23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
"When an electric fixture is malfunctioning, one should stop using it immediately. The fluorescent bulbs should last for thousands of hours. But his fixture burns it in no time, he puts in another bulb and the problem persists and he leaves the light on. So whose fault is it ?"
Agree. If something is clearly wrong, the last thing one should do is leave the fixture plugged in and unattended.
There's not a whole lot of difference in T12/T8 fixtures at this point. There's only a few ballast manufacturers and they sell to everyone. Pick the one with the best reflectors (as that's going to be the biggest determiner of performance), and if you're seeing problems in the first couple of weeks, return the damn thing.
Let me tell you how I deal with slugs/snail(Assuming that it is your problem too)
1) HUNTING: Nothing works more effectively than just finding and destroying them. ESPECIALLY early on so that they cannot multiply. Get one of those sharp pointed bamboo skews, just skew them one after another as if you would skew shrimps. (GRIN) . Put it somewhere on a sunny place. Hopefully some birds may enjoy them or they will become SUN DRIED slugs. hehe
2) use nylon netting around and over your seedlings. Make sure that it is well pinned down.
3) Slug baits of all kinds work fine. But they are expensive. Here is what I do: Make my own mix"
--- 1 parts slug bait
--- 4 parts used coffee grounds
--- 2-3 parts play/mortar sand; has to be a little rough. Dry is better.
--- ground egg shell : NOT too fine. You want it to have sharp
points
There you have it; You can use it more generously as opposed to pure expensive sluggo. This year I will add some crushed floor dri(DE) as well.
Slugs have a tender belly. That is how slugo works, by tearing it down. Sand, eggshell, any sharp matter can also damage their belly and you will see them bleeding while running away.
Your ultimate goal should be to destroy them, not deter them. As you continue doing this the population will be reduced, and there will be less muliplication. BUT always be on the look out. not just around the vegetable garden, but everywhere in your yard. HUNT THEM. a salt shake can also work instead bamboo skewer.
My local nursery has gotten in their onion/potato sets as well as asparagus crowns (even had 2yr old crowns). Big box stores had 1yr crowns... found some at Home Depot a week ago that I may take back after seeing the crowns from the nursery place. The nursery crowns had growing points on them... were larger and not as dry. Price was comparable
$4 for 3 crowns @ box stores vs $1.30 per crown at nursery.
Hi missnish and welcome. I hope you don't mind if I redirect you to a couple of different forums here for better info?
First, the Florida Gardening forum can get you input directly from the locals, info those residing elsewhere can only guesstimate.
Second, the Fruits and Orchards forum here can get you input from fruit gowers. I note there are many discussions about growing blueberries on that forum.
Hope this is of some help.
Dave
PS: and if you want to grow them in containers check out this discussion about them on the Container gardening forum.
I wish I knew. I've come to expect my spring crops to be a lot more hit-or-miss than my summer or fall ones. I agree that the weather seems to suddenly and rapidly heat up, causing lots of spring crops to bolt or otherwise become useless. Some springs I get nice broccoli and peas, etc., others I get close to nothing. I'm not expecting much this year, unless the cool trend holds into June. But we will see, this will be another experience under my belt when the season has gone by. I've only been growing in this exact location a few years. Sorry I don't know anything about onions for scallions either. I only grow mine for storage.
Sorry, i misunderstood. Certainly, spawn will be quicker than spores, but 55 gal isn't small, it'll still take a few weeks.. Depending.. Research Paul Stamets, you will find all the information you need to know from his books,etc. Still, i would probably use smaller containers, not only for quicker colonization, but you are not leaving all your food on one plate. What happens if that 55 gal gets contaminated, it's garbage. What happens if a few of your 50 gal containers get contaminated, you still have the other 40! Plus, it's easier sterilizing small amounts of soil.
My local feed and seed store has certified seed potatoes for $1 a pound, but if you buy a fifty pound bag they are $.60 a pound.
They carry about 8 varieties that are suggested for our area. Standards like red Pontiac and Yukon Gold.
They grow better than the ones that I have ordered from seed catalogs before.
I have also planted grocery store spuds and they have always done well. I have some Yukon gold from the store that I plan to plant as soon as the ground gets dry enough. I bought them two weeks ago and when I got them out of the cupboard Sunday they had inch long sprouts all over them.
producing seed potato costs serious money. Retailers can sell them as a loss leader to attract buyers, or as a favour to customers.
I grow from supermarket spuds every year, but if I want different varieties, only online dealers offer them. Remember that you can always buy online once, and then save tubers for the next year. That will make the cost per lb. go way down.
Two inches , 3 inches of rain, is not a big deal. Your soil needs to be conditioned to have enough drainage. Plus, you should not allow any run off water to come towards your garden spot but rather run away from it. Trenching is one way to do it.
The other option is to have raised beds, with good well drained soil, where your garden spot is low lying and the soil is clay.
WILL your potatoes survive ? If the rain stops and excess water is drained, probably will.
Nc-crn and Desirai both have it. A tradescantia, often called dayflower or spiderwort. One of the few plants that has a true blue flower. It can be a pest, but my grandmother kept a bed of it in an out of the way spot where she wanted some color but didn't want to weed (she had extensive flower beds). It was very pretty bordered with orange touch-me-nots and it didn't require weeding since it squeezed out any other weeds.
I know it's not commercially viable.. makes much more sense to fumigate. I was wondering if it had been done at the level of the home gardener, though.
As for solving the RKN problem, that's a lot easier said than done for the home gardener, who can't fumigate. The various control options make sense for things like tomatoes, peppers, etc... but for okra, the tolerance level is just incredibly low. I can still get a usable crop, but nothing even close to what I can get in areas that aren't RKN infested. I also like to grow okra in my front yard as an edible ornamental, which precludes some of cultural controls for RKN.
Since I only grow 4 or 5 plants a year, grafting wouldn't be impractical.
I'll post back here if it ends up working.
What kind of pH tester are you using ? How reliable is it?
Anyway, I would reduce pH to 6 to 6.8. That is ideal.
As far as fertilizing, seeds DO NOT NEED fertilizer to germinate or even til they have a couple of true leaves. Then you can start fertilizing by 1/3 strength liquid fertilizer solution.
Fertilizer can travel as far as water can. And generally, water does not travel horizontally very far.
What you can do is to put a plastic barier , similar to what they use between grass and garden beds. They are about 6-8" wide and come in rolls, sold at garden center @ HD and elsewhere. Alternatively, you can use a 9/16 x 6" cedar board, the ones are used to make fence with.
As I said, water tends to go down by the force of gravity. UNLESS the bed is flooded.
Also depends on the type of fertilizer. Water souable fertilizers will spread/dissipate out further than a dry granular one will even when it gets wet.
Ideally legumes should be planted as far away from routinely fertilized crops as possible - like a separate area - but that isn't always practical. When it isn't then choose granular supplements rather than liquids or as suggested, some sort of barrier between.
Many gardeners use flowers or other run-off trapping crops between the crops with very different needs but if your space is really limited then that would be a waste of space.
Dave