23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

If you want to find well-suited multiplying onion cultivars for TX you need to communicate with Jeff Cupp, in AL. He is collecting all the southern cultivars he can find. I bought some different ones from him a year ago and set them out in Florida sand and left them for 10 months. Not only did some survive (some did not but that is very tough conditions) they are doing quite well. One is a top setter, others are just base multipliers.

In our area, the Farm Coops carry "multipler onions" which are planted as sets in the fall. You pull the clusters apart and plant each little onion about six inches apart. They each make a cluster of green onions that grow larger (the cluster, not the onions) all winter. When I want green onions, I go out, dig up a cluster, replant at least one of them in that spot and bring the rest in. Even as cold as our winter was this year, I still have beautiful green onions to pull for the early spring lettuce. I have never tried saving the sets. May have to give that a whirl this year. These are what farmerdill was referring to. I'm just giving you a bit more info. The first time I planted them I had no idea what to expect and planted WAY too many.

I'll continue to use popsicle sticks in spite of their one-season lifespan, because I get double enjoyment from them: first, the cold sweet treat on a hot summer day, and second, the following springtime, the plant marker.

Carol

With the mini-blinds, write with a pencil. It never fades and is legible years later.

We have a clear plastic high tunnel type of unheated greenhouse. The ground never froze all winter (NH) inside. Spinach has continued to grow. I would be concerned about how hot your greenhouse gets during the day. Recently, on a sunny day, mine got up to 97 degrees F. Eliot Coleman has written at least two books on extending the growing season. He market gardens year round in Maine. We have an indoor/outdoor thermometer so I know how hot it gets in the high tunnel. The sides can roll up when it gets warmer. When it's warm all the time, the sides will stay up all the time and the door will stay open.

I try to get spinach planted in the open garden as soon as possible. One winter it wintered over and started growing again as soon as it started getting warm enough. Somewhere I read that spinach is day length sensitive and will bolt when the days get longer. I've had good crops ever since I started planting early.

Market gardens using high tunnels in our area are moving indoor grown (cold hardy plant) seedlings to their high tunnels right now. But, I wonder why you have white plastic instead of clear. You might not be getting enough light right now.

How cold will the coldest nights be? Keep in mind that a plastic greenhouse won't retain much heat at night (although it will to some extent if it has a concrete floor). A dry dirt floor is a poor heat source. A moist dirt floor is a good heat source but keeping it moist all the time is a good way to encourage diseases.

Not all cool weather crops are equally tolerant of cold. Spinach, carrots, broccoli, kale, collards and tatsoi are very hardy but lettuce, celery, beets, swiss chard, bok choy and endive are somewhat less hardy. A 20 degree frost, for example, will not harm the first group but could damage the second.

Row covers are a good idea. I'm sure it will work out for you but start off with the more cold-resistant crops first.

Don't forget to vent the greenhouse on hot days - spinach does not like germination temperatures over 70 degrees.

Thanks, all. I guess I should add to my post the fact that as my name might suggest... I like to build and create things. I build complex, eccentric, and challenging interior architecture all over the world, mainly for the very wealthy. Sometimes (more often than that!) I get tired of millionaires and just want to make something simple. For me. This "screen room" is perhaps unnecessary effort, but it does bring together 2 of my favorite things: Growing and Building. Anyway. This is probably too much information! The beds I'm planning to cover are in full sun, though i hadn't given thought to the window screen blocking some light. Do any of you feel that the light blocked would have any significant impact... positive or negative? Also, i have it in the back of my head that these hinged frames (basically a 30" tall cage) will provide support for shade cloth to shield some of the cooler temp loving crops from summer heat in hopes of extending their harvest.

The top gardener in our area built a screened covered raised bed for broccoli last season to deter the root maggot flies. It worked great. No problems with root maggots, and the broccoli grew very well. I don't think the screening blocked enough sunlight to be of any concern.

There are many options with cucs. You could go all the way to a seedless variety but you may not be happy with the price of starting seeds. Sweet Success seems to be a popular variety that won AAS status many years ago. For burpless picklers Ballerina, Picolino and Cool Breeze all have hardly noticable seeds.

Thank you all so much for your advice. It is much appreciated.

Thanks all

Thank you all

Do you have voles or rats in the garden? If yes, they will clean out all peanuts you grow.

Thanks for the suggestions! I do have voles and moles and deer, so I'll have to stay extra vigilant.

Wayne, what variety(s) do you grow? I'm in zone 6 a/b in Indiana also and plan to grow sweet potatoes for the first time this year.

