23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
My deer don't bother the winter squash that have the thorny stickers on the leaves and stalks. And they only take an occasional nibble out of my potatoes. There's different scents that repel deer, such as rotten eggs. However, that will repel you as well...but there's other things you can use. Google deer repellent and you'll get some good ideas. At the end of the day before I head into the house for a shower, I leave my sweaty t-shirt in the garden for overnight. That leaves a strong human scent.
If you plant outside the fence, just try to protect it somehow. I have had deer eat onions and asparagus and all kinds of things they often supposedly do not eat. For winter squash, I find that they will stomp the smaller ones and eat them (the larger ones they will leave alone if hard enough). So, when I plant these things outside a fence, I cover them with bird netting. The deer do not enjoy it. The darn things even ate iris plants this year so about all that has been 100% safe for me is lavender.
I'll mostly say ditto to what Kevin posted. Maybe it's just too cold but it seems weird they'd be breaking new growth at the same time as losing their leaves. Around here pepper plants will sometimes act as deciduous perennials.
The solid majority of "dish soaps" marketed today are not actually soap at all. I hate to be the bearer of bad news. Unless you've been using a good real soap like Dr. Bronner's, mentioned by woohooman which is certified organic but not cheap, the treatment you've been using on your plants isn't organic.
Besides that the frequency is just way way WAY too high! I'm less inclined to believe the leaves are being suffocated as Dave mentioned unless the oil concentration is especially high. I've known of growers to use neem oil several times per week without ill effect as long as it doesn't get too hot. Where I am in San Diego we've had a couple of days this winter that would have been too hot to use oil sprays but it seems an unlikely cause. My best guess as to why your plants are so unhappy is because leaves are supposed to have a natural waxy epidermal layer and spraying a plant with soap as often as you are, especially if it's actually detergent, can have a detrimental impact to this protective layer.
On the other hand. There's a good chance that despite the fact you're spraying your plants way too often, what you're seeing is the die back of the shoots after getting too cold. You mentioned new growth at the bottom and in my experience with peppers you've usually lost the plant back to the point of new growth which is why here it's a toss up as to whether they're worth overwintering or not.
If you come back with more information for us about your nighttime lows and what type of bugs if any you've been seeing we might be able to get more specific.
Plants are green correct? That means that the plants do not absorb the yellow through green spectrum of light,
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Color is our perception of wave length of the light that is reflected from an object. When we see something green, it means that just that specific wave length is reflected from that object and the rest is absorbed. In other words, color doe not exist as a matter.
Wow...I wish this thread existed last year.
Last summer was my "plastic mulch experiment year." I read about all those studies and wanted to find out if they would help my harvest in my garden. Here's what I discovered:
In a nutshell - they were far more trouble than they were worth. Red, green, blue and clear would work fine to heat the soil up if you had no weed-seeds whatsoever underneath. In my garden the weeds were in 7th-heaven under there and grew until they made tents out of the stuff. Black, brown, and the double black/white stuff worked much better for weed suppression. For my northern garden the dark colors actually "shaded" the soil instead of warming it up faster. But once the summer heat hit, it basically cooked everything that is still low enough to be touching (melons especially). My bare (no mulch) tomatoes did not grow any different than the ones that had red under them. (Although Wall-o-waters significantly improved vigor). I used aluminum foil in place of silver and that worked pretty well actually, and I didn't have ANY flea beetle damage on any of the plants it was under. Black/white was my favorite and I will use it for beans again this year. It suppressed weeds (black side down) but reflected light (white side up) and my beans grew really fast, healthy and did not get dirty.
One thing that is an absolute must - You must have an installed drip system underneath the plastic. I thought I could get away with not having it, by leaving bare soil strips between the rows. Not enough. The water just pools on top and then evaporates off.
Also, the colored mulches are very flimsy. Kind of like the real wimpy painter's plastic. The slightest breeze and you will need at least two people to peg it down, and then it still rips free from the pegs.
My plans for this year based on last year's experiments - Wall-o-waters for sure! Black/White under beans and melons. Aluminum foil under eggplants.
I use the wood chips (1/4-inch sized or so) in the veggie garden routinely. I think the trick is not to overload the soil with them, since they'll take some time to decompose completely. You don't want to have your plants growing in a thoroughly "pebbled" medium. But after a year or two, they're mostly gone, and while they're there, they greatly improve soil aeration and resist compacting. In fact, since they take some time composting there, you don't get a nitrogen deprivation shock like you would with something like sawdust.
Wood chips come in "decorative" size, which is definitely not for digging in to gardens. I like the smaller stuff. So I think a lot of the argument about wood chips in the garden depends on how big and how much.
JCTsai, I just filled out the form, I think if you go to their home page they might have contact info.
I've been hauling mulch all day, I'll do 3 loads then rest. I'm trying to polish it off by tomorrow afternoon since there will be rain the day after tomorrow and I don't want to move damp mulch.
Oca is an uncommon crop, since it grows well in a relatively narrow climate range... such as the maritime West Coast of the U.S.. If tubers froze, chances are that they will not survive.
