23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Unfortunately, old corn stalks have very few nutrients to add to garden soil. Even in compost, they will need some nitrogen-rich materials to help them break down. When you put corn stalks or fresh leaves or sawdust into the soil, they suck much of the nitrogen out of the soil to use in their own decomposition process. This is counterproductive to building soil fertility.

I would collect all the corn stalks, make a flat layer of them over some good soil outside your garden beds, and then start a compost pile over them. They will assist in air entering the pile from below, which will speed up composting. After six or eight months, aided by the nutrients above them in the pile, they can be added to soil if they look like they have rotted adequately. The website below has a lot of information on composting. Click on "Techniques" then on "compost."

Here is a link that might be useful: Alan Chadwick

Nutrients aren't everything. The stalks will produce humid acids and feed the earthworms, who will turn the soil over the years. I think grinding vegetable residual in place is the way to go, and I do it all the time. There is no possibility of increasing the nutrients in the soil by taking it away and composting it elsewhere. Caveat: if the vegetable is diseased, I prefer to bury it.

Preserving summer squash methods are limited. As often discussed on the Harvest forum there - the food preservation forum - sliced they dehydrate well into zucchini chips and will store for months that way. I doubt the chickens would care if they get them as dried chips.

Otherwise, they can't be canned but you can freeze them shredded in ziplock bags.

Dave

I've kept large zucchini inside on the counter for 2 months or more in the fall. They were okay to dice and add to soups or shred and add to baked goods: not so good for stir fry, etc. I've used overgrown zucchini along with pumpkins, winter squash, etc. for fall decorations on the porch. The zukes were fine out there for several weeks of mild weather. Freezing wrecks them, of course.

You should be able to easily store an older zucchini with a tough skin for a few months if you aren't concerned with how it tastes to you. I'd try a dry place such as a garage or shed and avoid the moist, humid cellar. I'm not sure if storage all through the winter would work, though. Check them weekly and let the chickens feast more often if the zukes aren't doing so well.

Well, OK. Jokes on us. It turns out this was a cantaloupe. It became obvious as it matured, with the net-like skin, and once harvested, was solidly orange and entirely cantaloupy inside.

The lesson here is that, when immature, cantaloupe and honeydews look almost identical.

Ah, the pleasures of volunteers.

Of course I'd never say that it was actually a muskmelon and not a cantaloupe, and that anything with a net-like covering is a muskmelon :-)

NO melon/cantaloupe there.
On the top right hand I see squash. Lobed leaves)
The rest are most likely cucumbers.
With cucumbers, once they start flowering, you should harvest fruits within 2 to 3 weeks. That is what I like about cukes: You don't have to wait for months. Summer squash is also like cucumber.

FWIW, I have both butternut squash and canteloupes, and the leaves and look a lot like those in the picture, though of course the leaf size in the picture isn't very obvious. The lobes in the picture are sort of pointy, though, and mine are sort of rounded. That may well point to cukes. All the cukes I've ever grown have lobed leaves.

ltilton, maybe you can setup some shade for some of your plants.

WEll, weather is crazy. Here at PNW, almost zone 8, our highs are in low 70s and going down to 60s soon. A LOOOONG fall is ahead of us.

Of the fall crops, all I have is fall radish(oriental variety) and onions that I intend to use as green onions. Also experiment overwintering. I might try some garlic and shallots after the tomatoes are done.

But about your case, I don't think your fall crops will be harmed in one week. Just keep" their feet wet"'. I would cover the emerging seedlings by straw/hay ? I have seen, that is how they grow grass in the heat of summer. And keep sprinkling few times in a day.
They might grow a bit faster.

Sorry, blanching will help with flavor by limiting chlorophyll production, but it won't do a thing for texture. The stringy stalks are from not enough water while growing, as someone else said. Celery feeder roots are very shallow and need lots of surface moisture.

Don't give up hope though, It still might get better over the fall with the cooler weather.

I've been growing it for market for a dozen years now and still think celery is one of the more difficult plants to grow unless you have the right soil and the right climate, which I don't. :(

-Mark

Lolear, how big are your stalks now?

I accidentally bought a flat of celery seedlings this Spring, because I thought they were flat leaf parsley. Decided to just plant them, and bought some more parsley seedlings. (Usually I start parsley from seed, but accidentally fried the seedlings.)

Have never grown celery before, and am wondering how big they should be by now. Mine are only about 1/4 inch thickness.

I have given my container grown peppers osmocote once monthly this summer. I just use the recommended amount for the size pot the plants are in. I have probably chopped and frozen a three years supply of peppers from five plants and I still have a good 8 to 10 weeks more of growing season left. With good care, your peppers will continue to bear until the weather gets too cold for their liking. (And it's possible to take them inside to finish, if you have adequate light for them.)

I'd do what nc said. Half strength of MG All -purpose once a week or 2 until frost hits.

Kevin

Homemade compost as long as it lasts.

Cover crop. I couldn't possibly say enough good about its ease, price, and effectiveness.

composted horse or chicken manure. They are what I can get and they are both excellent. My soil is very nitrogen poor.

