23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Our soil was once rocky mountain clay and now it is clay loam, I think in part because I gave away the tiller a few years ago. We use a lot of wood chips and sawdust as pathway mulch, and they host very happy soil-enriching fungi that do better with hand cultivation. You can use a broadfork to aerate soil without tilling it, very handy to have around.
When I need to plant in wet soil, I mix organic fertilizer into compost, place it in the bottom of a planting hole, and set the seedling over it. They like it!
Agree. Birds but mice, rats, cutworms if any in the soil, and I wouldn't rule out squirrels or chipmunks either if you see them around. They can climb anything.
A pic would help as the type of damage is usually a good clue to who did it.
Dave
Wayne said it best: Just keeping the plant in the original pot for two log, when it starts getting root bound, midgitized. I have one such plant, way past hardening off, that I have no room for it. Little by little, a lot of plants that you buy from nurseries will be over hardened, root bound.
I'm in zone 6 PA and just planted my melon seeds in the garden, I rake the soil in rolls about 6 inches high and about 16 inches wide (Raised Rows), Then cover with black plastic especially since the weather has been so messed up so far this year, I always have better luck planting my seeds in the garden instead of transplanting.
What kind of black mulch? If it's the wood chips, you can still hand water. Maybe lay a soaker hose or drip irrigation before laying down your mulch.
I don't use drip cause I have tons of minerals in my water and they tend to clog. I prefer to hand water (therapy) or use the soaker hose and the oven timer or my watch (or cell phone) timer. Nancy
I sure would have been concerned about its use in my garden last year but not this year assuming it was exposed to average winter weather (no location given so can only guess about that). This assuming that product is in fact what they used.
As for the nests of chipmunks that all depends on how you feel about killing them by moving them or delaying planting and letting them mature and leave on their own. I'm a country-dwelling wildlife softie so I'd plant elsewhere and leave them alone until they mature but it is your choice of course.
Once they are gone then I'd suggest a thorough tilling of the entire bed to destroy the tunnels, seal/caulk any access points, and give some thought to fencing/enclosing the bed in some manner so that they can't return.
Dave
One of the things about pyrethroid insecticides is their fast knock-down. Insects are immobilized instantly upon contact, so it is not likely that they carried the insecticide more than a few inches from where it was applied. With an active hornet nest present, I doubt that chipmunks visited the freshly treated area, either.
We start watching for yellow jacket and bald-faced hornet nests about now, and terminate those in bad locations. Boiling water poured down the entry hole at night will make them move on. On level ground, covering the entry hole with a translucent bowl will slowly extinguish a nest, too.
I've noticed that the yellow jackets often relocate in midsummer. We look for new nests in late June so as not to be taken by surprise, but we try to keep a yellow jacket nest close to (but not in) the garden. In years with a working yellow jacket nest nearby, we never see a cabbageworm on fall broccoli and cabbage.
Mindy, bok choy is one of those things that only work as a fall crop. Spring-planted, as you say, bolts and gets tough very quickly. In your zone, I'd direct-seed it outside in mid to late August.
It can be covered with a low tunnel to prolong the fall harvest period but it is not as hardy as kale or spinach. Harvest it before night temperatures drop below the mid-20s.
I would just pinch off the two middle ones(Cut by scissors, not to disturb the other two ) and keep the other two. If you want more in another spot, just sow more seeds. They should come up in a week or so. It is possible to separate them and replant them, but if you have not done it before, you will take a risk in doing so. Cucurbits are THE LEAST transplant plants friendly seedlings that I know of. The MOST friendly and forgiving ones : ONIONS family.
I agree with seysonn about pinching out the middle two plants, but I wouldn't keep two pumpkins in a bed that size. The seedlings are young enough that the smallest is probably transplantable.
The main thing is if you can take out one for transplant without damage to the remaining seedling's roots.
This post was edited by ltilton on Thu, May 15, 14 at 10:28