One of the biggest growers I know is at the site below, he grows about 60 varieties, along with other Andean root crops. His site gives a great deal of information on sources & culture.
Here is a link that might be useful: Wetting the beds
Taste is subjective Wayne. I personally do not like the taste and texture of super sweets. So I rarely grow one. The Mirai to me has better texture and flavor and they produced better. Of course the variety I tried was really a synergistic rather than a true supersweet. Not my favorite, I prefer se, but acceptable as an extra sweet.
I too prefer the se+ corns. I have tried the newer synergistics and am still hunting a fully good one. Montauk was ok. I have heard about Obsession, but realize that those who say, "Boy, this is the best corn ever," may not really know many good corns.
I use a small amount of a mid-weight row cover on my fall-planted veggies to overwinter them. I've found that my spinach can be left uncovered even down to 15F and still survive well. It overwinters as a small plant and then grows very fast for multiple harvests in late Mar and April. I've used rowcovers for broccoli in raised beds too.
You'll probably notice that your pepper plant won't handle low light as well either and may not survive if held for too long without sufficient light. Typically the lower leaves will drop first and the rest may yellow. Don't be concerned that new blossoms aren't showing. When you provide sufficient artificial light or you get enough natural light your plant should regain color and resume blooming assuming the stress has not been too great.
Posted by bmoser z6PA (b2m2@moserproduce.com) on Thu, Feb 6, 14 at 18:47
Last October, I moved this bell pepper and two tomatoes indoors. The tomatoes died within a month. But this pepper survived today and is growing okay. It has a small West facing window. I do not expect peppers now. I will move it out in mid-March. I hope it starts to grow better then.
You shouldn't be allowing the plants to self seed. Your asparagus bed will deteriorate and you will lose the quality of the plants. (Assuming you planted an all male bed). If you started them from seed you need to rogue the female plants out. It sounds as if you need to do a bit of reading on Asparagus growing. This link is informative.
Here is a link that might be useful: Asparagus
I don't think the bucket would work very well, either. The baby asparagus roots when I first planted them were easily the circumference of a 5 gallon bucket. Now that they've been in their beds for many years they have really stretched out. Think of them like a giant starfish instead of regular down-ward growing roots on a shrub or veggie.
As far as the plant becoming invasive and spreading....I don't think that happens very often, unless it goes to seed and you allow every baby to grow. When books say it spreads, I think they are referring to the root's desire to spread open like a ...well... a starfish.
This is one of the reason they say hand-picking weed-control is so important in an asparagus bed. Because the roots grow so close to the surface it's easy to damage them (which they do show signs of resentment) with a hoe or other implement.
Asparagus likes to be in a permanent spot. So choose a bed that you will be happy in it's placement for many years. Also, the rule of thumb that many gardeners use is: 1st year, no harvest - let all the spears grow into ferns. 2nd year - only harvest 1/3 of the spears. 3rd year - you can harvest 2/3 of the spears. By the 4th year your plants should be mature and you can harvest at will, leaving a few spears to turn into ferns each year to re-energize the plant for next year's harvest.
I did a sort of experiment with garlic last summer, you might find it interesting...
Use the link below or look for it in the Far North forum....
Here is a link that might be useful: Garlic Experiment
If I was in your position, I would set aside a day for internet research. I would get names of large commercial farms in general, large commercial farms in the area, and names of the pesticides you want to avoid.
I would then search for lawsuits past and present describing damage done by those pesticides connected with the problem of drift.
You will find descriptions of damage done and testimony of experts on both sides, all of which will allow you to make a more informed choice in your own plans.
The 'general' results will of course have more information, but the particular area results may have exactly the information that would be crucial to your choice.
If you're in fear or doubt, grow stuff that fruits rather than leafy stuff which is harder to intensely wash.
You can easily wash things that fruit and/or you're not planning on eating the outer parts (peppers, toms, eggplant, squash, melons, etc).
Nice land use gift you got there.
The thing to remember is that you do not have to do bagging/protection all season long. Just try few buds early on, until they set fruits. Then remove the bag(whatever) and tag those fruits. You don't care what happens with the rest to come. One or two tomato or pepper can provide you more than enough seeds.
JMO
My experience is just the opposite. I always start mine in the greenhouse in tall 6 packs. When I direct sow, it's sketchy if they come up or not, and I'm often left with bald spots in my row.
The trick, I've found, is to pack the soil down as the sprout grows up and add a little to the top. I do this about three times before transplanting out in the garden. That way when you pop out the plug, it's nice and firm and doesn't crumble, so the root doesn't get transplant-shock.
Each seed often sends up 2 or 3 sprouts for me. I don't thin them like they say to. I just let them battle it out and the strongest one always becomes the beet.
So far I've only been able to direct sow in the Summer some time. A few years back, I sowed in April, and they got a couple inches tall, but they stopped growing and were eaten by Slugs... It's simply not cold enough here to have them grown entirely in the ground from seed.