23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

You guys have helped me enormously. Right now, I think I'm going to wait until June, but I'm keeping them outside until they get a bit sturdier. Right now it's really windy and thank goodness they're on the porch and not in the bed. As for crowns--if this experiment fails, I may try crowns. Right now, though, they seem to be pretty content.

Grew my asparagus from seed many times, no problem, you will not need to grow from crowns unless you want to. Some of the Jersey varieties are available as seed too.

Hopefully these pics show them better... I think the concensus is that they're most likely good predators, so I'll let them be. I'm curious to see if they change over the next few days, maybe making them easier to identify! If they stick around my pumpkin plant, that is.

Looks like the nymphs of the white-margined burrower bug.

Rodney

I actually keep my tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants together on purpose, because I want to rotate them and not plant these things (all in the same family) in the same place for at least the following two years. I've somewhat divided my garden, all around my house, into three garden zones. Then I rotate, keeping these three together in a zone. I also keep my squash and cucumbers in a zone, with watermelons, cantaloupes, etc. In the other zone I grow peas and beans, maybe corn, sometimes some potatoes, and any other random vegetables I want to grow. I think if I had more space, I'd go to 4 or 5 zones, but my zone size is based on approximately how many tomatoes and peppers I want to grow in a year.

I find it amusing when old wives argue with each other. With tales that are not only conflicting, but pretty much nonsense.

I found an old (2011) discussion I started on the Container Gardening forum about my experiment with potato towers. It includes photos from one garden web regular who did have an impressive yield. You might find it interesting:
Tale of two potato bins, with photos
The photos I posted in that thread have disappeared, but here is the one of 20 pounds of potatoes harvested from just over one pound of seed potatoes in an 18-gallon tote:

Ohiofem, thanks for sharing. It was very informative to read, especially the fact that only some cultivars would make potatoes up the stem. I guess the earthing up of potatoes my farther was used was just to prevent them from going green and not to increase yield.

Hey guys I'm a fourteen year old gardener who screwed up her cucumber plants and you guys just helped me solve my problem so thanks =]

My cucumbers always look so sad they hate me or something? They got really droopy when I transplanted them I might have to go buy some from the local nursery? idk everybody else is doing their thing being happy.

Wow - 30 peppers in a 4x12 bed! And here I thought that I was crowding peppers by putting 14 in a 4x10 bed. I agree with Dave that harvest might be tough on the middle row but you should not get much if any sunscald on the that row. This year my 4x10 pepper bed has a row of leeks on each long edge about 4-5 inches in from the edge and I will plant 14 peppers in 2 rows about 1' from the edge.

Thank you all) Yes, we do like bell peppers) I freeze them for winter and I basically add them in all dishes I make with exception of porridge) But our growing season is not that long, so more plants - bigger crop for the year. I was thinking the same - how to get to the middle row and would it get diseased due to a poor air flow and will it kill whole bed of peppers. But I guess I have to try, otherwise I will have this question for the rest of my gardening life). I plant 30 peppers anyway, and if I can make them grow in one bed, it will free some space for few extra eggplants and I wouldn't have to mix eggplants and peppers on the same bed and worry that eggplants will beat peppers over in space competition.

Maybe the compost was contaminated with persistent herbicides? http://www.growingagreenerworld.com/killer-compost-it-happened-to-us/

greenbean08 -- that's what I was wondering. But he used named brand compost -- could that still be a possibility?

Do you have rabbits? They like tender new growth. A poster on wintersowing said she covers new seedlings with wire mesh wastebaskets bought at a dollar store for $1. I'm going to try that, anchoring with landscape staples.

Here (in WA) the slugs eat all sorts of stuff. I don't think I've had much trouble with the beans, but they like to decimate my squash seedlings. In Colorado, I never saw signs of any slugs (it was really dry) but I did see the pill bugs eating my beans, just like this. The ones in my current garden don't seem to bother anything enough to notice.

I had no problems last year with cucurbit seedlings in the 40's on a few nights... but I don't think they were hit with 30's. I have found cucurbits to be much cold hardier than peppers or eggplants or other heat loving plants. I planted seeds 2 weeks after LFD and had no problems with my plants, they were my best crop, meanwhile the peppers planted too early got stunted. I would leave them, personally.

