23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
I'd buy transplants for the peppers and tomatoes for best results. Direct seeding either of them is low- success at best.
It is still too early for okra for sure in your zone and probably a little too early for melons and beans too although can't be sure without knowing your soil temp.
Dave
Glad I visited this thread today. I planted red onion sets for fun, just to see if they would develop in a container. They were only $.25/lb, and eighteen only cost me five cents. But, they are sending up flower stalks on several plants. May let some flower, in order to acquire seed stock for future planting. Oh well, nothing ventured...
The simplest solution is to lay out drip line or drip tape (emitters every 6 or 12 inches) along rows. The problem with that simple approach is that every row gets watered together, and say, the tomato must get water if the lettuce needs it. Dividing the garden into zones, and watering plants with equal needs at the same time can help. A valve for each zone can adjust the flow to the zone. Or you can use more than one timer.
The ultimate adjustable setup would be an adjustable emitter for every square, but that would be crazy complex in the wiring, with 56 emitters.
A hybrid approach would be tape for small crops and adjustable emitters for big plants.
That is one of the common problems with Sq Foot Gardening - watering.
Everything with totally different water needs is so close together that Mel designed it for hand watering plants individually, not auto or whole bed systems. Of course with such small beds hand watering is easy to do and really works best for the plants. Same with nutrient supplements - different plants have different needs.
Why not post this over on the Sq Foot Gardening forum for suggestions from the folks who practice it. They may have figured out alternatives to watering by hand.
Otherwise, as John said above, the only alternative is very careful zone planting, lots of different shut off valves along the system, and a whole range of various GPH drippers.
Dave
We originally grew the fall-bearing type to get by the Japanese beetles. But I also noticed, because of the cool dry air, we got by the mold, could let them ripen on the plants, and birds were starting to make other plans. We never even tried for a summer crop, and ended up digging up our summer raspberries.
If the soil is dry enough to work, you can plant everything on your list now. Frost is not a concern for spinach, chard, beets, any brassica, any allium (onions, garlic, chives), or most veggies in the carrot family (including dill, parsley and cilantro).
I guess you had an even worse winter & spring than we did this year! Let's hope summer & fall make up for it.
I'm sorry to hear that your broccoli didn't work out. My Packman broccoli is doing very well, with 2-inch heads already forming. The two Decicco broccoli plants in the same pot have not shown much growth, but they are healthy.
I am baffled by your results and sorry we couldn't help. But I don't see any reason to think your mix won't work for other vegetables.
OK, as I commented in your other post (in Container Gardening) I think your 5-1-1 is to coarse. Plus you have a lot of chunkky perlite. I would've added some some DE (flor dri) to help maintain more moisture, or jus more peat moss. As a result the texture of your mix, it has (IMO) very low moisture retention property. I could see in that video demonstration too. . Just take a look at Ohiofem's 511 texture and yours. I see a marked difference there.
Keep in mind that broccoli , as a member of brassica, is water loving plant and won't mind wet feet. You can give them as much water you want, they won't mind is.
So probably, IMO, 5-1-1 is not an ideal mix for broccoli.
BTW: I am using it for my peppers. I add about 15% DE (Ultra sorb).
Even if he did mulch it with something that I would assume is not poisonous to you via touch or smell, you can just remove it and grow there this season.
However, if you want a better answer, then we will need to know what he mulched with and how long it has been there.
The answer for your mulch problem does depend on what that mulch is and whether it flies in the face of your organic gardening rules and limits, if any. For the most part mulch is not a problem at all.
Mulch is an insulator for moisture and temperature. It should be a dry thing except for rainy times and it is nearly inert. If it is really "mulch" and not a soil amendment (dug or scratched in), and especially if it's an airy mulch like straw and not a dense one like sawdust or bark, it's interaction with the growing soil is very minimal.
You might want to ask over on the Fruits and Orchards forum and see if the growers there have experience with them. Like Wayne said I would speculate the winter cold is the issue since GG is normally a temperate zone variety for further south growing.
Dave
3"? From this day forward, keep a daily eye on them. Don't look for 8-9" heads -- you may not get them. Look for the florets starting to separate. Just a bit of separation, harvest it. Don't cut TOO low on the main stalk as the nodes below the harvest cut is where the sides shoots will form. Once they start to separate, that's it -- it's actually a little past it's prime. So, from there, you know that you want to harvest the other heads just a bit sooner.
Once separated, they'll start to bolt. .I've never noticed a drastic change in taste on bolted broccoli, but the stalks will become woody. Flowers? Well past picking time.
The smaller shoots are just like the main head. They do tend to bolt quicker, so every few days, go out and harvest or check.
After a while you get the feel when a head or shoot is ready. Nice and tight--- good. Separation--- bad.
Side shoots will continue. Just harvest before separation. I've had broccoli go all summer and fall with side shoots. Water well and mulch heavily when it really heats up.
Kevin
This post was edited by woohooman on Tue, May 6, 14 at 12:58
Broccoli needs to be harvested when the individual florets start to separate and before they start looking like they're going to split open. Don't wait for them to reach a specific size. That way lies bolting.
The taste of broccoli depends on the weather. Heat will make the heads and sprouts strong-tasting. Production of side shoots depends largely on the variety. The plant should start to produce side shoots, if it does, after the main head is cut. Production will fall off in the heat of summer. If you leave some varieties until fall, they start up again.
Zuchini -probably bush style, will give you the huge leaves that you are looking for. The bush style will look fuller. In that size pot you should also get some harvest.
There is also an early white bush scallop (its an heirloom) that would be full sized with big leaves by July if planted now-and the squash is delicious.
Mary think about Sweet Potatoes, even the ornamentals. Many different color leaves than mix and match quite attractively. Bright Lites Chard is another attractive one in a mixed arrangement tho I'm not sure if you can find transplants for it still.
Good luck with the display.
Dave
Properly built soil horizons can do amazing things with filtration. Those weird looking spots of "ditches" with plants and weedy looking stuff in parking lot areas or in front of shopping complexes are natural filtering buffers. They are built to exact specifications to get the most effective filtration out of the smallest possible area (land is assumed expensive). Parking lots and buildings shed water. This water can be pretty nasty, as one would expect.
A septic system is following the same process only it's using just the soil horizon creations without adding plants as filtering buffers.
It's generally not a good idea...especially in areas where the soil stays shaded/wet-from-rain...to tamper with how these filtration horizons work.
Here's a picture, for reference, of a natural soil horizon. The slow filtration down to the hard pans which channel water to larger bodies (be it a stream/river or underground source) help filter a lot of stuff. Just imagine this underground and going for a much longer distance. They get less varied and more compacted as the horizons go down very deep, but that very slow movement is part of what helps the filtration and death of some pathogens.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3422/3384244078_7eae6bed1c_o.jpg
This is in Panama, btw.
I am having to change my plans for this very reason... but I plan on growing some crops vertically and on raised bed tables⦠about 3ft above the ground⦠I have a nice size sun porch that will become a garden of sorts alsoâ¦I may not be able to grow the deeply rooted stock⦠but I'll grow what i can⦠my uncle had a garden in this very yard for decades⦠those were the sweetest blackberries, cantaloupe, and watermelon when a was a kid...