23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
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Here is a link that might be useful: Greenhouse heating from boiler flue
Just a note on hugel. Today I dug nine holes for new trees which I will plant this week. The previous trees were killed by deer (I fenced the spots individually now), but I had planted them with some care, with each hole lined by four 20-40 lbs logs. The first surprise was how much crumblier the soil was, as the original site has hard, very poor clay. Second, there were earthworms were none existed, and the logs (I had to take them all out) were quite covered in fungus with fungus visible in the surrounding soil too. But I also saw that the logs attract rodents, they just love to set up residence under a log. Nevertheless, surprised at how much improvement hugel can induce in poor soil in only six months.
Thank you very much to all who have contributed their experiences and advice. I apologize, but I do not get on here that often.
I've decided to do a combination of raised and in-ground to see what works best. I think I need to experience it myself, as everyone's input varied so much. :) But all of the advice will give me a great starting point and things to consider for both types of beds.
I'm experimenting with the lasagna method right now on the existing rose bed. The previous owner had rose bushes and many were dead, and the bed was overgrown with weeds.
So we will see how things go! :)
Madroneb, Thank you for the article. I may have to look into it further in the future. The last I had seen was the 2010 closing of the farm but did not keep up on if it had been re-opened or not (trying to keep abreast of all of that is tiring).
Vieja, I will look into Roswell Seed too. I am actually in Santa Fe county, DH even works in Santa Fe (although we are about an hour out) and that is why I was really interested in their seeds because the climates are rather similar (SF is just a teensy bit cooler and a little bit wetter, depending on what directions the storms are coming in from that year).
tishtossnm: I had read/heard of 'Seeds of Change' in an issue of 'Mother Earth News' I think. There is also an underground place in Iowa (where I am from before becoming a New Mexican!) & maybe in Colorado where I think they are saving seeds to retreive & grow if there is a disaster of some kind that wipes out all above ground?
Roswell Seed as well as not having an expiration date on their seed that they weigh & package there for you,has no source of the seed on the packages either. That store goes WAY back in the family & Roswell history & a neat old store to visit!
Mark,
Do you or would you still see carrot rust fly damage if you planted super early (January) and have carrots at the first markets of the year?
I do get some root damage from time to time, but it seems as if the super early and winter carrots have very little to no damage. I am going to plant carrots for next year at Christmas time this year in half of one of my high tunnels. I tried early January, but they weren't ready soon enough. I am going to try to succession plant more carrots this year. They are such a good seller and with my carrot washer and 4 carrot baggers (kids), we can harvest, wash and bag fairly fast! They sell much faster than potatoes, I may plant more carrots than potatoes this spring.
Jay
Yes, same problem. I have been told that the problem is caused by excess water that is trapped inside the onion-possibly entering through damaged leaves or getting wet while curing.
That being said, this is not a new problem for us. We try to be careful not to damage leaves, but it does happen. However, the number of onions that develop this problem are far greater than the number with possibly damaged leaves.
Also, we take great care to keep them dry after they are pulled.
Hopefully someone has a solution.
Happens to me every year, I also posted a question about it last year. Darned if I can find the thread even with an external search. I believe the answer was the same as for wolverine above, problems entering through damaged leaves. I remember not feeling very satisfied because it sounded as though there was nothing to do but plant more and cull more by checking periodically during storage.
Funny thing, I have a bit of a problem with onion maggots here but I rarely find them in actual onions. They are always in my leeks and garlics. Anyway, perhaps someone else will have more information.
It looks like Romanesco except that's usually more lime green. I think the distorted area is just a bit of fasciation - pretty common in brassicas. We eat quite a bit of it but not raw in particular. I just use it any way I'd use cauliflower or broccoli . I prefer the flavour to either white cauliflower or green broccoli. If you're really keen on it you can get the matching lampshade!
Here is a link that might be useful: Romanesco light
I've had good results by taking the strings off the straw bales and running over the straw with the lawn mower to shred it a bit and then dump the bagloads over the garden and spread it around fairly evenly. The shreaded straw is easier to deal with than the long stems and tills in the soil better in the spring.
Anything will help. Just don't leave it bare. You can spread out the chopped up leaves - or at least some of them - for a mulch and let them compost in place. You can use the buckwheat and alfalfa seeds too. It's late but they might still come up and even if they don't they sure won't hurt anything. Cover it with straw or hay or whatever you can get.
Dave
I'm a zone warmer than you and the past two years I have had brussels sprouts overwinter and produce in the spring with no protection, so your idea might be feasible. But I would suspect it is a gamble too, because who knows if this winter will be like the last two, which were both on the warm side. But if they don't really have any sprouts on them now, I don't see what you gain by pulling them now. So I would probably make that gamble. :)
How can you move melon plants to another place ?
You could do that if they were just a few inches in size. Even then they wouldn't like moving.
You are better off plant the from seed in other locations.
BTW: Where are you gardening ? Not in US, are you?
I hate those little critters.
Unfortunately there is no good way to get rid of root maggots once they're there. You have to keep the fly from laying in the first place and this can be easily done by covering the growing radish with light-weight row cover.
But fear not, most of the radish will still be fine if you cut away the bad parts.
-Mark
Wait until they are mostly brown and dead then trim off the stalks and carefully dig up the crowns with as much damp soil as you can with each one. They should be transplanted to the new location now. That means the new bed has to be ready for them before you dig them up.
Then mulch them well in the new bed, feed them well in the spring, and give them a no-harvest year next spring to recover.
Dave
At the very least I would recommend that you rotate the crops in your containers each year. In other words, don't plant cucurbits in the same pots next year. Grow tomatoes or beans in those.
That being said, I have made the decision that I am not going to grow any cucurbits except cucumbers next summer. I am just fed up with SVBs and pickleworms. I am going to try a parthenogenic cucumber under row cover, and then plant more eggplants. We like them just as well as squash, and other than flea beetles, they are far easier to grow here. It makes me sad, but I cannot afford to waste valuable growing space.
I have had issues with squash bugs and cucumber beetles, I read that planting radishes as a companion plant to cucumbers -and letting them go to seed will drive them away. It worked very well.
As for the squash bugs Neem Oil seems to work the best, however like most organic fixes it must be reapplied on a regular basis. I've noticed the squash bugs seem to have 2-3 generations each summer around hear, spray them when their young, when they look like weird spiders.
As far as I understand it you only cut the terminal bud to promote even maturity of all the sprouts on the stalk. This is usually done for full stalk harvesting. For a longer harvest period like most gardeners want, you can just harvest the sprouts gradually from the bottom up and you'll get more producing all winter from the top bud.
I sell quite a lot of loose sprouts at thanksgiving time so I cut the tops of 3/4 of the plants to get lots of them sized up right around the holidays. The plants left with tops keep producing salable sprouts the rest of the winter.
As far as the issue of the sprouts without leaves not getting as large as the others, thats easy. The leaf feeds the sprout and if you remove the leaf the sprout suffers. I only remove leaves at harvest time when they start to yellow from the bottom up as the sprouts mature.
Hope this helps,
Mark
It looks like you have a perfect Brussels Sprouts climate, they're perfect!! Those are the $5.99/pound ones in the market!! In my z5 garden, by now the growing season is done, even for Sprouts, so there is no harvesting all winter, looks like they really need a long growing period. Next year, I'll remove the main bud, but leave the leaves, see how that works. Thanks for the input and pictures Mark.
Steve
The Greenhouses and Garden Structures forum.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Greenhouses and Garden Structures