23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Instead of using hose sprayer, I use the garden pump sprayer. Then can also add your favorite recipe for them aphids. This way I can do it surgically with less amount of water and more effectively. This past season I had major aphid problem on just my eggplants. I used Sevin dust. NO GOOD. Spray was better.

With only 4 plants you could easily take a bucket of soapy water to them and wash the leaves by slooshing them in the bucket and cleaning the leaves with your hands or a sponge. There's really no need for sprayers or chemicals on 4 plants.

I have found great differences in leaf shapes and in taste from different packets of seeds. If you find a variety you like, then stick with that seed. If you don't like it, yank it up and try different seed. What is in the photo doesn't look like sylvetta to me -- my sylvetta has always looked almost feathery with very small, deeply indented leaves.

Also, if you really like a variety you can let it go to flower (the flowers are also edible) and to seed, and just leave it alone and you'll probably end up with a self seeded patch of arugula you like. (works most of the time -- though sometimes it doesn't come true.)

If you're buying seedlings, just grab a leaf while no one is looking and taste it to see if you like it :)

Johnny's selected seeds has a number of different kinds of arugula, with descriptions of each, and their seed is true to form every time (I'm had some companies where one year it's great, the next year not.)

Yes, there are different breeds. Generally the more lobed the hotter. None is really "better": in a dish that requires spice, or for pesto, the lobed ones are best. Even for mixing with tomatoes lobed is best. For straight salads we mostly prefer the milder rocket. You can make it milder with more watering, partial shade, and growing season.

Lobed varieties are smaller than cultivated varieties, but culture matters just as much as variety when it comes to size. The very same bed and very same pack will give me different size of plants depending on season and watering.

I'm pretty sure it is slugs. I've been doing research on lettuce vs spinach preference for school as are my classmates and the slugs prefer lettuce, usually leaving the spinach untouched.

EARWIG is often overlooked. Because they are snicky. They come out at night like slugs and snails but the are smart and run away and hide. They hide in similar fashion to slugs in the cracks, under rocks/stones, ...during the day. They eat much bigger holes than flea beetle. Also they start with the parts of the plants close to the ground(like slog/snail) while flea beetles eat the top most leaves. Of all these insects, slugs damage is more severe. A big fat slug can eat a whole seeding in one sitting.
Another thing is that flee beetles love peppers and eggplant, tomatillo .... all in the nightshade family. FB damage is only critical when seedlings are very small and not when on the established plant.

One more thing: Slugs have chewing/eating pattern similar to caterpillars. The will not usually eat in hole or circular pattern.

This post was edited by seysonn on Wed, Nov 6, 13 at 5:53

and the other giant ag-gloms, Glib. Monsanto seems to provide a lot of PR-cover for Syngenta, et al. Accident?

That's interesting Seyson, though a little too involved for my style...

Glad I found this thread, hiding (ahem) in a post about rain.
I've just recently become enthralled with the idea of growing corn for grain. I"d want it for polenta mostly.

Is there a specific grain miller anyone can recommend? Researching them was overwhelming.

Thanks, all, for your help. I was really hoping I could pull the plants up.

-Anne

If you also have ripe squashes, you should use the unripe ones first. I think Seminole Pumpkin has an especially hard shell, and it will probably be quite firm even before the fruit is ripe.

If the skin is still tender, use like zucchini (maybe saute with garlic or onion rather than steaming). When a little older, try in soup (peeled or steamed, then scooped out of the shell). If almost ripe, you can probably bake it.

My chokes have never made it overwinter yet, but we've had some funny springs and I have never really mulched them. Voles really seem to enjoy their roots, which is a problem in my light soil here, and the ones that have survived winter predation usually snuff it in the freak late frosts we've had. Oddly, my cardoons always make it fine with absolutley no fussing from me. Have you tried contacting Monticello? The folks who run these historical places seem to enjoy talking to interested folks about how they replicate what was done all those many years ago. I haven't tried the folks at Monticello on artichokes but I did recently spend a day talking to curators at many historical parks about Dorking chickens.

I'm in zone 7, and people here don't cut them or cover them. I have seen them survive as low as 8 degrees F.

