23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
My guess would be that some of the plants you bought at the nursery were in good shape, while others were root bound or otherwise defective. Nurseries are motivated to sell what they have, even if it is of terrible quality. You have to remove some of the plants from their medium (pots, trays, etc.) to check their roots. If there is any sign or bolting or being root-bound, do not buy the plant. Once a plant starts bolting, there is no stopping it. Cutting it back will do no good. The best solution is to start your own seeds, if possible. A good introduction to seed propagation can be found at the website below.
Click on "Techniques" and then choose your subject. These methods are based on those of Alan Chadwick, who brought organic gardening to the USA in the 1960's and 1970's.
Here is a link that might be useful: Alan Chadwick
i am really into wild foraging. =)
just yesterday i found some matsutake mushrooms! woo hoo, gonna make a nice stir fry with them later. went to a spot with a lot of tan oak, seems they must like this kind of wood.
of course it helps that i live in some really awesome wild land, with thousands and thousands of acres in every direction being an abundant forest, lots of rivers, and hardly no humans!
unfortunately areas like this are too rare.
some of my favorite wild edibles are mallow, very mild taste to the leaves, i find it quite pleasant in salads and on soup. sheep sorrel, i love the zing of any sorrel but this one has the best flavor, chicory, wild grapes, elderberries, and mushrooms among others.
I have tremendous respect for people who grow food and who also look to the outdoors.
I'm a lifelong southern Californian suburbs type, and container gardening is all I can do, so when I read (drooling with envy) about your harvests, wild or not, I really am impressed.
SVB has a life cycle that is actually rather short so in warmer climates one can see 2 or even 3 life cycles in a season. In your zone you may only have one.
But even then the larvae/pupa are only in the soil for a brief period and they do no damage while there. They aren't the problem. The moths are. Even if you have never had SVB in your garden the moths that emerged elsewhere can fly into your garden and lay their eggs.
Preventing the moths from access to the plants to lay eggs is the goal.
Dave
Hi guys...new to the forum and had to look up info about SVB as well....I had a bad season with them killing all my differnet Zucchini plants fairly quickly. My one major mistake I think, was getting them in the ground too early in the season-May. I live in NJ Metro (MYC Area) Zone 7.
This was the first season I tried growing them and I sure learned alot! I tried looking for frass, holes from the borer almost daily yet I was unsuccessful apparently. I even tried slicing the vines once I noticed symptoms to catch the borer but I could never find him! After speaking with a Master Gardener from Rutgers and tons of reading up on it, I think Ill try succession planting with row covers for first half and only remove for pollinating and then do the second planting after July 1st as suggested by MG. I tried all kinds of insect. soaps, DE, and even lots of yellow sticky tapes but wasnt lucky in cathing moths...just a small challenge till next year! BTW, I also hear the larva eggs in soil overwinter. This was a new raised bed with new compost soil, amendments etc so I know that wasnt the case. I read spraying Nematodes now and then in early spring along with tilling or flipping soil at same time will help kill the suckers before they emerge and kill plants.
This post was edited by NJUrbanFarmer on Tue, Oct 1, 13 at 14:59
These were peppers which were brought into the office, and 2 or 3 were outdoors and had plenty of buggies crawling and multiplying out of the soil.
I consulted various online sources and found these 3 substances to be safe for organic use, I assumed they were also safe for the plant.
I followed the ratio for each on the bottle or from the online reference.
So does drying out make sense for a plant sprayed with each (or ANY) of these "safe" pest control agents?
Scott
They are all safe for plants, and humans, if used correctly. But, they are also contact killers, so usually one can rinse them off a few hours after spraying to prevent "possible" harm, like burning foliage et al. The possible exception would probably be the neem, for it also has anti-feeding properties, so NOT rinsing is a wise choice. Again, as long as the conditions are right. For instance, never spray a pesticide when the temps are above 80F or the sum of both the temp AND the relative humidity is greater than 140.
Let's get back to WHAT you were trying to control???
Sounds to me that you visually saw the insects. Next time, take a pic and post it here or in the Garden Clinic forum so it can be identified. After that, it's pretty easy--- You can then attack in the appropriate manner.
Drying out? Sure. Peppers like to dry out between waterings anyhow. But first rinse them off real well and if the bugs show back up, take a pic.
Good luck.
Kevin
"Variety's the very spice of life, that gives it all it's flavour." - William Cowper
I have to admit that I simply do not understand the logic that if a person, for whatever reason, cannot grow as much as is wanted of a certain vegetable variety for every desired purpose then it is not worth growing any of it. When did veggie gardening become an all-or-nothing proposition?
Just for the sake of discussion, asparagus may not be the most efficient use of space but melons, winter squash, and pumpkins are themselves horribly inefficient. Corns are even worse. Cucumbers are terrible unless trellised. The value of anything with a high water content should be suspect (water weight skews yield/sq. ft. totals). The value of anything with a high susceptibility to disease or other problems should also be questioned (a rather inefficient use of space if the plants get sick and die, so there go the tomatoes as they would no longer be worth the risk). What about breaking things down to efficiently and effectively producing the highest amount of human nutrition per square foot - is that not the ultimate goal? It is not just about weights or quantities, or total canning jars filled after all. We should learn the nutritional specs of every vegetable being planted so that information can be properly included into the equation.
If a person wanted to use space as efficiently and effectively as possible then the garden should be completely seeded with something like turnips. Turnips produce an incredible amount of nutritious food (roots and greens) by weight per square foot. They can be eaten fresh, they can be stored long term in the fridge or the root cellar, and they can be preserved using the methods of canning, freezing, or dehydrating. To increase the efficiency even further all the scraps could be fed to pigs to aid in home meat production. Of course I am taking things to an extreme. Obviously it would be a real drag only having turnips to eat, but it makes the point of my argument which is that gardening is about making decisions and decisions should be based on balance, not all or nothing.
