23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Looks pumpkin-like to me!
I got a load of soil to fill a new bed one year, and we had boat loads of volunteer pumpkins! They got to be large for Jack-O-lanterns!
It worked out well, cause my DH is a professional pumpkin carver!
I would post pics if I knew how! Maybe sometime! Nancy

Thank you both! We couldn't think of anything but pumpkin for our new found friend. I'll be sure to post a follow up at harvest time. :)

Ground cherry are small fruited and have correspondingly small husks, around the size of a marble. Tomatillo can be more golf-ball sized. And chinese lanterns tend to turn orange on their husks, having a large husk and small fruit. And that about covers the ones I know. Apparently chinese lanterns are also edible, at least according to Trade Winds seeds and a brief mention in wikipedia.

I do not know about other related species, other than a book I have says that many related species are called the same common names (cape gooseberries, ground cherries are one group and tomatillo, mexican husk tomato, tomatito verde are another group). I get the impression you are only likely to run into these others if you are foraging (or market shopping) in Mexico and points south. I don't know if any non-edible physalis were ever introduced to north america or not. I actually don't know if you are likely to find any other physalis than the three mentioned in this country.

Thanks, folks - I am thinking it is tomatillo, as from your descriptions, it is too large for ground cherry. I will let them ripen and see what happens.

Keeping the surface of soil moist helps a lot with flea-beetles.

Flea-beetles like dry warm or hot conditions while slugs like cool damp conditions so I think it is unlikely to be experiencing significant damage from both at any given time.

Also give your region if you want more helpful advice. if you are in socal you won't get much useful advice from someone who has only gardened in ME, for example.

I don't think the beetle in your photo is a flea beetle. And I don't see flea beetle damage on your plants. Flea beetles are very, very small and more round and they leave uniformly round little holes in the leaves. At least that has been my experience in central North Carolina. It is more likely a caterpillar (like a cabbage worm) and/or slugs. Cabbage worms can be hard to detect because they are exactly the same color as the leaves, but you will see them eventually. I would use the techniques (such as row cover and Sluggo) described in earlier posts. You can also try beer traps for the slugs. I hear they like Budweiser and PBR. :-)

-Anne

Agree. A Honeydew can ripen maybe 3 fruit. If you let them have more, it will take much longer time for the early ones to ripen. And the small ones might not have a chance.

BTW, small honydews are edible like cucumber( when the seeds inside have not hardened). So if you end up having some at the end of season, you can, peel, slice and eat.

Sometimes, if the vines are still healthy, they'll start over again after the first fruit is picked. More usually, tho, it's a race to get fruit before the vines die, with all the diseases they're heir to.

Ragweed - the only way I've found to get rid of it is to cover with clear plastic to cook it, then pull it out roots and all. But you have to get all of it, b/c if you leave any roots it will grow back (as I found when I solarized what was inside/just outside the fence and pulled it back just past the fence but didn't get everything from 2ft+ outside, it's grown back under the fence again).

Pull it out, hopefully before it flowers. Don't let it go to seed. It is an annual and any plants that grow next year will begin as small seedlings. Learn what they look like and remove them early. If you have hay fever allergies, have someone else remove it for you if it has begun flowering or wear a breathing mask such as one you might use when spray painting.

Around our yard, I'm the one who gets to go after any we miss early in the season. It makes my DH very congested once it is in flower.

It has been hot and excessively humid here on Long Island and my zucchini and squash just came down with Powdery mildew also. I cut off some of those very worst leaves and sprayed with Neem. Always use Neem in the late evening. But if I was you I would deffinatley get a fungus veggie garden product and spray weekly from now on to control the mildew.

I tried a version of the Cornell formula on a few squash plants. In a quart of water I added 1 tsp baking soda, 1 1/2 tbs cotton seed oil, 1 drop dish washing soap. Before applying I removed the worst infected leaves. It seems to be working and as a bonus the plants that were previously damaged by SVB are no longer wilting. The oil on the leaves is conserving moisture.

This year I'm fighting squash bugs, squash beetles, squash vine bores and powder mildew on the same plants. Five of my six squash plants are still alive so I haven't lost the battle.

Nice!! How long did it take for it to get that size after being pollinated..?

Not very long Drew. Maybe 2 or 3 weeks tops. It's been growing so fast, that's why I thought it might be a watermelon. The butternuts on the vine next to it that started at the same time are still only like maybe 3-4 inches long.

