23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

My lettuce is now bitter and tough. I was told you can cut it off and plant the root part it will grow again. Is this true ?

Another great classical lettuce is Bibb. A good discussion of overall lettuce culture, with photos, can be found here:

Biodynamic French Intensive Method

Here is a link that might be useful: Alan Chadwick

CaraRose, in my experience nobody but gardening nuts like here on GW even thinks about planting crops in September, and so I can never find anything to plant at a nursery. I've had really good luck with planting seed in mid September, and then covering the new seedlings in October. Still, I wish you luck finding bedding plants!

Last year I found mixed lettuce (last six pack). Not sure if I'll luck out again there. Chard was easy to find because they sell fully mature plants as well as seedlings as ornamental here. My local nursery has bright lights chard everywhere.

I've not grown that particular one, but we planted something called Dinosaur Eggs from Henry Fields this year that sounds like it might be similar. We have greatly enjoyed them. Especially like them sliced about 1/2" thick slices with some olive oil rubbed on and grilled. They have been pretty prolific, even with all the weirdness Mother Nature "gifted" us with this summer. We will be planting them again next year hoping for the same good luck as his year's crop. Hope yours do well also! (We'll have to compare notes next year!!)
Edie

Never tried the Golden Egg, have grown round yellow zucchini ( One Ball, Sun Day). Dinosaur eggs is a mix of round grey, green, yellow hybrids. Golden Egg appears physically identical to Grenade.

Thanks for the suggestion carolyn. I normally prefer it just slightly under being completely ripe, a full ripe squash seems to sweet.

I thought that if you cooked it when it wasn't ripe you wouldn't be able to stringy noodle like texture.

I think the texture is kind of like Asian yam noodle or bean thread when the squashes are immature. It may not be possible to get LONG "noodles", depending on the stage of maturity.

My suggestions would be to mix that compost with some good soil and sow into that. Most sowings fail for one reason only: the seed is covered too deeply. A general rule of thumb is to cover the seed approximately three times its diameter, no more. The link below will take you to a site with plenty of information on sowing seeds. Click on "Techniques" then on your subject.

Alan Chadwick

Here is a link that might be useful: Alan Chadwick

Thanks for the ideas. I'll go out in a while, cover the bed with some topsoil and resow. My collards are doing well, but have to have some turnip greens or my fall garden won't be complete.

Thanks for all your advice, We been dealing with them for over 20 yrs. But so far this years they really haven't done much damage to my yard. They would always come up on the same spot in my front yard but so far they haven't. they been busy out on the sideswalk area.
My side yard also they haven't bother too much so far, just getting that area back to normal meaning keeping it water so that the grass is finally coming back. Have tried the trap caught some, use the motion thing but didn't work. Planted solice garlic plants around borders of my front yard n so far no activity there. Last year I was growing a type of squash in a pot in my side yard they came up n bite thru the vine. That why I mostly plant in pots.
Thanks again for your advice.
Terry

Hey, Carlo, I couldn't find the gopher information in that Chadwick link. But if you make sure your bed has vertical sides at least two inches above grade, the gophers will not try to climb over it. Climbing is not their thing. They are blind or nearly so, and highly specialized for digging. In their tunnels they are very difficult to get, but crawling along on the surface, they are sitting ducks for any predator that comes along. So they try to minimize time above ground, and the last thing they want to do is climb over a piece of wood. I have never seen a gopher inside a gopher-proof bed build the way I describe, but there are some things that can go wrong. For example, sometimes there could be a tall gopher mound right up against the edge of the bed. That mound, if you don't kick it down or flatten it somehow, could become a ramp for a gopher to get over the edge of your bed and thus gain access inside. Also, if you use poultry netting instead of hardware cloth, the holes are too big and the gopher can dig right in.

I don't use poison, but Kevin is on the right track (based on my experience, anyway). Also, if you dig down around the wilted plant as soon as you discover it, you can find the tunnel the gopher used to get to the roots. In this tunnel, you can set a single trap (because you know which way it will be coming from), and often catch the gopher within 24 hours.

