23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

I would put 9, each on a 16 inches square. The 45-54 spears then will come up over a long period, with only the first flush having a reasonable population. You will have to pick them, one or two at a time, and put them in the fridge until there is enough to dress pasta. This is why asparagus needs space. You are really in business at 35 plants or more. 100 would give you plenty, but still not enough to waste if you intend to use asparagus as your staple vegetable for a family over the 4 weeks harvest.

As noted above, a 4X4 bed is not nearly big enough for a reasonable amount of asparagus. Two or three such beds would be better.

The most you could put into a 4X4 bed would be 16 plants and that would be pushing it. I would only put in a dozen.

Have you checked with the hydro growers over on the Hydroponics forum here? While I have worked some with grodan it isn't something most vegetable gardeners would have any experience with. Personally I don't even like to work with the small 1" cubes for anything much less cut them down to a smaller size.

Dave

I didn't see a hydro forum. I'll try over there. Thank you. Sorry for posting it in the wrong forum category.

The other day I started some corn salad in my cold frames. I will start some lettuce when a get a nice day. With things like lettuce (Most cold crop) the difficult part is to get the seeds germinate. Once you do that (indoor or in cold frame) they cane be transplanted into garden. Better yet, under a plastic hoop.

I stuck some mummified, sprouting, red potatoes in a pot, near a sunny window. They most likely won't survive. But I've got something growing! They are kinda leggie! :)

The active ingredient in AzaGard is azadirachtin which comes from Neem Oil. There have been mixed reports about its effectiveness against stink bugs. It appears to be most effective against them in the nymph stage, but it needs to come into direct contact with them to kill. How many stink bug nymphs did you see in your garden? I didn't even see the bugs themselves, but I did see extensive damage on my tomatoes and peppers at harvest. If you can't find them, you can't kill them.

An organic insecticide that is supposed to be a little more effective against them is pyrethrin. There are also traps that work like Japanese beetle traps, but if you look at the reviews they get on Amazon.com, you can see that most people didn't think they were effective.

The problem is that contact insecticides are not effective because of the bugs have hard coats, and they feed by piercing the skin of the fruit or vegetable, so they avoid most of the insecticide on the surface. They feed on so many different kinds of plants that you would need to treat everything in your garden to begin to make a dent. It sounds like the most effective control for home gardeners is growing trap crops (like okra or amaranth), using row covers and, from what Dave says, using a kaolin clay product like Surround.

Thanks for all the input.

Dave, thanks for the Kaolin advice. I have a ton of the stuff and I've used it on cukes to stop the cucumber beetles. Will try it elsewhere and see what happens. Any idea of whether it inhibits corn pollination?

Last year I spent every evening killing 1000's of the two types of beetles.

Scott

I agree with digdirt. It doesn't look like it but it still MIGHT be pressure treated, but it's doubtful that any poisonous chemicals are in high enough concentration to be of danger. Keep in mind, even an apple has arsenic in them! :) Here's my suggestion: take one of the boards and put a bottomless pot on it (like say an empty milk carton with the bottom cut out, or even a styrofoam cup.) Plant a few seeds in the pot of cucumber and beans. They will be your canary-in-the-coal-mine testers. Cukes and beans are very sensitive to chemicals, so if they croak shortly after sprouting they are probably being poisoned. If they live ...the wood is okay to use.

The old PT wood/lumber had a greenish hue. But what they have now has redish color.
Your neighbor's old fence has been weathered for years and supposing that originally it had bad chemicals, it has leached out already. BUT, i would not use that stuff anyway. You spend time and energy to make a raised bed/planter and it falls apart the next year or so.
Both HD and Lowes in my area are selling cedar lumber (5/8" - 5 1/6" x 6') for about 2 bucks. They are perfect for planters and small raised beds. I have used a lot of them.

I've used hoop house to extend the end of the growing season, but this coming Spring will be my first attempt at extending the growing season from the early end using floating row covers for some crops and hoop houses for others, sometimes in combination with row covers on a particularly freezing cold night. So I'll have to get back to you on my results lol. But I don't see why it won't work, I've certainly read enough posts by others who have done so successfully.

Depending on what temp zone you're in you'll likely get some variance across the country in how much time you gain by using them. Soil temps, not necessarily air temps are really the deciding factor for a number of crops to get going in the Spring. I'll be happy with a month jump but if we don't have a particularly harsh finish to winter it could be possible to gain more than that, especially the ones used over raised beds. The use of the hoop house combined with the use of black plastic on the ground surface of the bed and possibly even wrapped around the outside of the bed structure itself will help warm the soil well in advance of any regular soil left to mother nature alone. That and the fact that my seeds are started with the use of a home made light rack and are grown in my greenhouse until it's time for them to be planted should help get them decent size before going in ground.

Well I have been doing a good job at keeping the plants alive. Yes the leaves have all but fallen, but there is actually new growth. There is one plant that is all dead and black/brown but there is new growth at the bottom of the trunk.

If you want to go an easy-peasy route, home depot sells fence panels that are all assembled and you have to do is come up with a way to put them up. Lots of different styles, but you will definitely pay a premium for them, cost of convenience and all.

My dogs dig voles that like the soil among the mature apple and pear trees, which makes a mess but is of certain benefit.

In the veg garden I use temporary chicken wire fences to keep dogs, cats and chickens off of sensitive beds.

One suggestion: Don't try to alter the current dog trails through your yard too much. Instead try to design around them, within reason.

I'd quit spraying the leaves with anything as coating the leaves only makes the problem worse.

It is one thing to spray plant leaves when the plant is outside exposed to the elements but indoors the spray coating only builds up and plugs the leaf pores.

And dish soap sprays unless carefully mixed and very weak can kill plants all on its own.

Instead just make up a diluted Neem and water mix in a bowl and gently wipe the underside of the leaves with a soft cloth dipped in it. That wipes off the mites at the same time.

But please understand that mites are very difficult to control/eliminate unless you use the chemical pesticides that are effective on them. So the plant may be a lost cause.

And yes, if you have other plants that are not yet infected, then I would toss this plant before the problem spreads.

Dave

Dave, thanks for the suggestion. I guess I am better off tossing off the plant and starting afresh.

Colored flagging tape.

people has told me that I have to mark them

I would assume they meant IF you wanted to save the seeds from them. That is the only reason to mark them.

Dave