23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Are they wilting only on sunny days? If so, and they don't wilt on cloudy days, I would strongly suspect their roots are being attacked by some soil-dwelling creatures. My cauliflowers did this due to root maggots. I'm now having that same issue with zucchinis and I suspect Symphylans. If I reach down and grasp the base of the plant and pull on it, I can tell that it would come out of the ground without too much effort. Meaning the roots are very compromised. With my cauliflower plants, I could just lift them right out of the ground and examine the brown, knarly root remains. I don't know what would attack bell peppers in your neck of the woods. I would try tugging on the base of the stem to see how firmly anchored they are in the soil. If you can spare one plant you might dig out the whole rootball and examine it thoroughly. You lose a plant but you may gain some knowledge.
Cucumbers and watermelons don't really take off until the weather is consistently warm and they have a dozen or more leaves. Once they get going they grow quick. Yours don't look that bad. It's not uncommon for leaves to fold up during the day, especially with yours since the roots aren't very big yet. The plant is just trying to reduce water loss from its leaves. Just make sure to keep the soil moist but not soggy. Once they get bigger that means damp at 2 or 3 inches below ground.. soil can be waterlogged even if it's dry on top. Give them a balanced fertilizer once they get a little bigger and give them some time. Oh and keep the crabgrass away.. it will steal nutrients and crowd out your plants. Then work on the soil this fall when you're done growing.
Jane,
Not all places have native earthworms I was surprised to learn when I was trying to identify my garden worms.
Now that you have the garden started, you can get a compost pile started. By adding your kitchen scraps, slightly buried, and with coffee grounds if your a coffee drinker, if there are worms, they should find you. They love the coffee grounds !
Either way, it makes good sense to compost at home if you have the space, rather than sending it out in the yard debris can and buying the finished compost back. ( not that there's' anything wrong with that ... sometimes that's the best choice for some folks )
Does organic matter include composted materials as well as humus?
Yes, just as Rodney said, the primary form of "organic matter" is compost. In addition all he mentioned, tilled in cover crops, green manures, leaf mold.
But to develop a herd and keep it going you have to feed it regularly. That means several times a year. So if you can't compost enough to keep up with it then you have to look into other sources.
Check out the Soil & Composting forum FAQs too. The list is practically endless.
Dave
with sweet potatoes no need for certified, just do as you did.
see our presentation for ideas
len
Here is a link that might be useful: lens growing sweet 'taters and pineapples
Still plenty of time in zone 6a for beans, cukes, summer squashes, turnips, kale, collards, lettuces, beets, carrots, a wide variety of Asian greens, Asian radishes, and probably a number of other things I've forgotten. I just started (in starter cells) savoy cabbages for winter harvest. They'll go into the garden end of July/early August.
Thank you guys!
I found some decent looking cantaloupe starter packs yesterday and a few tomatoes that hadn't started fruiting, so I bought those. Plus a few other random plants that looked ok - an eggplant, a pepper, a few other things. I'll put all those in and start some hills of squash and watermelons. Hopefully I'll get something wtih all that. Of course my fear now is eveything comes in and I am overun with produce :)
I have had deer problems, had fencing 6' high 4years ago deer went over it and tore it down as there food mast was low. I put the fence back up and added a 45% angle on top. this has worked as I was given this advice from a deer farmer. I used 6' t post 4' range fence and 2' pvc pipe on top with a 45 elbow and 2' pvc out wove the top 4' fence over the pvc. also fastened the 2 4' fence together. I did post photos at backyardchicken.com. the pvc was 1 1/2" diamature. hope this helps. old seed 1. look for post at backyard chicken by 1 old hen
A severe case of powdery mildew. With plants this far gone I'd pull them and replant. I highly doubt they are going to recover and spraying fungicides would be useless. Sorry. If you had caught the PM early enough you could have dealt with it.
I agree with loribee2 about the weeds.
Rodney
This post was edited by theforgottenone1013 on Fri, Jun 20, 14 at 0:42
Well darn it. Thanks for the replies!