I wonder if they're sent back to the seed companies so they can be stored under proper humidity and temperature controls for resale the next season. Most regular retail shops wouldn't have the facilities and the seed companies would likely want to protect their reputations, given it's their brand on the packets. Just musing. I have no problem buying older seed (for many things, not all) as long as the germination rate is still high.

They(nurseries) stop selling for economic reasons, not because of this law, that law, or seeds becoming old.
For them the floor space/shelves are valuable. So why bother to keep something on the shelf that practically nobody is interested in buying it. That is why some stores have a clearance sale( like 29 cents per packet). The seed company does not want some odd numbers of seeds to be returned to them. It will be more costly for them to do all the paper work and handling. So they authorize the resellers to do whatever they wish with the left over.

Unfortunately, this year I learned what a tomato fruitworm looks like.

I don't have good luck with Italian pole beans

I will only plant bush beans, not pole beans

I hate SVB

I hate rabbits

Too much rain is worse than not enough

Keep better eyes on my tomato plants for disease

Standing at the garden and staring will NOT make it grow faster.

Start certain peppers and tomato seeds earlier

I can buy carrots very cheap at the store

Understand the varieties that I plant

One summer squash plant is plenty for two people

I like the Florida weave for my tomatoes

Take care of weeds on a regular basis so its not so overwhelming

I like the Silver Queen Corn

ltilton has a point... I don't recall planting (or harvesting) Charentais, but I sometimes buy seed on a whim,when I find it cheap...... & I do recall a cantaloupe seed I started as a transplant that didn't do well in the garden & ended up in the compost .......... Though this melon has an oval shape, where Charentais appear round...

Not all. I have a Charentais called Escorial that has an oval shape, specially when young.

Westy - you need more space. LOTS more space.

I know we need more space - this is our daughter's condo in Rock Creek area - we're building in Erie but the lots still aren't big enough for me - 25 feet between houses - shallow front yards, back yard is like a large city lot. I wanted to go to the mountains - but it's WAY more expensive up there and Colorado ANYWHERE is more expensive than Illinois. I belong in the north woods of Minnesota where I was born! (except the season for growing veggies there is about 3 months.

Westy

In my cool climate, Annie Oakley has been by far the best-yielding. I suppose that may not be the case everywhere. Clemson Spineless is a dud here.

Grew CS when I lived in SoCal, and was pretty happy with it. Kept me in okra all Summer, but then, I had a lot of plants. It grew to over 6' tall there, with few branches..

As mentioned by Slimy_okra, the choice of okra may depend upon the location & climate. In my Northern location, summers are hot, but short... so I need a variety that bears quickly, and can tolerate a few cool nights. "Pentagreen" has proven to be reliable for me. It bears quickly, and will branch heavily if given space (I use 18-24" spacing between plants).

Tried to grow CS when I moved here, but it doesn't do well in this climate. That was the case for quite a few varieties that I tried, including some that were described as "good for the North". Most would start to get leaf browning just about when they started flowering, and only bear for a week or two before dying. "Pentagreen" has proven to be more robust... I recommend it for those of us who get snow & summer in equal measure.

"I knew a gardener was being born." Good on you, Susan! Not every child has contact with gardening at home.

Our daughter wanted to bring on of my big tomato starts to school for show-and-tell this spring (Grade 1). The Black Krim was ready to go out and had flowers already, so I just put transplanting off a couple of days so she could take it to school. I said they could open up one or two flowers to look at the structure and tip it out of the pot to see the roots. Apparently her classmates found the roots the most fascinating part. :)

Susanzone5, that is such a cool story! Thanks for sharing. That is why I started this thread. You just never know what cool plant might make it indoors. Glad you got to share some of your gardening with your students. I love the idea of bringing a plant for show-and-tell! I bet if more kids were exposed to plants, we'd have more kids interested in gardening and eating veggies.

What makes the wood spongeworthy (ha ha) is that there be fungi in it. No fungi, hugel does not work. And there is a difficulty in that most fungi eat either hardwood or conifer. They have very specialized enzymes. If you are in a place without conifers, and you bury dry pine, it might not work. Really, hugel was invented to get something out of large rotting logs or firewood which had taken too much rain. If the log is rotten, there are short term benefits as well as long. The benefits are essentially a strong micorrhyzal flora, lowering water and fertilizer needs. You also have a long term barrier (leaky of course) for all your percolating chemical fertilizers, and the wood is slightly more water retentive than clay, and significantly more than sand.

Based on what glib says, framing lumber won't workin a hugel or buried deep in a raised bed as that kind of wood isn't spongeworthy or doesn't have a lot of fungi breaking it down.

Maybe I'll just find another use for this junk wood.