Celery as mentioned, cranberries, watercress, taro, water chestnuts, some melon varieties. But the ideal solution would be to fix the bed instead so it could have a more practical use.

Dave

Temps did not dip below 50F, they were in the 40's at night for a many days in a row. (Then there was also the week it rained non-stop the entire week and was in the mid 60's for highs...) Spring here is volatile and hard to predict, we'll have beautiful weather for a week then it'll be back to late winter again.

The peppers I planted later are doing completely differently. There is little doubt to me they were damaged by the cold. I do not think it is disputed by many that peppers and okra can develop problems in temps in the 40's that, at best, take a while to recover from.

The eggplants have started growing thankfully. Even a couple of my okra plants which looked done for have come back to life, and a few of the eggplant I transplanted from indoors that looked totally shot have come back, if they all make it through production I will have way too many eggplant. If all my squash make it through production and get pollinated I will have way too many of those too. But that's ok!! I will freeze or give away.

My peppers still look like crap though. I tried giving them a little (just a little!) chemical fertilizer and have apparently burned them now. I already have a few small peppers, but the plants themselves are tiny with pale thin upward curled leaves that now have burns on them. I don't think they have done well with the heavy rains and cold start to the season. Don't know what else I can do but go buy another large fresh transplant and hope for another outcome, maybe leave it in a container. I really was hoping for a bountiful pepper harvest most of anything. I did put a couple tiny transplants from indoors in containers that look like they might get big enough to produce in time, they are the only ones I got that look nice and healthy.

My onions made tiny bulbs I would not waste my money on sets again unless I only wanted some quick scallions. The red onions I bought did make very nice pungent scallions though.

Not the question, but worth mentioning - growing in pure manure would be dangerous if it wasn't fully composted - risk of ecoli.

"Not the question, but worth mentioning - growing in pure manure would be dangerous if it wasn't fully composted - risk of ecoli.

On corn, not so likely.

I prune all suckers bellow first flower bunch. Then occasionally prune very thin, leggy ones that do not have enough sun in the middle of the bush, to make the bush reasonably dense, not overcrowded.

I see no reason to prune the cherry tomatoes.

I would not try to separate them at this point. They look pretty large, no doubt the roots are very intermingled at this point. Plus, you've got a big enough pot, IMO. I would snip off the leaves from the dirt up to the level of the pot, then fill in with more dirt. That will give them extra growing room.

Agree it is too late to separate them now. But your pot definitely needs to be filled. Normal fill is up to 1" below the top rim. In the photo it looks as if all of them need filling.

Dave

Some pesky Robbins pecked at all my seedlings last year.

From that point on, I grew seedlings indoors until they are about 12 weeks old

If you find slugs at night, leave cornmeal near their bodies. I read that they gravitate them, and it also kills them, because it's coarse. SO, if they die near your plants, expect to see (or hear) birds happily eating the slugs the next morning.

I read you're supposed to leave the meal in a cup, to dispose them yourself. I dropped a small scoop on the ground, one slug went straight for it, was dead in the morning, and eaten by birds. The only problem is ants will be attracted to the cornmeal. With wind, rain, and ants, however, it was gone in a few days.

Birds love baby strawberries on a hanging basket!

One bird made a small hole in the dirt on my basil/tomato basket.

I have SVB in my three squash plants...it was expected and why I only planted three.

My son injected the 'hole' with BT on each plant...that was a week ago...still viable and producing fruit/flowers. By now the plants would be wilted and dying.

So, at least there is something to fight back with. We will see how long it lasts.

Here is a link that might be useful: Safer Caterpillar Killer With B.T. 8 Ounce Concentrate

HOLY, that looks like a serious infestation. you should consider insectiside.

They will not correct themselves. You have blossom end rot, due to lack of calcium. Get a soil test first. Lime should be added a few months before planted and tilled in if reccomended. Uneven watering can cause it too. I just pull those fruits off and toss them on the compost pile. We get alot of rain during the summer here and it throws things off. Also I read to crush up several egg shells and put them around the tomato plants to add calcium.

All i can say is that this is defiantly a sign of disease.

Dupe post

This post was edited by jwhittin on Fri, Jul 4, 14 at 19:02

I think that would be fine, most plants love a good rain