23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

If you are working with a new garden I would use the spacing you listed.
If bean get too crowded the blossoms won't get pollinated.

Radishes can go in around the tomatoes at planting time. They will be harvested before the tomatoes crowd the area. Beets can probably do the same. This will free up some space.

CoState extension has a nice fact sheet on this. See link below.

This sheet make the good point that seed storage is greatly aided by making them, and keeping them dry. The latter is where a freezer has an advantage, as the air in the freezer is especially dry. But when I store my seed in the fridge, I do so with seed packages in a plastic zipper bag that has some dessicant envelopes in it. Also (and this is important!) DO NOT open that plastic zipper bag while the contents are cold. Water vapor from the air will immediately condense on the seeds. Only open that bag after the contents have warmed up thoroughly. Then take the seeds, zip it back up, and throw it back in the fridge.

It is important to understand that seeds themselves are hydroscopic. That means they automatically absob water, which is certainly a survival trait. So the dessicant is important. You need something to absorb the water vapor at least as fast as the seeds do. Common DIY dessicants are rice grains and powdered milk, but I suspect silica gel works better.

I'm not sure about this, but I think the main trick for freezing seeds is to make sure that they are first well dried. Freezing a seed that is not dried will damage it.

Just throwing a resealed paper seed package in the fridge is probably not a smart thing to do.

Here is a link that might be useful: Storing Flower and Vegetable Seeds

I have onion seeds I've kept in the freezer for 5 years and they still germinate well.
Onions usually last only one or 2 years.

By the way, leaving it in a pile was not an option, since it's in the front of my house and needed to go, some way or another. I can either move it to the back yard or spread it out.

I'd spread it out broadly as a mulch. I put fresh wood chips down every year and it soon disappears into my heavy clay soil, which is improving over the years! No pests, no problem with nitrogen, nothing but positive benefits.

I grow in raised beds too. I do remove the grass, place a sheet of weedblock, and then lay a foundation of cardboard 2 layers thick. I still get 3 or 4 shoots of grass through the year but its easier to manage this way. 8" in plenty. I'm getting along quite will with 6" deep beds :)

Good luck!

LC

Plants usually need more then 8 inches for the root system. So you have two choices - dig in or raise high. When I started my garden where I live now there was no even lawn loam. It was fill - gravel, bricks and clay/sand with 2 inches of top soil on top. I couldn't afford to build high beds and buy all the soil I need for them, so I dug about a foot deep, sifted out rocks and derbies from clay/sand and mixed what left with compost and pit moss I bought. Then I built additional 10 inches wooden beds on top. I placed about 5 inches of gravel I sifted out on the bottom of my holes for drainage, then placed turf I dug from the lawn grass down, roots up and then filled the rest with the soil mix I made. Yea... That was a big job. But at the time I didn't see any other options - I was just starting the garden and didn't want to invest much in the project with unknown outcome).

maynard: Hope you don't feel like you were lambasted here. The 3 posters other than me that replied are 3 of the most knowledgeable and respectful people on GW.

I was confused also. You said, "My tomatoes and pepper seedlings were planted about two months ago," From that, I assumed they were about 4 months old(sow, 8 weeks growing, and then PLANTED SEEDLINGS 2 months ago(key words). LOL... even here in SoCal, 2 month PLANTED seedlings would have been way too early to let the kids out to play.

Anyhow, like rhizo1 said, should have getting them weak doses shortly after the first leaves.

And like others hinted, there can be other factors like temps, light, and pot size. If you're still a few weeks away, you might want to "pot up." Get them into a bit larger pot(scratch root ball first), water thoroughly, and then start hardening them off for the next week on warm days. After that first week of hardening, you may want to give them some weak doses of ferts. For the remaining weeks, get them as much direct sun as possible as long as the temps aren't too cold.

Hope your view of GW hasn't been tainted. There are some really great folk here(especially those that replied) and I don't know where I'd be personally without them.

Happy gardening!

