23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
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.
There are many online sources. I've bought fingerling potatoes from Potato Garden and Jung Seeds. They are fairly expensive because of the shipping, but you can be confident they are disease free. I've also planted organic fingerlings I got from the grocery store. In spite of the advice not to do that, I had my best harvest with the grocery store potatoes. I got close to 20 pounds of potatoes for each pound of Russian banana potatoes I planted.
There's a farmers market out by I-95 on the north side of Melborne I believe. I got my French fingerlings from Fresh Market...did great. If your hands are full of arthritis, fingerlings are difficult to hold on to while scrubbing and preparing to cook. French fingerlings are a little bit thicker around and easier to grasp. Check with your extentsion agent for best time to plant. In the meantime you can start working the plot where you're going to put them. Potatoes like an acid soil so you need to consider that.
Historically, strains of P. coccineus with white seeds were selected by the Dutch. While the species can outcross with some pole beans, it is also possible that some level of genetic diversity remains in your strain. White seeds are associated with white flower color, too.
Thanks everyone for your comments, I have just been out in the garden to take down the bean row and collect the dried beans that are left on , The bean pods are all about 1 foot long and i have started to remove the beans from the pods, and to my amazement i now find i have pure black seeds in some pods as well as the white ones in other pods.
Maybe you should do a little research into soil before you start planting vegetables in containers. The potting mix is the most important ingredient in getting healthy vegetables. Whether you're talking about soil or compost, spent means most of the nutrients are used up and the structure has broken down.
From the Urban Dictionary:
Spent as an adjective:
1. Used up; consumed
2. Having come to an end; passed
3. Depleted of energy, force, or strength; exhausted
And no, compost that is not finished composting is not a good media to use in a pot. You might get away with it mixed into garden soil, but you also might end up burning roots (especially if it includes manure) and attracting vermin.
Hmmmmm! The friend I made reference to got his plants from an entomoligst friend that has greenhouse grown these plants for the past three years. That said, Rodney may be on to something! I'm clueless about the science of plant reproduction, so I didn't want to attempt to propagate these seeds if they weren't likely to grow true.....
As farmerdill mentioned, there are a great number of facsimiles out there, but my friend has his heart set on growing this one, so I'll start some for him in the spring....
"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.