23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
You might want to read "The humanure handbook." It is not for everybody, but if you are interested in composting and are not put off by the basic idea of the book, then you might well enjoy it and learn something (even if you don't plan to add humanure to the compost pile). You can read it for free online (it is not piracy... it is published online by the author).
I also enjoyed reading "seed to seed." (Suzanne Ashworth)
--McKenzie
For anyone who liked "Gardening at the Dragon's Gate,"
"Plant Seed, Pull Weed" by Geri Larkin is also gardening and Zen. I liked them both okay -- but I prefer more story telling.
"We Took to the Woods" by Louise Rich Dickinson is a fun read.(a memoir from the 30's in backwoods Maine)
Going online book shopping right now :)
I prefer to use natural mulch that I can mix with the soil later. It serves three purposes of keeping down the weeds, keeping in the moisture, and improving the soil. Plastic only serves the first two purposes so you have to add compost later. I use two types of mulch on my veggies: 1) I lay out mowed grass clipping in the sun until they are dry and then place them around my plants; 2) I get free composted leaves from the Fairfax, VA county transfer center which I put around my plants. After the growing season I mix it into the soil. Around my fruit trees I use shredded limbs.
Charlie -- I would like to hear your success rates for germination. The same sites that discussed shade said that planting the seed directly into the garden helps it establish better than a transplant can because of that tap root.
Do you think your trees were established enough in the sunlight after just one year or did it take a few years.
This seems pretty straight forward to me.
She used soil designed for raised beds (which have the huge wicking power of the earth built in, so the soil tends to be designed to retain a lot of water) in containers, which need exceptionally well draining soil.
The soil probably held way too much moisture, and she had lots of root rot.
The definition of hybrid has nothing to do with manual selective intervention. It has to do with species crosses.
In what context? You might want to look up the definition of "hybrid".
And as farmerdill already covered, cucumbers do not cross with melons.anymore than an eagle will cross with a buzzard to make a bugle.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Cross pollination between vine crops
Joppa is way off. Maybe if we are talking about hybrid animals like mules and ligers then a hybrid is a cross of two species but not so with plants. Hybrids are a cross of two cultivars of the same species. Melons and cucs can't cross and melons and watermelons can't cross.
The type of cultivar you are growing, whether it is hybrid or open pollinated, is all about what happened last year, not what is happening this year (except for corn). Hybrid cultivars have two different cultivars as parents and OP cultivars have one cultivar as the parent. To keep an OP pure/uncrossed to save seed is another ball game and each crop is different. All OP cultivars can cross with others of the species - up to 1/2 mile for cucurbits or very little crossing chance with legumes. To save pure seed you have to read about each veggie you are trying to save and you may have to look at what your neighbors are growing for some distance. Remember hybrids are not sterile generally and so they will get their genetic material mixed in there too if precautions for cross pollination are not taken.
If OP cultivars could not cross, as the friend of the OP believes, we would have no new varieties! Letting or purposely causing two OP varieties to cross is how we get new tomatoes, peas, beans, melons etc!
The thing to remember with most companion planting do's and dont's is that very few, if any, have actually been scientifically tested. The evidence is purely anecdotal and is at worst based on old wives tales at best, peoples experience in their own garden. Not to say that people are wrong, or that they didn't experience what they did, but keep in mind that what works for them may not always work for you and vice versa.
That is not to say companion planting is all hogwash and should be tossed, I still follow it as a general guideline when planning my garden. What they used to tell me in the Army though was "a guideline is not a regulation" and so I look at it that way with my garden.
The only real problem I could foresee with planting beans cucumbers and tomatoes is that beans and cucumbers are viney climbers and may decide to use your tomato as a trellis and possibly choking it out. I have grown cucumbers and tomatoes together before and neither suffered any bad effects from it. The cukes did sort of start climbing on the tomatoes but not enough to really effect the tomato in any way. The only problem I have had with it is the tomato being so big I couldn't see all the cucumbers hiding in there!
I say, all things being equal, go ahead and try it. If it doesn't work then you have learned that, if it does, then you'll be glad you shucked Wikipedia's advice and tried something new.
sunnibel7,
An update that is good, I got the results back from my diabetes study Friday. I don't have diabetes and no longer considered borderline!
My Dr. (which was a replacement for my now retired Dr.) Left the practice right after my last visit.
He didn't seem to care much about his patients, you could hear him on the phone talking to people about non medical things for 20 or 30 minutes before he would come in and spend 2 minutes with me! He was the one that said I was borderline!
They assigned me to a new Dr. and she looked over my files and called me out of the blue. Even though I have never been to see her!
She asked me if I was willing to try something that she has had success with. She prescribed Micardis for me, so far my BP is good!
She also listened to me when I told her about lower BP when elevating my arm. She said that a lot of Dr's. ignore that and that she wanted to do some extra tests on my circulation problems.
I have an appointment for Thursday morning.
Nice link LKZZ. Definitely helps out the people who grow en masse.
For the everyday gardener, seeds are definitely the least expensive part of gardening though, in my opinion. Especially if one gets in on the seed swaps here on GW. The most expensive seeds in my experience are the rare(or superhot) pepper seeds. Over 5 bucks for 10 seeds at many sites -- and if you don't know what you're doing, you can find yourself with zero plants out of those 10 seeds.
Kevin
Congrats!
It only gets more addicting from here on out.
Leaf lettuces are probably the easiest of all veggies---at least for me. Nothing really attacks them and the only thing I ever have to worry about is them bolting early. I'm in the same boat as ceth_k.--- My cukes start off pretty good, but succumb to powdery mildew early in the fall. Hopefully this coming year, I've learned enough on how to combat it.
I'm guessing FL, or maybe Galveston TX area, pnbrown. Though my maters lasted till mid jan in 2013, we've had a couple cold spells down here in Socal. Maybe the desert?
Good luck with the tomatoes lesley. Mulch works wonders when frost may be coming
Kevin
This post was edited by woohooman on Wed, Jan 1, 14 at 1:24
Where I live the ground doesn't freeze. I think you will have to wait until the ground thaws to add anything. As digdirt said, "in spring before planting."
--McKenzie
You can it it is available. It won't hurt anything as it will just lie there until the weather warms. But if your zone 7 is like mine we get periods of warmer weather off an on until spring and during those periods the compost can activate and have beneficial effects.
If you decide to lay on several inches now then plan to add more approx. 2 weeks prior to planting time.
Dave