I plant mostly O'Henry which is a smooth light yellow. Other decent ones are Beauregard and Covington orange ones. For bush Vardman might be ok.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sweetpotatoes

I always knew it as a winter vegetable.

While it is more of a winter vegetable, seeing as you are in zone 2, I would go ahead and try it. Seed is relatively cheap and if it does not work for you, you could probably try again.

Runswithscissors, I have had problems with it too. I am still trying to get the right conditions for it and have not found them yet but I want to keep trying. I really enjoy it but suspect my timing may have been off in the past.

Just this evening, Jim:

New Territorial Seed catalog notice - they carry Samurai for 2008.

S

Here is a link that might be useful: Red Samurai

I tried Atomic Red Carrots and did not like them very much. Then I tried Kyoto Red and loved them! They are sweet, have a nice texture and they grow great. Kitazawa sells this variety in packets or in 1/4 pound amounts. Here is a picture of mine. This is definitely one of my new favorite varieties. They would be perfect for the market if only my family wouldn't eat them first!

I uploaded some more pictures on my little blog post in the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kyoto Red Carrots

I planted a backup batch of broccoli seeds this week, Just In Case. I'm assuming the cabbages won't have buttoning problems.

Normally, I'd have the brassicas starting to go out to be hardened off by now. Once hardened, they can take temps in the mid-twenties.

But even if the snow melts, even if the ground thaws, it'll be mud.

Just starting broccoli (which always bolted for me, so I want to get out ASAP this year - as soon as the snow melts), kale, mustard, spinach, chard, tat soi, and lettuce over the next couple of weeks. Wondering when to start these (trying to follow Johnny's calculator this year, LFD May 15 - maybe), with the exception of peppers which I want to start tomorrow since they seem to take so long.

Should all the cool-weather greens be started in my cooler basement (starting to warm up to almost 50 now) or in the 67-degree house as I did with kale last year? Looks like kale will get leggy if let go too long (had to share lights with nightshades, and didn't help that we went on vacation in mid-April so I didn't get the kale out until May), but starting early I can keep them under lights until my tomatoes need them in April, by which time I hope I can plant out under row cover. What about other brassicas, lettuce, etc.? Do they need intense light once germinated?

I'm wondering if I start these in the next 2 weeks if they will do better in cooler area, with lights, than upstairs, and when and where to move them to once I need lights for the tomatoes next month. Is natural sunlight OK by then, start hardening off outside during the day and moving them back to cool basement at night until nights are above freezing (which they should be by mid-April but who knows this year)?

A lot depends on whether they've been hardened off. I wouldn't count on it with newly-purchased seedlings.

Many thanks for your responses. You all have saved my seedlings. Thank you.

Here in north central Florida I find that my peas (wrinkled seed types) are fairly susceptible to freeze damage unless they are quite young. In fact I provide them with protection from all but the lightest of frosts. I suspect it happens because we tend to get cold weather as a series of cycles of a few days to a week of high temperatures of 70-75 degrees followed by a freeze and several days to a week with highs in the 50s and 60s, then back into the 70s (and occasionally 80s) for a few days to a week. I think the warmer interludes may affect the pea plant's susceptibility to frost damage. Nevertheless, I have great luck with peas all winter so long as I given them a little protection on frosty nights. Has anyone else in similar climates noticed their peas being susceptible to damage from frosts and light freezes?

This post was edited by courtneych on Sun, Mar 9, 14 at 21:13

We call "hard freezes" freezes below about 28F. Light freezes are above that. We rarely get below 25F. Never since I started growing peas several years ago. Also, we just get these hard freezes overnight. Never for days at a time. I've never protected my peas, and I've never had problems. As I said, my peas have come through 25F dawns unscathed. What I had always wondered was, how low can they go? At least with these sugar snaps, I'm now inclined to throw something over them is the temp is going to get well below 25F overnight. If you live where you get such temps for many days in a row, that plan may well not help you.

How much snow cover do you have? Here cabbages would still be well under snow, and in that situation they would keep almost indefinitely. Outside it might be -31F, but at the ground level it is 27F. You can always help that along by actively covering the cabbage with a snow shovel.

Ha -- glib when I told my husband you still had 2 feet of snow, he wanted to come up to New England to keep skiing! We still have snow higher up, but in the yard, it thawed last weekend. More snow coming this week, though. Sounds like if it stays cold, it'll keep.

laceyvail -- I pulled some cabbage just before the first polar vortex, and left some in, just to see what would happen. The ones I pulled were good at first, but got dryer and shriveleier. The ones in the ground are fresh as can be--perfect for cole slaw, while the ones pulled earlier ended up only good for soup. I knew I was taking a risk, but was very happy with the results.