23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
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
Other than small vendor with a limited exotic offering, It will be rare to actually get a seed grown in your area. Most vendors will buy from wholesalers who may obtain seed from any part of the world. Some like Sandhill and to a lesser extent Baker Creek will obtain seed from small individual growers. There are folks here on GW that grow seeds for these outfits. The bulk of the OP seeds tho come from Seeds by Design.
Here is a link that might be useful: Seeds by Design
Well, the HK did make, and the voles ate 90% percent of it. Beans did well, I have enough for winter. The parasitic wasp seems to have done its job.
Severe drought from late august until about ten days ago was very harsh on the fall kale crop. I don't know if it will recover, going from that right into hard frost the last couple nights.
Now that 2013 growing season is almost gone, I must say that overall it has been a poor season. My main crop (tomatoes) were well below par. Then I got the late blight or grey mold(whatever) in September and wiped out every thing But I did fine with eggplants, cucumbers and beans.
I wish you all a good 2014.
We had a patch of "wild" asparagus that was decades old in front of our house. The county did some road expansion and dug it all up.
I noticed the asparagus crowns trying to grow there the dirt was all piles up during the road work, so I dug them out and replanted them somewhere else. I had fat marker size spears the next year! Good thing too, because they hauled all that dirt away.
I've dug up established asparagus during the late fall when it's dormant. All top growth was dead for the season. No root pruning or any special care except of course to make certain the new bed was deep in rich compost and a 6 inch layer of leaves was on the soil for the first winter to protect the roots. They grew perfectly fine without a hitch.
I did pick off all the caterpillars I could find, I just needed to know if they showed up again. Plus I don't have any Bt on hand at the moment. My broccoli and cauliflower are really small and I've heard that the loopers could eat the whole plant pretty quickly, so I wanted to know in case they got out of control. But they seem to be gone now, so I don't think I'll need to use anything on the plants.
Thanks!
I did pick off all the caterpillars I could find, I just needed to know if they showed up again. Plus I don't have any Bt on hand at the moment. My broccoli and cauliflower are really small and I've heard that the loopers could eat the whole plant pretty quickly, so I wanted to know in case they got out of control. But they seem to be gone now, so I don't think I'll need to use anything on the plants.
Thanks!
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.