23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Just in case, if you're not familiar with the Colorado Potato Beetle, do a quick image search and make sure you're not seeing those guys instead. (They could look vaguely similar.)
That said, I haven't killed the CPBs either - they don't seem to do too much damage in my situation.
Laceyvail is right. Even if you get down to one vole, they can do a lot of damage. One year I had them eat every potato in a 25-foot double row!
Go figure, but they seem to lose interest in my garden in midsummer. If I hold some potatoes and green them up really well and plant in mid-June they leave them alone and I get some late potatoes.
Juicy fruit doesn't work, ditto gummy bears. When I find their runs, I poke stout sticks in them, which at least makes them work harder. When you find a major corridor, you can excavate a hole, place a snap-type mouse trap baited with apple in it, and cover with a board. You can trap a lot of voles this way.
Drat. Doesn't sound promising about the voles. I saw a lot of holes in April, so I went around with repellant and raspberry cane trimmings. Fewer holes now. Hoping they'll leave my main crop potatoes (planted last week) alone.
Floral -- I threw a little Dr. Earth in when planting (new to me, I used to pour a little fish emulsion in, but decided it was probably best not to wet them). That's it on feeding. Oh, and they were covered for a month w/ AG 19 so maybe they were reaching a bit for sunshine? But, I'm short, so thigh high may be shorter than you're imagining :)
Sweet potatoes are different. They need heat, and you definitely want to harvest before frost. They also need long curing at relatively high temperature and humidity.
"Irish" potatoes can tolerate cooler temperatures, poor soil, and are true tubers. You can dig them after the plant flowers as new potatoes (after 1.5 - 2 months), or wait until the foliage dies either naturally or of frost, and then dig as storage potatoes. They are susceptible to late blight and many of the same diseases as tomatoes since they are also in the nightshade family. Sweet potatoes are related to morning glories and have similar vines and flowers.
BTW, you can eat sweet potatoes leaves but Irish potatoes leaves (and the actual fruit, if you get any, look like little green tomatoes) are toxic.
What an amazingly informative post! Thanks for settling the question of when to dig sweet potatoes! I have dug mine before frost most years but many of the "old timers" around here believe that letting the frost kill the vines and then digging up the potatoes the next day somehow makes them keep better over the winter. Most likely an old wives tale it sounds. Also nice to hear about curing....Last year for first time I laid my sweet potatoes out on a wire bakers rack in an 85- 90 degree attic area with a fan on them for almost 2 weeks....they kept INCREDIBLY well all winter long and I still have viable sweet potatoes I dug last October. So I can vouch for your curing statement! Also fascinating to hear that "Irish" (I thought that was just rural-speak for describing Idaho-type potatoes but is what we call them too) potatoes are closely related to tomatoes. As you probably can tell reading this thread, I have far less experience with "irish" potatoes than with sweet potatoes. I love the latter, not only because I prefer to eat them, but I also enjoy watching the vines grow so vigorously. Now I have to go research your last statement...who knew you could eat sweet potato leaves?:) Sorry if this thread has veered to far off from original question, but the subsequent posts have been so interesting I couldn't resist. thanks all.
Asparagus needs to have good draining soil to perform well. Your enriched soil and compost would have been well served to have had some sand with it. Were the asparagus placed over hard pan non-draining soil there may be a problem with standing water...but at any rate, have patience, I remember it took almost 2 months before my ass-per-grass came thru...
Either but most likely both. As they can be an issue even in gardens without mulch. Bare soil plants in mine that I hadn't mulched yet since it was still so cool are covered with them too. Like ticks and other damp, cool soil lovers it is a record year for them unfortunately.
Dave
After my post I went out and looked at the bale of straw, just covered with the beasts. I'm guessing they were in the cool interior and I opened Pandora's box. The whole thing went in the city yard debris for compost. My pile will never kill them.
Interestingly, last year I grew tomatoes in a straw bale with reasonable success and never had a flea beetle problem. Go figure! Time will determine how bad they get. Now if I could just get my carrots going.
Pat
Wood ends up as a mulch here because it takes an extra year or so to break down after I add it in a layer of compost. Like digdirt said, fungus and wood go together.
I got the fruiting heads after a few weeks of laying out a new bed for flowers, and the thin white stuff came in the same bed after about two more months. There's been fungi in there all this time, growing and spreading and doing other general fungus-y things. Oh, also had a slimy one that glowed an intense yellow when hit with a LED flashlight after dark, but no pic. It's always with the top shredded wood layer. Go figure.
The big box boys need to come up with a Morel inoculant, or Destroying Angel, depending on how one treated their customer service reps on the latest call...
You might check this thread in the Hot Pepper forum. A couple of us are battling Chilli thrips that cause this sort of leaf damage, and more. Your plant looks to be in the beginning stages.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pepper/msg0511302622994.html?23
Clipping off all the damaged leaves and treating the plants with insecticidal soap seems to be working for me.
Kevin -- Was your lime a powder, or like little pebbles? I thought it would be a powder -- I even opened the box wearing goggles and a mask in case it puffed up into the air -- but it was like gravel. I was just reading the solid dolomite limestone won't bubble with vinegar, but powder will. And I think it has to bubble for the vinegar to change form.
I planted over a week ago already--all plants. Tomorrow going to add a cuke, 3 pole bean plants, 3 onions & 1 more green pepper plant. Will be planting radishes from seeds. Our basil looks like it wants to croak & one green pepper died....why I have no idea....errrrrrrrrrrr
You should eventually (as in, before next season) dig to at least a full spade depth, and work the compost and any other organic matter you have around into that depth. If in the fall, dig in leaves, especially if you're in the south and the soil stays more or less warm. Now, if this is the first time the bed is dug, it's going to be hard work, penetrating the compacted dirt. But if you dig in lots of compost and organic material, the digging will be far easier in following seasons.
I'd also suggest doing a test hole after irrigation, and just see what it looks like. Is there a muddy layer below the surface beyond which water has a hard time penetrating? You don't want your roots swimming in that. If so, at least for this year, you're going to have to be very careful not to overwater.
Dorthy, If you are not using a raised bed approach then suggest you use instead a rowed garden approach. (It was not clear in your post if your garden was mostly level/flat.) Because of our excessive rainfalls, rowing is the most common gardening method in southern states. (...we collected 5 inches of rain in the rain gauge last Wednesday.) The concept is for the top of the rows to be above ground level and for the valleys to be below ground level. Row width varies depending on the vegetable being planted... usually 3 to 4 ft wide. Raising the garden bed by adding mulch, soil, sand, etc. will over the years helps to improve drainage by elevating the valleys to near or above ground level.
This post was edited by grandad on Tue, Jun 3, 14 at 13:01
If it rains a lot , then you cannot prevent over watering by nature. So the cure is to fertilize more to replenish the depleted Nitrogen by leaching. OR, top dress with good manure. Manure, not compost ! This way the rain will do the fertilizing.
"Daily watering" is almost always over-watering. Add rain and it definitely becomes too much water.
But in this case i suspect lack of any nutrients is the main issue. They need to be fed. All plants need to be fed something and in containers it needs to be fed regularly..
I would normally recommend one of the many organic liquid fertilizers available but in order to recover from the excess water, a granular one would work better this time.
There are probably 35-40 different organic granular fertilizers available so it all depends on what you can find locally. Any of the big box stores like Walmart, Home depot, Lowe's etc sell them, so do most nurseries.
Follow the label directions for amount and frequency of application.
Dave.