23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Catherinet,
I really suggest planting from seed. Forget planting from transplants, just doesnt make sense with lettuce. Lettuce is one of the easiest plants to grow, as long as the temps are not too hot.
From seed, watered well, mild temps, and it good soil, you should have no problem.
Maybe the large one was planted in amended soil or just better soil. Maybe it gets more water somehow or more light. They could be the same variety, a different variety, or one (or both) could be from seed. There are a lot of factors that affect size. And it's impossible to say which specific one it is unless they are growing next to each other under the same conditions.
I do know that rhubarb started from seed has a ton of natural variation. I've got 37 seedlings that I started earlier this year. Some have red stalks, some have green, there's one that is almost a yellow, and there are major size differences among them. They've all received the same care so nothing else but genetics can account for these differences.
Rodney
Hi.. I guess you can carefully work some in the soil since thats your first flower and there are no peanuts developing... Just be careful of the roots... I usually prep my soil first before I plant.
Since peanuts are legumes, I'm guessig they may not be heavy feeders. So do they need it? I'm not sure.... I just do it anyway..... I do know beans need it when young...
very interesting, this is a picture I posted on FB and it came on here with someone else looking for what it is. I know it is my picture because of the Longwood Gardens background paper.
Anyways, the bug has been identified as the pupal stage of an European Rhinoceros Beetle. I got answers as well as found some pictures of it on the web.
Could they be the same as the Dwarf Grey Sugar Pea?
Annette
Here is a link that might be useful: Dwarf Grey Sugar/Cabbage Pea
Loribee, are the openings in the rabbit fencing big enough to get your hand thru the fence. I am using nylon trellis because, as you said, the cattle panels are too big to fit in anything but a truck. Here is another trellis for rattlesnake beans. I need a wide enough opening to get my hands into the middle trellis.
Please see this discussion about this question from a bit further down the page.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Squash volunteer
"Is it possible for those two types of yellow squash to cross-pollinate? If so, then what would I call these?"
They have certainly cross-pollinated. You can call them whatever you like as long as the name isn't already taken. It's your own variety of squash. If you keep them from being pollinated by another variety and save the seeds, you can grow them again. Next year there's a possibility they will be even more variable but through careful breeding/selection and several years you might be able to stabilize the traits.
Rodney
Well, formally, mine were sugar snap, and not snow peas. I often consider them equivalent, but they really aren't. Sugar snaps are sweeter. Mine were Super Sugar Snap this year. Last year they were regular Sugar Snap. Both grew to 6-foot height, just like the seed catalogs said they would. But yes, it looks like real Snow Peas aren't supposed to get that tall.
it is probably voles. I found that, if you have raised beds, it is easy to find them. Their tunnels run parallel to the sides. If your soil is soft enough you can punch a hole with your finger, drop some warfarin laced stuff, and close.
To minimize all this, I keep a large pile of leaves at a distant place from my garden, and I try to minimize winter mulch. The con is that come June you are laboriously mulching around half-sized plants, but mulch attracts them specially in late Fall, when they are trying to establish a home for the winter.
Thanks everyone.
We live in the middle of woods, and are very familiar with them in the house. :( They love our crawl space and its a constant battle. We also discovered that they were getting in the tiny cracks in our exterior chimney. We had tons of them, until we patched that up and their numbers dropped almost to zero........but I had to wash everything in our kitchen....everything!
The ones in the garden are dark, and look like mice......but I'm not certain. We cleaned up the garden last Fall and I left the gate open.......to make it easier on cats to go in there if they wanted to. I haven't seen any yet this year.......but something bit off some of the snow peas at the bottom.
There's always somethin', right?
A few years ago I read an article in an old (20 plus years I think) Organic Gardening about cutting the tip of butternuts to keep the vine small; I belive this was before good bush varieties were developed.
I have trouble with squash bugs, so this technique increased the likelihood that I'd be able to patrol the plant, checking under every leaf. Since then, it's worked quite well. I wait until I have plenty of fruit set, then twice a week i patrol for eggs and pinch tips at the same time.
From the volume of bugs you have described then I'd say no you don't need nematodes. The cost of them is only justified with severe infestations and that isn't the case here.
As for the care while gone, I've never been able to reconcile vacations during spring garden time. MId to late summer works better but spring is just too active in the garden for it to be ignored for any length of time.
It just doesn't work unless one is willing accept the damage that will be done while you're gone. So for the best garden results, vacations are stay-at-home types. :)
Row covers over the bed will help some but they won't prevent all the damage. Just accept that it will happen and psych yourself up to deal with what you find when you get back.
Dave
Thanks Dave, that is good advice. I guess I will harvest what I can before I go and survey the damage when I get back. These bugs are crazy! I guess I should have expected this, but somehow it came as a surprise.
Last night I saw two beetles on my strawberry blossoms (squashed them) and discovered my parsley stems literally covered with tiny black aphids. Also a couple of green caterpillars on the parsley, but they didn't look like the black swallowtail caterpillars (which I would have welcomed). I picked them off but didn't squash them as I wasn't sure what they were. And no idea either what kind of beetles were on the strawerries. But they will be back, I am sure.
"It must be a serious project to keep plants from cross pollinating on a commercial scale
If you are producing seeds for sale, yes it is. Often they use row covers and hand pollination.
It's always a shock for novice gardeners who have saved some seeds for next year. They end up with mutts most of the time.
There have been many "mystery squash" posts here in the past and the answers are always the same. Because of hybrids and/or cross-pollination they could be anything. Here are just a few posts:
Not sure what type of squash this is....
Squash lovers: please identify
Mystery Squash
Unusual squash(?)
"squash would almost always cross-pollinate in uncontrolled environments?"
Yep. And there is no way to know what kind of strange things will happen as a result.
Rodney
This post was edited by theforgottenone1013 on Fri, Jun 13, 14 at 10:24
Birds. They make the V-shaped bites like that when catching the bugs that land on the leaves. Put some cage type protection over them.\ and add some garlic to your soapy spray Normally not any real threat to the plants.
Dave
I agree on birds...Do you have chickens? I had a chicken when I was a kid and it loved to eat our pepper plants with similar damage...