23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
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
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)?
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.
They take about six days to emerge at 80 F. So if you can find a shady place where they can be held at 70 degrees, you can sow them on April 13th, place humidity domes on them and then give them some bottom heat when you get back to finish germination. Saves a few days this way.
Late April is far too early in your zone to plant out peppers or eggplants. Maybe tomatoes if you give them protection and it's a warm spring.
It will redden after first frost. Since you may not have a first frost, it will stay greenish-reddish - and more bitter than those that get frosted. It is a matter of taste, I like it equally, frost-sweet or bitter. In its bitter state it is medicinally a lot more powerful (helps your liver more). Radicchio is really optimal for zone 8 or 9, minimal frosts, but frosts. Michigan radicchio, around Xmas just before it keels over, it may be small because of the short season and cold temps, but it is the sweetest.
There are self-heading varieties that I think have inferior taste, and I suspect that the tasteless heads you find in stores are of that type, grown somewhere near the Rio Grande or in Salinas.
Yes, less sun causes greener leaves- chlorophyll (the green pigment) is more effective at photosynthesis than the red pigments, so with less sun the plants will make more green pigment to use the available light better. I would test it and see how you like the flavor. If it is too bitter maybe blanching it by wrapping it in brown paper might help, though I don't really know. It looks very happy and healthy otherwise!
Yes, roots need air (oxygen). Water uptake, and therefore nutrient uptake, are energy driven. In order for the process to occur, plants need to torn the food they make into energy, and that requires oxygen, just as your own body requires oxygen to keep your cells fueled.
The reason many terrestrial plants can be grown in water is by virtue of the fact they can change root structure. The roots produced in water are quite different from those produced in a soil-like or highly aerated medium (perlite - screened Turface - calcined DE - seed starting mix, e.g.). Physiologically, you will find these (water) roots to be much more brittle than normal roots due to a much higher percentage of aerenchyma (a tissue with a greater percentage of intercellular air spaces than normal parenchyma - as in terrestrial plants).
Aerenchyma tissue is filled with airy compartments. It usually forms in already rooted plants as a result of highly selective cell death and dissolution in the root cortex in response to hypoxic conditions in the rhizosphere (root zone). There are 2 types of aerenchymous tissue. One type is formed by cell differentiation and subsequent collapse, and the other type is formed by cell separation without collapse ( as in water-rooted plants). In both cases, the long continuous air spaces allow diffusion of oxygen (and probably ethylene) from the upper part of the plant to roots that would normally be unavailable to plants with roots growing in hypoxic media. In fresh cuttings placed in water, aerenchymous tissue forms due to the same hypoxic conditions w/o cell death & dissolution.
Note too, that under hypoxic (airless - low O2 levels) conditions, ethylene is necessary for aerenchyma to form. This parallels the fact that low oxygen concentrations, as found in water rooting, generally stimulate plants to produce ethylene. For a long while it was believed that high levels of ethylene stimulate adventitious root formation, but lots of recent research proves the reverse to be true. Under hypoxic conditions, like submergence in water, ethylene actually slows down adventitious root formation and elongation.
Soggy soils are hard on plants for a couple of reasons. A) Roots can't quickly make back and forth transitions from well-aerated to hypoxic. B) Soggy soils don't allow the roots enough O2 to work efficiently, so root function is impaired or roots die from a lack of O2. C) Gas exchange in soggy soils is poor. O2 diffuses in air about 10,000 times faster than in water, so in transitional situations (aerated to hypoxic) the plant can't get O2 from the soil OR the upper plant organs. Also, since CO2 is heavier than air, soils with poor gas exchange tend to fill with CO2, and hold onto gas byproducts of decomposition - like the CO2 already mentioned, sulfurous gasses, methane ... which is an obvious problem.
Al
Then I guess I was merely misunderstanding you. My apologies. Simply putting roots in water is not going to kill them, that's not what I'm saying, and I know that we agree on this point.
Where I think I got misconstrued is the idea that it is bacterial or fungal activity that causes root death, not a lack of oxygen (once again, I may have misinterpreted your statement here, further apologies if I did).
I water(rinse) them everyday. Just wet the sprouts, pour out the excess water, when i pour the excess water out, the seed hulls comes with the water, they naturally float to the top. They have all different sprouting tools..
Even when i leaved the hulls with the sprouts while they are growing, when i harvested them and rinsed the seed hulls out, the hulls were no where near rotting. Im concerned about your setup Glib, how long do you let your sprouts grow for? Even in my poor setups, i barely had any mold, let alone rot.
Normal times, perhaps a bit longer b/c my house is kept at 55F most of the day. About 8 days for fenugreek. The rotting is not obvious, and there is no mold, but obviously it is ongoing. Fenugreek hulls, for example, become softer as time goes by, and some of them also sink. Broccoli or alfalfa hulls show no texture degradation, but they certainly are attacked by bacteria.
My jars have tight fitting screen lids which are a bit difficult to put on, I have to keep the jars with the lids on until the sprouts are ready, then separate sprouts and hulls, which is done in the salad spinner, full of water, for the most part.
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.