If you like the stuff, why not plant one asparagus plant in the garden? It will be a wonderful spring treat and will taste better than any asparagus you buy at any grocery store or farmers market because the spears will be harvested from your plant that is growing in your garden and they will only be touched by your hands. It will also be an experiment that would allow you to observe how much yield you can get from one plant growing in your local conditions. Who knows, you might find the yield to be acceptable enough to allot more garden space for planting more.
Congratulations on your gardening success this year! Nice to hear good things, so many gardening woes posted in this forum during the growing season that it gets rather dreary here at times.
-Tom
Tom, you raise a valid point. In fact turnips and beets are in my plan for next year for the exact reasons you stated.
In my experience the actual bed space required for vining squashes and melons is very small, provided you have an area of non bed space for the vines to go. These can be tied to sturdy trellises as well.
I didnt say that my method is the only way to operate a veg garden, only that its my way. I do not disdain others for planting, harvesting and consuming in a way that pleases them. Filling my pantry with a year's supply of homegrown diet staples is what pleases me.
We have clay and we get all sorts of split and stunted carrots - we are managing to improve them over the years - but my aunt has a garden that has been producing lovely veges for years - look at the carrot she got this year! Not sure how to explain that!
Stake or cage the plants vertically for easier harvest. Left uncaged & unpruned, the plants will become monsters spreading 5-6 feet in all directions - and nearly impossible to get into without injury. If they have already begun to spread, drive poles in on either side, run strong twine under the vines, pull the vines up gently & tie to the poles.
There should be no need to hull them. When the berries are fully ripe, the thorny calyx surrounding the fruit will peel back, and the berries should separate with a gentle pull. Some of mine are a little harder to pull off (usually the largest ones), and they will tear a little. Some of the smaller ones will drop off on their own, and can be picked off the ground.
The berries spoil quickly unless refrigerated (especially if torn) and should be used within a day or two. Toward the end of the season, when cooler temps arrive, most of the near-mature berries will ripen. At this time, you can cut off complete trusses & allow them to finish ripening indoors. Lay them in a single layer on trays, to avoid puncturing the berries on the thorny stems of others.
You should be aware that some ripe berries may crack on the plant. Wasps will feed on these, especially as Fall approaches & food is scarce... so thorns are not the only reason to be careful.
I had the same problem with a Black Beauty zucchini planted in a raised bed. The plant was prolific in growing and putting out male flowers. It only produced one 8" squash. The few females that did appear after that did not pollinate because the flowers never bloomed and the tiny squashes succumbed to an early death. The entire plant finally fell victim to stink bugs and a SVB in mid-August. I had much better luck with a straight neck yellow squash plant before it too, got discovered by those darn bugs.
This summer had female flowers on my yellow squash but less than 1 a week. SVB became a problem and I had to cut open about 1 foot each vine. One of the vines survived the surgery. Now at the end of September temperatures have dropped to 50 degrees at night and 70 during the day. The plant is only getting about 2 hrs of sun a day, the leaves have powdery mildew and the vine has been cut up dealing with the SVB. Not good conditions for a squash plant. Almost all the flowers are now female and it is flowering heavily. I counted 12 yellow squash although they are growing slowing due to the lack of sun.Perhaps the stressful condition has encouraged female flowers.
Qbush, the peas I put in were "Sugar Lace" (snap) and "Green Arrow" (shelling).
"Sugar Lace" was old seed, so I over-sowed; but the germination was still poor. In the past, I actually had better germination if planted in warm soil, so I suspect it was the age of the seed. To make a bad situation worse, one whole row died off in the summer heat. Only a partial row remains, but it was a long row, so there will still be plenty to snack on.
"Green Arrow" was also old seed, but had pretty good germination, and much less summer die-off. The longest row was planted adjacent to a long row of bush beans, and the two seem very happy together... a little too happy, with the peas clinging to the beans. I've had to separate them (carefully) while picking the beans. The peas seem to have benefited from the moisture & cooler soil under the bean canopy, that part of the row is lush & full of pods.
All the beans ("Tenderette") and peas were planted the same day. The bush beans matured first, before the end of August. To my surprise, both peas are maturing at about the same time; I expected "Green Arrow" to be a week or two later. I'll be snacking on snap peas while picking shelling peas, which should be pleasant.
Still no frost in the long-term forecast; looks like I'll be picking bush beans & zucchini for awhile yet, and getting more cukes than I expected. 10+ more days of moderate temperatures should give at least some of the "Bush Table King" acorn squash time to mature, there are about 70-80 that have reached full size. Never tried planting acorn squash so late, it will be impressive if they make it.
This wasn't the garden that I planned; none of the seed crops planned for the rural plot were planted, and will need to be put off until next year. Still, it looks like it will be a good harvest & a full freezer.
"Those same cranes come to my place in central florida in the winter. I'll ask them if they felt ok about eating Zeedman's crops...."
Well maybe if you had fed them better, they wouldn't be so hungry! ;-)
Mainly into apples now, freezing cored, peeled and sliced ones for apple bread and pies and sweet/potato casseroles; pot of apple sauce going now, probably more sauce and apple butter tomorrow. Summer crops gone. Fall crops just starting, mainly lettuces for eating now, but collards and broccoli are looking good.
No need for a Canadian SASE, I can't imagine how difficult that would be to accomplish... just send me your address via my member page.
Pnbrown, a SASE would be fine... email sent.
As Alan Chadwick taught, washing the frost off with the hose before the sun hits the plants in the morning will usually save them. Check the following website for more on this.
Alan Chadwick
Click on techniques, then on your subject.
Here is a link that might be useful: Alan Chadwick