I'm not even close to being ready due to my tendency to procrastinate. I've got to dig my garden beds and add 400 gallons of grass clippings to them. I've got to add about the same amount of shredded leaves to them. I've got to mulch my beds. To get the leaves I need, I pick up the bags of leaves that people put out to the curb (I don't have any mature trees in my yard) and shred them. I'm still waiting on my sunchokes to die down so I can harvest them, add compost to the bed, and replant them. There's nearly finished compost I need to screen. I've got to build a new compost pile. I've got to start some new leaf mold piles (actually they aren't piles, I use garbage cans with the bottoms cut out to contain them). I have to build a shelter for the semi-stray cat that hangs out at my house (technically its owner is across the street but the cat stays at my house for the most part). There's sod that I have to lay down as I recently moved a portion of my garden due to invading maple roots. I have a bunch of tree seeds that I need to plant (about a dozen different species). And my garage needs cleaned up, it's a real mess in there.

Rodney

Our growing season started just a bit ago... although the temperatures are still in the low high 80s to low 90s and nights are mid to upper 70s.

I actually should have planted seeds 2-3 weeks ago.. but I wasn't planning on growing anything this year. Then I caught the gardening bug and decided to just try out a few things.

I finally successfully grew tomatoes last year so I will try some peppers and eggplants that I failed growing 2 seasons in a row. Will plant seeds tonight.

I think I will grow a few cucumber plants... hopefully to get at least a few cucumbers, but to use them as aphid bait in hopes they will leave the peppers and eggplants alone. I will practice washing away aphids and spraying them with a soap spray mix (last 2 seasons the soap spray mix turned the leaves yellow and brown... even though I followed instructions the first year, and 2nd year I even diluted it more)

I have these molds to grow cucumbers in that will shape them so when sliced they are heart and star shaped. The cucumber varieties I have are too big but at least if I learn to deal with aphid problems this season I might be successful growing the right cucumbers to use in the molds.

And since I failed at growing flowers last year I will try some flowers. I really can't believe I failed at growing flowers. Some varieties like zinnia were described as very easy to grow but it wasn't working for me!

Appproximately one inch apart in the row, rows 10 inches apart. No more than 4 rows at a time so there is a place to walk when harvesting. I use pea plates in a mechanical planter.

Jennie, I can't help with your climate questions, but snap peas are wonderful fresh. Since you've never grown them before, you could always start small and see what you think before committing a large space to them. But if you've got the space available, definitely go for it. (As for the weather, if you're only talking a couple dollars for a packet of seeds, try it and see what you get -- if they don't grow well, save the rest of the pack for late winter/early spring and see if that works better.)

As far as support, I've grown dwarf snap peas in containers with an inexpensive tomato cage (the flimsy WM kind) in the middle to help get them started. They do cling to each other, but they also cling to the wire cage and I think this helps them withstand wind a bit better.

For harvesting, snap peas are eaten whole -- you eat both the pod and the peas inside, all at once. The pods are nice and crunchy when raw. You can also add them to stir-frys or just steam them as a side dish. We tend to mostly eat them raw in our house. They are one of those "pick a handful while out in the garden and eat half of them before you get back to the kitchen" kind of veggies. :)

Good luck!

Kathy

If the maters have reached their mature size, and they are unblemished(on the vine or in handling) it is possible to ripen them. Newspaper, shredded paper , ...help prevent rotting.
But the best use that I have found for green tomatoes is pickling and making green salsa, in place of tomatilllo.

I always end up with tons of green cherry tomatoes. I tried pickling them but they weren't that good. This year, I found this green tomato sweet bread recipe online: http://www.food.com/recipe/green-tomato-bread-53325

I tried it last weekend and it was really good. I tweaked the recipe and used half whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour. I also used coconut oil rather than vegetable oil. Finally, I added a half teaspoon of ginger and another of mace to the cinnamon. I also used half brown sugar rather than all white.

The result was a moist and spicy bread, darker than the one in the photo, with a nice crust. I chopped the green cherry tomatoes in the Cuisinart and they were unnoticeable in the bread, although they smelled horribly bitter and nasty when I chopped them.

I'm not sure if the tomatoes actually help the texture/moistness of the bread but it was quite delicious; I'm going to make more this weekend with my remaining green cherry tomatoes.

PS. Black rot is a tropical disease. It originated in West Africa. It loses fights with the local temperate microfauna (hence the suggestion of more OM), but it can survive in bits of brassica (stems for example) that are in the garden and have not composted yet. Just eat all you can, then clean it well in February or whenever you are ready, then add something fast composting, like good grass clippings and shredded leaves well mixed together. I prefer shredded leaves and shredded kitchen scraps, or semi-fresh manure, but I see you are far neater than I am.

As I understand, the BR is just a plant disease. You can consume the vegetable. Don' throw them away. Just trim off the affected leaves.