23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Seysonn, your tomatillos look much happier than ours!! Of course it's been raining for days so I haven't had a chance to repot mine... Are yours in the ground? Anyone having luck in containers?

MidnightG .... yes mine is in the ground . It is huge. Too bad, it started too late. . BUT i will let'm live till frost.

As always I agree with farmerdill anything he says.
It looks like a zucchini cross, to me.

Shape and ribbing look like a Delicata, but no striping. What does the flesh look / taste like?

Steve

My seedlings are inside right now therefore they don't face the hot sun except for the early morning sun. They are cucumber, pepper and tomato.

My real problem is to determine when the soil has dried out. The surface does get very dry (because of the fan that is constantly running near them), - so dry that it becomes very hard over the top. But down under I am guessing it is not dry. Now because there are quite a few seedling in each pot, it is difficult for me to determine the moisture level down under (not enough space to put my finger in to determine the condition under the surface).

Therefore I usually just mist the top with a sprinke of water to ease the hardness off the surface. That is a little bit. Is that ok?

For the overall bottom watering I use the weight as an indicator that it is dry after which I bottom water. Inside that happens around every 4-5 days.

I donâÂÂt generally have a fan on my seedlings. I do water from the bottom. When I notice the top is getting dry, itâÂÂs a good indicator that the water in the bottom of the tray has been all soaked up. I will typically add an 8th to a 4th of an inch to the bottom. The idea is to keep the soil moist but not soggy.

You could try to stick a bamboo skewer or something thin like that in the side of one of your pots then see if the skewer is picking up any moisture. If so you could probably put some grit on-top of the soil to stop it from drying out so much.

Good Luck!!

pnbrown .....Interesting takes.
I also think of "DIGGING" like you described : digging a hole and taking the soil out, or digging and looking for something like potatoes, carrots. And digging a trench. Again removing soil/dirt out of it. None of these is aimed to condition a bed for planting. BUT then we have the term DOUBLE DIGGING (vs single digging) which aims to prepare a bed for planting. I personally call that kind of digging (like you said) "turning over". And that is how I do it to loosen the soil, to mix a layer of amendments(compost, manure) into the soil and LET it air and bake under sun, (if possible). This kind of TURNING OVER has another advantage(IMO) and it bring some of the soil at the depth to surface, which possibly has more nutrients due to leaching effect. THAT IS REALLY WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT: == TO TILL OR NOT TO TILL == I DO THIS MANUALLY or by a power tiller,like DAN does.
So the burning question(!?) here is : IS IT WORTH IT ? Why bother? just dig a hole big enough for your mater and plant it and STOP breaking your back. LOL

I do use a potato fork sometimes to more deeply mix things. I am rather moderate with this. I don't usually just rock it back and forth, but part way tip up some deeper soil. I like a 10 inch depth in what was originally clay loam or silty clay loam. Just southwest and west of me it is more silt loam...all the way to the Rockies I suppose.

I have very nice loose soil in most of the gardens, but that is partly because of heavy amending. Still, I like a loose and deep bed. I think it is partly because of the years disking soil in the fields to get a decent seed bed. Right across the fence it is no-till which is ok for farm crops with their big machinery to plant the seed.

if you think the surface is too hard then maybe the potting material that you're using is not very suitable for seed germinating. You could add more sand or other coarser material on top, and germinate you seeds in that.

If you are bottom-watering, then i wouldn't worry about the surface dryness.
Actually surface dryness is a plus, that there will be less bacterial and insect infestation. Depending on the size of your seedlings, most probably the roots are already way down, near the bottom of 4" pot.

It might make something usable. Let it grow as long as possible before harvesting them.

Leave them on the vine, if the vine is live and going. Chances are they might change color. But after the vine dies pick them and keep the in a place like a garage and see what happens.

Nothing else, you can cook them and see how they taste. Butternut squash is the sweetest squash/pumpkin that I know.

stuffradio .... I don,t think the spay garlics with anything. Maybe they do it with some potatoes. Garlics have many wraps. I also I know that the garlics imported from China have shaved old roots. But that is no problem. And I have heard that it is better to keep garlic at around 55-65F. Or just at room temperature. Keeping them in refrigerator can encourage sprouting.

I grew Chesnok Red last year. It was good. I haven't tried growing any other varieties yet, but I am going to plant a bunch of Chesnok red some time before the end of the week.