Kevin

If the potting mix has had slow-release fertilizer added, I start supplementing after about 4 weeks. If no fertilizer has been added, I supplement a few days after germination with weak soluble fertilizer.
2 month-old-seedlings would need to be in 4" pots at the minimum, but 1-gallon pots are preferable.

Snails and slugs make holes like the ones in your photo.

I hate to say it, but that fabric isn't going to let in enough light for strawberries.

Dave is right....check with the manufacturer. By the way, it's important to mix only what you need for any garden product. Some things (insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides for example) begin to lose efficacy soon after mixing.

A few years ago I bought a packet of Sea Magic (?), and mixed it up into the concentrate as stated on the packet. I used it all that summer but had some left over, so I put it on a shelf in my basement that stays a constant 60* and no sunlight. I used it the following summer, but toward the end of the summer it really smelled funky, so I no longer used it as a foilar spray and only as a soil drench with no ill effects. I now use the Neptune's Harvest and put the gallon jug on the same shelf in the basement, I'm a believer in the constant cool temperature and no sunlight.

I think that's the red blush.

My lettuce seeds germinated and now growing in cold frame. In Another week or so I will transplant them into 4" pots and eventually into the garden. Chards are emerging in cold frame too. Cold frame is dandy in early spring and late fall.

Hi, I'm in Arlington also. I'm working on improving my 2nd veggie garden. I love your seedling/light set up. Right now I am using a bedroom window. This bipolar weather has me starting really late as far as seeds or planting. Good luck with your ambitious garden. Soooo many plants.

Hi Syntria,
I also live in the DFW area and have a whole new garden this year. As for soil- what is this bulk compost place you speak of? I ordered 5 cubic yards of Premium Soil Mix from Silver Creek Materials in Fort Worth. The mixture is 40% sand and 60% compost. Everything planted so far is doing great. I added cotton burr compost, chicken manure, and cow manure to each of the beds with the new soil to boost nutrients/nitrogen. Anyways, that Premium Soil Mix is $25 per cubic yard, and they can have it delivered that day. If you haven't built your beds already, I encourage you to check them out.

Too early for squash even in zone 9 from what I have read from the other gardeners there. But maybe it will survive if the weather cooperates.

You will have to hand pollinate. There is a FAQ here with all the info on how to do it. Just click on the blue FAQ button right below the Forum Instructions at the top of the page.

As for shading, normally the plant leaves provide enough. In this case since there are so few leaves you may have to. But it is only going to make growing it this early more difficult. As the plant develops the later fruit should be protected enough.

Dave

Thanks for the help, I'll try the hand pollinating...I only tried one of these plants since it is still cooler here, good thing I guess.

I was just getting ready to build a tower. Guess I won't do that. I already have a couple of containers I could use, a half barrel planter and a raised bed which is about 1'x3' by 1.5' deep. I could build a different size container- what would be an ideal size for a potato container? About two tires high by as long and wide as you can make it? It sounds like it would be unproductive and a waste of resources to hill too many times. Do you usually have success with hilling 2 or 3 times a season?

Now, take this from someone who is not a potato farmer. I've only grown potatoes in containers for three seasons. My biggest container held 49 gallons and was about 2 feet high by 20 inches wide by 3 feet long. It isn't about how many times you hill, it's about when you do it and how how high you go. Following advice from a potato farmer on Garden web, I planted 10 seed potatoes in that container with about 4 inches of soil under them and 4 inches of soil on top of them. When they got to be 6 inches high, I "hilled" them, or covered them with four more inches of soil. Every time they got to 6 inches high, I did it again until the soil reached the top of the container. The soil will settle with watering, so I probably had to hill 4 or 5 times. Potatoes grow very fast, so I was hilling every 3-5 days toward the end.

When I use the word soil, I actually mean soilless potting mix. I used the 5-1-1 mix discussed in the container forum with extra peat moss (5-2-1, really). You want something that is fast draining. When I harvested there were a few potatoes about 6 inches from the top. Your goal is to keep any of them from getting exposed to the sun. They need steady moisture and heavy feeding, in my opinion. If you have a good year, you can get 10 pounds of potatoes for each pound you plant. If they are crowded, the potatoes will be small.