Thank you all!
I watch my cuces carefully - looks like they continue to develop fine, will see in a couple days. I will still have time to replant if I see them to slow down. Answering temperature question - I have 4 thermometers set on different levels, not on top of the pots, but on the wire shelves where pots are set. They all were around 39F, but soil probably was a bit warmer. Nights now are much warmer, days even hot, so I hope I wouldn't have that problem again).

Don't worry unless it gets THIS silvery: and then worry.

The first two photos are normal. Black Beauty zucchini has silvery spots on the leaves. The last photo shows insect damage, which could be spider mites. Get rid of that leaf and hose off other signs of spider mites or use neem/insecticidal soap.

Now for the point of view of a painter. This is NOT a rare occurrence as all painters have to clean up somewhere somehow.

Firstly, there is nearly NO non-latex paint used any more. Secondly, there is nothing toxic in any non-industrial paint any more. Thirdly, nobody dumps buckets of perfectly good new paint.

Fourthly, what accommodations did you make so the painter could clean up after painting? If none, then the painter had to pick a spot. If the painter can't clean up, they you would have to pay for those ruined thirty dollar brushes and pans and rollers and so on. Clean-up takes water running through the thick paint residues until the tools are clean enough to be used again on the next job. You can't let that paint-y water run down the sidewalk or gutter or people would complain about THAT! Paint is designed to cover, so it looks like there's a lot when it's really just very very thin latex resins and pigments in lots of water.

So, what accommodations did you make so the painter could clean up after painting?

Well I can certainly buy oil based paint, which is very much a non-latex. But again, any toxicity evaporates away as the paint dries.

That being said, let's remember that the painter is getting paid to do a good job. If the painter needed a cleanup site, the painter really should have asked for one. That strikes me as a responsibility of the job that they're getting paid to do competently. Now, I can't assume that all painters would recognize a garden bed if they tripped over it. "Looks like dirt to me!" So it's not necessarily a matter of stupidity that they dumped it there. It is a matter of carelessness for not asking.

In response to a six year old comment on a very old thread, urine is actually quite sterile. What comes out the other end is not. That's the best thing to wrap your head around.

I find that putting urine on my compost pile raises the temperature noticeably. It really does seem to accelerate composting.

Urine sure won't do anything about the pH level of the bed, and wood ash is about the worst thing you can do about alkaline soil. My soil is alkaline, and I consider wood ash mildly toxic waste. (Though in very modest quantities, it is fine to put in a compost pile.) Per unit weight, wood ash is about half as effective in increasing alkalinity as lime.

emgardener - August 28, 2009, .....if you are still reading this thread just wanted to add that I use urine as a deer repellent and it seems to work well. I don't put it on or near my plants but just around the perimeter of the garden. Was wondering if you noticed that it keeps deer or other critters at bay too? Need to refresh after each rainfall.

I am relatively far north for eggplant, but we really enjoy them and so I am always on a search for productive ones for my area. Over the past many years I have tried Rosa Bianca, Hansel, Gretel, a couple of mini eggplants, and at least three large types, including Black Beauty. Hands down the most productive for me has been Orient Express. It produces early and in massive quantities every year I've grown it regardless of weather and my relatively short season. It's tender and delicious as well.

I've only grown black beauty. It produces more eggplants than we can easily use, although since my husband recently discovered eggplant rollatini that could change. :)

My husband tells me I call my seedlings "kids." As in, "Well, hey there kids. How are you doing?" :) Oh well.

This is fun to read.:) Each time I plant something I say "(name of plant) please come grow in my garden." When I'm planting with my grandkids in the little plots I've made for them at their homes, we say it together and it's a fun little ritual (ages 2 and 3). Also, I express a lot of gratitude, maybe wordlessly, as the garden grows and looks amazing, and produces. I also seem to remember a few cheering sessions, like when something peeks up over the soil, as in "Yay! you look marvelous!"

Katie, I remember that study from ages ago. Would be interesting to google if anything has been replicated and researched in a way that would -- no pun intended -- hold water.

My mom visited Findhorn in the 80's, so it runs in the family.