In a pinch, in the heat of summer, or when I just need a little filler for a raised bed that has diminished in mid summer, bagged Cow Manure.

ialbtc "It All Leads Back to Compost"

You Know You are a Compost Whacko When.......

Carrots are biennials and so should not flower until the second year. If they are flowering now, in the first year, that means that they have been severely stressed, probably from lack of water, and that they are desperate. This causes fear of death, as Alan Chadwick used to explain, which leads to the instinct to procreate for the future. Hence the seed stalks and flowers. A good description of carrot culture can be found at the following website. Click on "Techniques" and then on "carrot culture".

Here is a link that might be useful: Alan Chadwick

Thanks for the replies. I don't t think its a water issue. We are in the garden 2 or 3 times a day, and all I have to do the mulched carrot bed is turn on the soaker hoses I put in place before I planted them. Guess I'll pull them and freeze them. Definitely not a total loss, just trying to free up some space in the freezer!

Whoever said that you need to wait two years to use compost isn't making it properly. Four or five months is more like it if you follow the proceedure taught by Alan Chadwick, the famous organic horticulturist who build a demonstration garden at the Univerisity of California in 1967. You can read all about his method for making compost at the following link. Click on "Techniques" and then on "Compost". No need to store in freezer or blend up. It's a much more natural process than that.

Here is a link that might be useful: Alan Chadwick

In a warm climate, yes, just a few months is all you need. My compostables go into a small bucket I keep in the kitchen. I empty about half a pound every day from that bucket into the pile outside. That includes coffee grounds and filter, which add plenty of moisture. I hardly ever put water on my compost. There is certainly no need to store the stuff over winter, unless, I guess, the snow is deep enough that you can't get to your compost patch.

Actually, I have more of a "pit" than a "pile". A pit gives better temperature control than a pile. I don't "turn" the contents (the lifting of which is pretty effort-intensive), but rather push a spade into the periphery of the pit every day, and dump the daily leavings into the wedge it makes. That pushes up the center, and aerates it. Aeration is what "turning" is for. I do it clockwise, so one day I push the spade in at 12 o'clock, next day at 2 o'clock, etc. etc. So in a week or so, I've gone all the way around. The material is slowly pushed toward the center as it composts, and I take my finished compost out of the center.

I wouldn't bother with a blender, but it is best to chop big chunks (like the remains of a celery stem or a rogue potato) into smaller pieces. I sometimes put in citrus peel, but not usually. Rarely banana peel. That's all pretty leathery stuff.

Available as "book" or online is Johnny's Selected Seeds general catalog. At the beginning of each crop section is a growing guide with great info. Helpful charts are also included summarizing a variety of information. Online resources help with planting dates, succession planting, etc. It's great, perhaps no better than others listed, but a free catalog is easy to keep in the garden area and can be replaced each year if necessary.Call or email to request a catalog.

Alan Chadwick was the famous English horticulturist that was instrumental in bring organic gardening to the USA in the late sixties. He build a demonstration garden at the Univeristy of California in Santa Cruz, which has probably never been surpassed. A website all about his methods and philosophy can be found at the link below. For basic information about gardenings, click on "Techniques" and start reading from the top. Also provides great photos.

Here is a link that might be useful: Alan Chadwick

Been there, done that - the leveling part. You can either dig down on the high end until it is level with the low end and build a small retaining wall at the head of the bed. Then construct the bed in any fashion of the level portion. Use string for leveling as eyeball won't cut it.

Or you can build up the low end of the bed. The problem with that approach is most cost - more wood or whatever materials you use to frame it in and MUCH more fill dirt.

If the incline is not too severe you can run the bed parallel to the incline rather than perpendicular to it. Still has greater cost associated with it for material and soil to level it but it will give you better consistency for watering - less pooling and run off.

A third alternative is to build terraced beds - stepped beds down the incline. At the top maybe only 12" wide, the next down 2' wide, 3' for the next etc. Makes access to them a bit more difficult but is attractive and needs less digging.

Pics linked below.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Terraced garden bed

I find six hours of sun per day can be adequate if the sun is very bright where you live. If, on the other hand, you get clouds or moisture in the air, it could be a little deficient. Give it a try.

Regarding slopes, the famous demonstration garden created by Alan Chadwick at the University of California at Santa Cruz was entirely build on a slope. Of course it needs to be a south slope or else you're in trouble. A video of that garden can be found at the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Alan Chadwick

They have never really bothered me and I have them everywhere. They did get a bunch of strawberries but I am assuming they were starting to rot anyway. The most annoying thing about them is they love to hang out in my ears of corn.

Take the first paragraph from prariemoon2,s post and that is exactly the problem I had last year except it was mostly my bean cuc and a few annual flower seedlings that were being chewed by earwigs.

YES earwigs damage and kill seedlings sorry to those who disagree but I watched.

This year I again had a plentiful population of earwigs but used Bonide bug slug killer along with DE, IT WORKED all seedlings survived and grew to maturity. We had a very wet june but my earwigs were rapidly diminishing in numbers and only a few slugs. Not sure which eliminated the earwigs or if it was a combination of both but you can bet I will be doing the same each year that they are around.