I will pull weeds, but I won't be able to replant this year.
I also have an affected cucumber (opposite side if the garden and it just sprouted from seed?!) and a spaghetti squash. The spaghetti squash has large fruit setting so I'd hate to pull it. Will the fruit still ripen?
I've been using bamboo trellis systems for years...early on it was a method of tending climbers if dealing with high winds like i have...beans and toms
A bit of bamboo and a roll of twine...
Here is a link that might be useful: bamboo trellis ideas
I agree that it looks like a tree seed, although I would suspect a fruit tree, which would explain how the seeds are being dispersed (possibly by animals eating the fruit). In California, there could be a lot of exotic fruit trees to choose from. If there are loquats nearby, that would be my first guess. I was fortunate to live near a property with a lot of loquats when I lived in SoCal, they are wonderful eaten fresh, and the seeds resemble those in the photo.
Plaidbird,
No, I really don't have anywhere to attach string to. These are actually in a garden plot. Maybe some kind of wooden trellis? My mom thought that we could put a tomato cage behind them--but there is only about 5 inches behind them where our brick garage starts--so a cage would not fit.
I'm getting a better picture now. Sure a trellis will work. In fact, for three beans, you could probably make a little trellis with things you find around. I've done trellises out of what ever was closest sometimes. Twigs go together with twine, just be sure to use at least one tall, sturdy stick as the main support.
I had a neighbor that plants two or three red runner beans and lets them run up a long piece of bamboo. I miss seeing it now that she's moved. Used to be there every year.
If you have the name of the type of bean, goggle it to see how tall it gets then you can plan ahead. The ones I have this year say eight feet.
I believe my grafting days are done......... ;)
I think you'll find that to be true for many.
Grafted tomatoes were first developed to aid in coping with heavily infested soil borne diseases, the terminal viral diseases that are a common problem in much of the deep south. It was supposed to give the plant additional resistance and to a degree it works.
But from there the concept seemed to explode - thanks to a hyperbole-filled marketing strategy - to all parts of the country. Even where the viral diseases didn't exist.
All sorts of additional benefits were claimed - "2x the production". bigger fruit, better tasting fruit, guaranteed to prevent Early Blight (which is air borne), etc. etc. All of those claims allowed the high prices for the plants, the grafting tools, etc.
But tomato plants have been grown successfully for centuries without grafting so eventually common sense will prevail. :)
Dave
Yuup, even at 60+ years old I'm still paying for my education.... Now that's a student loan........ LOL
My biggest issue with hybrid plants has been EB... I've worked diligently to avoid this evil, but it still rears it's ugly head! Holding my breath at the moment.....
Interesting discussion. I too have not followed any of the previous ones. I agree with Digdirt's comment that the difference is probably whether you are starting with a 'good base' or not.
I just recently resumed vegetable gardening (I used to have a home based nursery so my priorities were flowers for the longest time). In the time I've been away, the no tilling camp seems to have flourished. I have a small community garden plot. We just started it last year, and the 'base' wasn't great. This year we were given a truck load of compost/top soil mix and we could add as much as we wanted. My DH added about 6 wheelbarrows to a 4 X 16 foot box, as he was tilling it in by hand, the lady who's in charge, said "Oh no, you don't have to dig it in, just put it on top". DH ignored her.
Can't say for sure, that it was the tilling in of the compost mix, but this is a photo of my garden (Middle Front) one month after sowing the first batch. Ladies on the left planted exactly same time as me, and with much of the same seed (we get lots of seed donated). Lady on the right had started hers a week or two earlier and had bought some starter plants, (ie not all were from seed).
Big bushy plants at front are Tomatoes I bought. I planted some Kale and Brassica starters provided by the gardens (same as the others). You can sort of see mine compared to Lady on right, we both have them at the far left of our plots. Mine are much further along than hers, and she planted hers the same day or earlier.
Interesting case study, Raehelen!