24,795 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening



O so you have a season long enuff for melons... good deal.
I had one Bush Sugar Baby this year which is an achievement in CT. It was a personal size melon. I've had better and I have bought worse. Will certainly try again.
I've heard SC has the best soil for sweet melons.

beesneeds,
I have successfully grown "wild" asparagus from seeds in pots until fall (first hard frost). I cut the tops, remove the roots, cleaning them to remove the soil and I place them in the refrigerator. I plant the crowns the following spring. I have had great success doing this method of seed saving- planting. A few years back I had forgotten 15 roots and they looked pitiful after spending a year and a half in my crisper drawer. I planted them anyway and 12 of the 15 survived !
Good luck.

I need some advice on my own asparagus experiment. I didn't read up on these and stuck some seeds in a garden pretty late in the season. Six of them grew. I didn't do much soil prep and decided they wouldn't survive the first winter so I moved them into a large deep container. Two of them still live in my garden. I plan to plant them in a properly prepared raised bed this spring. My question is should my asparagus ferns be droppy or be able to stand up? Also some browning is happening on the container plants. I had read that you cut back after the whole plant turns brown. Is this what's happening or is that on older plants? I seem to have better plants in the garden now. This might be some transplant shock but overall, the plants are still getting bigger.

I've got my small area worked up with added compost and just about ready to set out my collards. Think I'll use a collar around each since I've so few plants to putter about with.
Also, I forgot to ask, after the first frost, am I supposed to harvest the outer leaves of each plant and leave some to grow on. How will I know when I've taken enough leaves off of each plant? How often can the leaves be harvested? I guess you can tell I've never grown veggies before! :-)
What type of fertilizer should I use? Maybe something like a fish emulsion? Sad to say my soil is not as healthy as it should be but I am working on it.
My thanks to everyone for your helpful comments. I'm so excited to see if I can grow something I can actually eat.
Mary

Cath....I'm with you! I've spent a few $ on my gardening hobby, but refuse to pay the supermarket prices for organic produce!
Recently, my sister turned me on to some organic farmer friends of hers who charge very little for a box of organic stuff that I don't currently grow! WooHoo! Nancy

You know, that used to be the case, that "organic" veggies were a lot more expensive than those that weren't. But in my neck of the woods, it really isn't that much more, at least in my neighborhood food markets. Consumer Reports did a study on that recently , and found that the markup on organic foodstuffs was all the way from enormous to negative (as in, the organic stuff was cheaper). The markups seen were vastly higher for meats than for veggies. In any case, the fraction of your food budget that you spend on veggies is quite small for most people. As organic consumption increases, the markup will be smaller, and commercial farmers have learned a lot about how to farm organically.
I know, I'm just being a devils advocate here, but as long as we're talking about the "value" of home gardening, there are things that can be said.

I grew some for the first time last year with slips that grew from a store bought plant. I had one sweet potato with about a foot long vine on it. I took 4" cuttings and rooted them well in water before I planted them. The silly sweet potato kept sending out vines so I kept rooting and planting them. I must have harvested about 50lbs. of sweet potatoes. They tasted just fine to me.

So Peter reading your post I decided that it is the time to harvest sweet potatoes. This is my first attempt to grow them. I bought 8 pack starter flat at the end of June. I wanted to fill the space left from the spring vegetables. I planted 4 of them in the vegetable bed and the other 4 in the different spots with pumpkins and melons. The last 4 did not receive any care, grew slowly and were overwhelmed by pumpkins and melons. Those in the vegetable bed had drip irrigation and more sun and at the end of the season the vines were everywhere. I really thought that the ones in the vegetable bed will have better crop. But when I dag them out I did not find any difference. In both cases there were some potatoes but not very many of them, they were immature because of their thin skin. And I was not surprised given that I planted them quite late. It feels like they could grow a couple months longer.
But one plant really surprised me. The root on this one was HUGE, it partially stack out of the ground surface. This plant had no actively growing vines, just some sprouts on top. It was also heavily shaded by the overgrown okra. But it looked mature and ripe. And now I am wondering what was different for this potato plant and for the others, which were growing in the same vegetable bed, but mainly grew vines but not roots.


I store min indoors, through this last summer with seasonally constant temps around 76F 40%RH in the summer. Near the floor, where it's a bit cooler, and away from any sunlight. As I said, they last a year. I'm surprised, but pleased. Done this for three years.

I can't say what's absolutely the best. But what I do is leave them all on the vine until harvest time. For me harvest time is when all leaves are dead, even the newest leaves on the outlying lengths of vines. And the stems are dead.
If I notice any that are too immature to ripen on time I cut those off and compost them. I'm always looking for those a month or two before anticipated harvest time.
I also don't cut the stem, but rather the vine on each side of the stem. So if I was harvesting some now and some later I might be cutting some critical vines. I have no idea if there is any benefit to this but it was recommended by Amy Goldman in her book "The Compleat Squash".
In my garden I'v stopped watering as there are so many fewer leaves and the days are shorter and cooler and vine growth has stopped. The remaining leaves do not wilt so I'm guessing water isn't an issue and I am more concerned with excess moisture in my winter squashes than not enough. And there is certainly some water down in the soil to draw upon.

Last year I grew both Happy Rich and Green Lance (and will do so again this year).. I direct sowed both in early April under a little hoop house I rigged up over the bed. Both did very well, were very easy to grow and were absolutely delicious. Much easier than broccoli, much more productive, and better tasting and more versatile as well. Great plants.
BTW, When I removed the plastic hoop house, I immediately put the plants under row covers.

Last night I ordered from Hirt's Gardens: "Aspabroc Baby Broccoli/Broccolini -- 20 seeds," this after seeing very high prices for seeds at Stokes and Jung.
Wish I'd found and read this informative article before proceeding, but I'm hoping for the best! Any further comments on the variety or Hirt's appreciated.
Gary

Thomas, the Garden Web has separate forums for exchanges and round robins, and don't allow it in the discussion forums. HERE'S THE LINK to the Seed Exchange to get you started; you'll find the Round Robin forum from there.
Good luck to you!


OK, you caught my attention on this one. I actually thought I would plant one per bag, 20 bags - I usually plant - 20 in-ground plants and it is enough for us for all summer long - we just finished our last potatoes 2 days ago. So do you think planting like 3-4 potatoes in a large bag is more productive than plant one in a smaller one? In the ground, I plant them 1 foot apart, but they have about 3 feet - my bed width - in other direction, and I pick some potatoes right at the edge of the bed... The problem is, I am not sure I can find 3 feet wide space for the large bags. If I have it, it would be already a bed, ha-ha). So in your opinion, what size of the bag and number of potatoes in it will give results closer to in-ground production keeping in mind size limitation of max 2 feet in width per bag?




As long as they didn't die because of disease you're fine. But if disease wiped them out then I'd remove what's left of the plants, not till them in.
Rodney
No disease. Ok thanks guys