23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Thank you everyone for your responses. We saw this on a youtube video, it sounded interesting but the high heat and humidity we are getting I think is making it like a sauna. The stocks are thin and fragile but very favourable. Thank you floral_uk, I couldn't have explained it better. We haven't found a source locally for the terra cotta forcers, we are using terra cotta chimney flumes, and my husband make wooden lids that fit on top. Thanks again everyone.
I don't know your climate, sweetspud, but here the forcing season is well over. So maybe you're trying to do it too late? Maybe it won't even work that well for you if you go from very cold to very hot in a short space. Our long cool springs mean that even now it is only 57 outside today and it was around high 40s in February. Forcing it started in late winter.
But thin, pale and fragile sounds right for forced rhubarb stalks.
My best guess is that the roots rotted from being planted in clayey garden soil which was likely overwatered as well. In a container, you should only use a soilless potting mix such as peat moss mixed with perlite and supplemented with fertilizer. .
Does it get much sun? They need sun. Hard to tell but it looks like the pot may stay too soggy also. It is very soggy right now, and it would stay more soggy in the shade.
Green chiles ripen to red chiles (unless they ripen to yellow). You can pick them when they are green if you like.
This post was edited by noki on Mon, May 26, 14 at 23:40
Summer squash are super easy to grow under cover since they plants are smaller. Once your female flowers open, you can either hand pollinate and re-cover, or just let nature take its course, but by that time youd have a good harvest already. It probably is at least 3 weeks from the time the eggs are laid until you would notice any damage at all.
Mine all made it to the end of the season last year, aside from the one I snapped in half (doh :()
I injected BT when i first saw signs of borer holes. All of them had some injury, but most had their stems still intact. This one, I must of missed a borer.
But this plant, while weakened and dealing with powdery mildew, still was producing to the end of the season. Even with that much damage on the stem. Kind of amazing.
I just planted my garden this morning. 6 seedlings that all came in the same pot are struggling---I am assuming root damage but who knows. Ironically, I have very young seedlings with not much of a root system that seem no worse for the wear. On that note, maybe it is hardening off issue.
I've got a couple critter catchers in my yard. They are pretty good at it too... when they aren't sleeping. They technically aren't my cats but they hang around a lot (their owner lives across the street). Daphne on the left (she likes being upside down for some reason), Simba on the right.
Rodney
There is no short cut here. Hoe or role up your sleeves and pull them. Then MULCH, MULCH, MULCH !
For me weeding is an ongoing ritual. But with good mulching you can cut it down. Around here pepper grass is worse. If you don't pull them on time their seed will be scattered all over. They can grow 3 crops a year.
I mulch like "loribee" with pine nuggets. It looks also nice and decorative.
I'm with loribee, I get on my hands and knees in the spring and pull everything (tedious), plant, layer the newspaper, then mulch. Get a box and collect newspapers from friends, paper shopping bags are great but all the stores in my area went to plastic. Have a local newspaper? I went to mine and bought butt rolls with about 200' of paper on them for four dollars. I also use cardboard, especially between the rows, it's like ringing a dinner bell for worms, they love that stuff!!
I have hit an area in my plant bed 5 times now in the last month, 3 with roundup and 2 with nut sedge killer, it's still there. The leaves get burned and die back, but then it comes back from the root. I feel like getting my money back on those products, this is ridiculous. I've also attempted to go way down and pull it up by the nut but most times it breaks off before I get it out.
I've dealt with it before which is why I asked about the green manure. i'll try a heavy planting of clover, buckwheat, & alfalfa this fall & see what happens. I won't use chemicals in the vegetable patch & have had little luck with chemicals for nut sedge in my flower beds. of course there's hardly any in my grass. I have a lot of clover in my lawn which I leave alone as it is the mainstay of the honey bees. when asked about nut sedge on another forum the responder told the person to move...........
Thanks for the responses, everyone. Unfortunately, I can't get helpful photo evidence right now, since the seedlings which were damaged pretty much all died. (I'm hoping that when I put out the replacement seedlings, they don't go the same way, but if they start to decline, I'll make sure to document it right away.) But checking at night for slug activity sounds like a good plan. I saw no evidence of slug trails, I don't think, but I have lost seedlings to slugs in the past.
OK, a beast is found! I can tell you, they are not a lazy creatures! I would expect to find it near the plant that just been eaten this night! But no, it moved to the next one to loose no time next night. I am pretty sure there may be more, but I only found one. And yes, it is cutworm.
Dave, picture in this case will not help much. it is kind of looks same as a normal tiny plant until it wilts... But if you touch it you can see, there are only two penny size(or even less) leaves laying there like a bouquet not attached to the stem. and stem is just gone...
Earlier I started some lettuce in a flat.
I had so much that I didn't know where to transplant them. Now that tomatoes are small , I planted some just next to them. Radish is very easy by direct sowing. But with too much rain too much shade I gave up on them.
Here is a picture of some of my lettuce in tomato bed.
Even at a good nursery they sell brands that are ridiculous now. $2.99 for one container, one cell. One brand I see is Chef Jeff. Another is Homegrown Gourmet which is not as expensive. Bonnie Plants is at least not quite as exploitive.
They sell things that are absolutely absurd. Plants being sold in the last week of May that have no chance of doing well, like Bok Choi, one plant for $2.99. One plant of a Green Bean plant for $2.99. Beans... one bush plant that are lousy at transplanting for $2.99. One Pea plant for $2.99. One Brassica plant for $2.99, too late in season for many. One Corn plant for $2.99. 3 or 4 carrots growing in one little pot together or $2.99.This is just exploitation of ignorance, and you won't really get much of anything for your efforts, so it is discouraging.
I do waste money by many of your standards. I buy single Pepper plants to get the varieties I want, I want many different weirder varieties. I buy 3 or 4 packs of Lettuce, I hope to get them earlier before the heat of summer, and I don't want a whole row full of the same type, I don't eat that much. I've had success buying 4 packs of Sugar Snap Peas, 2 plants per cell. Easier than dealing with the inconsistencies of early spring planting of seeds.
One other thing that annoys me is the separate selling of Green Bell Peppers and Red Bell Peppers... now the ignorant are reinforced in their belief that Green and Red Bells are completely different types of Peppers, Bonnie Plants wouldn't sell them like that otherwise. It would be funny if the Green and Red Peppers being sold are actually the same cultivar.
This post was edited by noki on Mon, May 26, 14 at 1:41
Bekana is even better in the Fall. And gai-lan is so much earlier than broccoli.
glib, have you found Gai land to be bitter? Current discussion on the cooking forum says it's a bitter Asian green, and the posters seem knowledgeable. Mine has never been bitter-not in the previous three years and so far, not this year.