23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Hey, another Saskie growing ground cherries! (Or are you an Albertan? Close enough).
Some of my ground cherries drop to the ground when still unripe. I scoop these up into a cardboard box and keep it on the counter. Any partially ripe ones (even those with the slightest tinge of yellow) ripen within 2 weeks. They ripen much slower than tomatoes in this respect. Completely green ones may or may not ripen. Check on them about twice a week and move the fully ripe ones to a cool, dry location, such as a basement.
sorry... no Saskie but Albertan!
This is my first year with the ground cherries. My husband didn't want me growing them again because they "take up too much space" but now that he's tasted them I think he's changing his mind.
I see its supposed to warm again this weekend with no frost but cooler next week so maybe on Sunday I'll go pick them and see how many ripen inside. I might not get many but its better than losing them all to the frost.
Do you have a good jam or pie recipe for them???
Egg Shell(sea shell): will take for ever to break down:
Wood Ash: Perfect for root system.
Coffee Ground: Good soil conditioner.
NOTE: Garlic and onions are BASICALLY leafy vegetables. They need Nitrogen more than any thing else. Potash is good too, but there is no need for Phosphorus . "P" is for flowering, blooming and fruits.
HOW DEEP:
Although it is good to condition the soil for a good depth, BUT garlic does not need more than 8- 10" of good soil. But In case you want also plant other veggies in there (Carrots, beets, turnips, ...) You will need more depth.
This post was edited by seysonn on Fri, Sep 20, 13 at 4:12
I tried planting garlic for the first time last fall. I also was using a raised bed.
Apparently for zone 4 that is a bad idea.
I just wasnt thinking it through. My beds are deep beds - aprox 24", and I planted the cloves in the outer perimeters. Every single one of them turned to mush. There simply wasnt enough insulation to protect them from our cold WI winters.
My motto for late fall and winter: every bed must be covered.
My choices for covering:
1. growing greens under hoops and fleece, (uncover to eat during thaws)
2. hay bales over carrots and parsnips, (kick the bale over, even in snow, and dig in Jan, Feb, March)
3. heavy mulch over leeks and rutabagas,(dig during winter thaws)
4. tangles of weeds that overtook things like the squash patches, (why plant a cover crop when it's already there? I just go around with a serrated knife and cut off the seed heads.)
5. a winter-kill cover crop like oats, (if ground is bare some place)
6. lasagne layers of manure or compost, and hay.(especially for the beds that need to be ready in early April for onions, leeks, peas, greens, broccoli, cabbage, etc.)
I keep a couple of beds for winter stuff, cause I still have tomatoes, tomatillas, and a few other things going for another month or so.
I've planted lettuce, chard, celery, radishes, chard and broccholi in those 2 beds, then as the other things are ready to come out I add compost and/or leaves and cover with cardboard to help prevent weeds (stabbed repeatedly for water to get through)
This is when I pay more attention to my compost, turning and adding leaves etc It seems like too much work in the summer when it's hot! Then I usually have a pretty good batch by spring. Nancy
I use my fingers as a guide - ei: 1 finger between each carrot or 3 fingers for beets.
When I plant I'll measure a certain distance on a bamboo skewer and mark it and use that for a guide.
It might be uncomfortable, but I find it way easier to thin after a good rain. the soil is soft and things pull out easily.
They look like harlequin bugs, probably related. Those are hard to get rid of if you get a big infestation, because they way they feed (through their built in sippy straw) makes it unlikely they ingest any meaningful amounts of insecticides that rely on being eaten. Treat them the way you do squash bugs, I guess. That means some form of hand picking and maybe get some row covers if you get rid of most of them, and the nymphs will be more suceptible to any contact poisons than the adults.
I get harlequin bugs on my horseradish in midsummer sometimes. I get rid of them by cutting off the most infested leaves and drowning the bugs in soapy water, then do follow up on all the other leaves until I don't find any more. But that might not work for all crops.
Awww man they sound bad. I've been handpicking as much as I can but cannot get to the community garden more than twice a week. They are under the one row cover I have but there are less of them there.
I am spraying at night not to burn the plants but I think they are in the soil at night and not out feeding. I see them feeding during the day.
Looks like there was a hatch and most are nymphs now so going to try to spray them again tonight. I've lost most of my uncovered brassicas to them :( all my radishes/beets/turnips as soon as they come up :(
To make things harder, they run when they see or sense me and can fly! Ugh!
I heard they don't like fish emulsion so sprayed with that too. Still there. Bought another row cover to plant under hoping it will help.
"NC, I was looking at Botany for Gardeners on Amazon. It is available for the Kindle. Do you think the diagrams and photos will still be useful on a Kindle or is that a book that would be better suited to print?"
I truly have no idea. While I do have some books on my IPad, I'm one of those people that still find it difficult to use because I'm very used to flipping back/forth with paper for instant gratification.
I don't know how the diagrams/pictures would show up, but they are a somewhat important part of the book.
If you are near a public library, it's a commonly stocked book for a lot of libraries. Also, a lot of public libraries have online searches for what they carry and you may be able to check and see if they have it without visiting in person.
This post was edited by nc-crn on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 17:49
Most of the pollinating of cucurbit blossoms is done by native squash bees, most of whom have finished their life cycle by this time of year. They are ground-nesting solitary bees that look like little bumblebees. You may have killed a few, but not many. Hand pollinate to make sure you get a few fruits to set.
In my experience, tomatoes make little progress once nights fall into the 50's, probably because it's early afternoon before the fruits warm up from the night before. You can wrap mature green fruits in newspaper and keep them in a cool place, then bring them out to ripen one at a time. I'll do that with the perfect ones, and make green tomato relish with the rest. 46 last night, great for collards and kale, bad for tomatoes.
Wow, Nc-crn and Seysonn! Maybe I should try some of the cooler tolerant varieties you all mention. I had no idea there were so many tomato varieties until this year. Good to know that there are some for cooler climates. I wonder how my plants will fare. Kind of an experiment. I am in the PNW, too Seysonn. In my area we get pretty hot summers (usually) and pretty cold winters in Eastern Wa. Not quite as cold as Montana. The last four years, I've noticed a pattern of very warm Septembers and sometimes warmer Octobers. In turn, our Junes have been chilly and rainy. So odd! Makes it hard to plan because we can get frosts in September so it is always a roll of the dice. Wish they had more of these types in the cucurbit family, particularly squash. Tried the butternut bush squash and wasn't too impressed.
Armyworm is kind of a general term, but that's what those are. Bt or spinosad will easily control them, but they can be sneaky. In fall I find them in the bottom of cabbage heads, hiding and eating and making a mess.
Here is a link that might be useful: armyworm life cycle
You might want to try using a trowel and digging deeper. You might be happily surprised.
-Anne
With several plants still growing, the OP may not want to risk digging into those growing tubers. Safer to wait and dig them all together.