Those purple majesty potatoes look amazing! Like something from another world!

We grew a new-to-us variety of squash this year called "Dinosaur Eggs". They don't get very big but boy, are they prolific, even in the awful weather we had this year. Most everything else went belly-up but these guys are STILL producing! So they are on the must-grow list for next year.
The rest of my grow-again list is:
Magda squash - not quite as prolific as DE but still outperformed zucchini and straightneck yellow (those 2 are out)
Peas - Now or Later. We were super impressed with both production and taste
Swiss Chard - Bright Lights. Love the flavor and the colors.
Basil - Nufar and Lettuce Leaf. One for cooking and the other for just what it sounds like. It is SUPER on sandwiches.
Parsley, both curly and Italian
Lettuce - any of the mixed packages. I love the different colors and textures.
Tomatoes - Estler's Mortgage Lifter, SunSugar and Black Cherry, not sure about what other varieties. Had a horrible tomato year this year so I didn't get to save any seeds for anything except the SS. All the ones in the garden died, but this volunteer came up IN THE DRIVEWAY (which is mixed gravel and sand, not concrete). It was very small but very healthy and determined to produce so I figure if it was strong enough to survive where it did, hopefully it will do well next year in a better location. I have about 2 dozen seeds I saved from it.
Beans - bush - either Top Crop or Contender; runner - Scarlet. We grew the Scarlet Runners more or less just for fun because we'd never grown pole beans before. I only planted 12 seeds along the fence but we got beans for several meals just from those 12 plants. In fact, it is still blooming! I think I will also try some Kentucky Wonders for taste comparison.
Corn - but probably a different variety than what we tried this year. Probably Peaches & Cream.
Peppers - Banana, and bell, just not sure what varieties yet.

On my no-more list are cabbage, broccoli, melons, beets and carrots. None of those have done well in the last few years and I am not going to waste real estate on them any more.

As far as new things, I'm not sure yet. I am sure, however, that when the catalogs start rolling in in the next few weeks I will find more things than I have room for that I'd like to try!

Edie

Thanks all! I just bought a 6 pack, so I won't be inundated with them all at once.
Farmerdill beautiful CF! Nancy

Tying up the leaves around the head is more for blanching them.

I'm not in Virginia, but I am in Utah zone 6a and planted and grew Imperial Star Artichokes for the first time this year and am attempting to overwinter them. We already had our first light frost about a week ago and this did not phase my chokes, but in anticipation of a hard frost sure to come soon I prepared my chokes today for overwintering.
This is what I did:
Cut the foliage down to about 6 inches. Covered them with about six inches of compost, then put about one foot of straw over each plant.
I have four. Fingers crossed that at least a few survive!
Good Luck!!!

AlliDeSpain I you didn't put the mulch or straw right up to the base of the vegetables, right? I think it would choke the art out of them if you did! :)

Shukran Jazeelan (Thank you very much) for your responses.

This is why the majority of tomato cultivars will not make fruit in florida during summer, where the average daily high is a little above 90.

My research on wireworms (in my potatoes) led me to hope that they would decline on their own, as I found several mentions that they were most prevalent in areas that had recently been sod.

So I made sure to plant my potatoes in the older parts of my garden that hadn't been sod for at least 3 years, and I did experience much less wireworm damage. Just a correlation.

How long has your carrot planting area been garden?

~emmers

"Beneficial nematodes" are the answer. I tried then a couple of years ago for lawn bugs, but also watered them into the vegetables, just to be safe.
Since then I've had no problems but notice some signs in my carrots again. So I'll use them again in the spring.
They come loaded on a sponge which is transferred into a watering can and sprayed onto the wet ground. The todes seek out the insect larvae, enter and lay eggs, killing the larvae off.
They seem to kill all sorts of problems, in fact any insect which spends part of it's time in the soil is killed off.

The color, shape do match those of butternut., to me.
Butternut could be bigger than 3 lbs. Actually, I bought some, not too long ago, that were over 5 lbs.

The seed came from what was meant to be waltham butternut, but i guess it could well have been an F1 or have been cross pollinated itself. In this case i did not grow the originating squash myself and maybe this is a good lesson for me. Previously i always kept my own seed, but last year i didn't get any as my squash didn't grow to maturity as we had a miserable summer.