I don't think gophers are smart enough to deliberately spring the traps with dirt. I just think that when they are digging new tunnels, they push large columns of dirt in front of them, and so they sometimes spring the trap without getting caught.

I don't think nancy is nuts at all. But I do want to know the exact model of noisemaker she uses to deter the gophers, because I have seen several models that were not effective (either for me or for other people).

Garlic does not deter gophers. They like garlic.

I have had them bite through pumpkin vines. Very frustrating. They eat just a little, and kill the whole plant downstream from that point.

I think gardening would be a lot easier and more fun without gophers.

--McKenzie

I may have found the answer, it appears I have predominately female plants and that I should remove the male flowers. I sure hope that's the right answer.

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~bcohen/cucumbers/greenhouse.html

"There are three types of the European seedless cucumber. They are subdivided by the flowering habit: (1) the all female, which produces only female or pistillate flowers; (2) the gynoecious, which is predominantly female with some male or staminate flowers appearing; (3) the monecious, which has both male and female flowers. All of these three types produceee fruit parthenocarpically, but the monoecious and predominantly female can produce seeds and, therefore, bees must be kept out of the greenhouses or the male flowers should be removed as soon as they become visible and prior to opening. The monecious types, which continuously produce male or staminate flowers, are not recommended. Predominantly female types can be used with confidence. The few male flowers that develop, however, should be removed. The all female type is recommended, since they produce no male flowers. "

Here is a link that might be useful: B's Cucumber pages

Hi There....!
Can anybody please tell me the most outstanding gynoecious cucumbers varieties?
I do seed business and need to know the actual breeder of the variety to get in touch with them for my needs.
Awaiting anxiously.

Sometimes eggplants also shut down in hot weather. Also, if you fertilize them too much they will abort fruiting and instead grow foliage. I Only grow Japanese ICHIBAN. They like cooler weather better than hot.

Another thing, they like more water too.

My personal experience is different. For me, Ichibans are very heat tolerant. When the rest of my plants are shutting down in the 100F+ heat, those Ichibans are flowering, fruiting, and looking quite happy. By far, the most heat-tolerant of my crops.

OOOh Donna -- someone needs a little hug this morning! Yep, I planted it and neglected it after eating the lettuce until it bolted. The cabbage is indeed red cabbage - I don't need to eat a leaf. There are cabbages forming in all of them even though they have been neglected. It is truly amazing how hardy and determined the little guys are.

So, yes, I will now care for them.

I wasn't being snarky, just genuinely puzzled at why anyone would go through the trouble to plant anything and not care for it. I am more encouraged by the little successes I have in my garden compared to the failures (although those can be educational in their own right).

I know life can get in the way, but it just seems like such a waste. My sister has the world's blackest thumb and she planted some vegetables this year because her young son requested a garden. Well, she didn't water it once, and nothing really became of the garden.

Wow. Just like people that have a health problem and get a prescription. Then another prescription. Then another. Pretty soon the prescription meds are fighting each other and totally destroying the person's immune system that was made to take care of the body.

The garden will pretty much take care of itself if you just stand back and watch. Yes, you will lose some things but you will gain more in knowledge about the garden and about yourself.

It sounds like you declared war and the first thing you did was to kill off your own troops. Then you were left to go it alone.

Beneficial insects are your helpers in the gardens. How will your squash get pollinated (along with other things) when you killed off the pollinators? You started out right to try and build up your soil. Think of things as needing to stay in balance. This is a good forum for help, and pictures are useful.

Ahh, they look almost like deformed ears of corn don't they?

I'd lay it off on some sort of issue at pollination or some virus will have that effect. But so can some pests and I see the little look-like dark puncture mark in the center of each swelling. Otherwise no way to tell for sure.

Dave

Thanks Dave :) It's weird looking, isn't it? I guess we'll never know for sure...... :D