23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

According to OP's last post, they started off striped white and purple. Those ones usually turn yellow when ripe, and ripe ones are not edible.

Though I have never grown that particular eggplant, but judging from the picture, I DO NOT think that its is over ripen. Eggplants, unlike zuchinnies and cucumbers have a longer window of harvesting. even if the seeds get slightly hardened, they are still edible.

let us hear from the OP, how it turns out.

First, that's not enough growing medium for cucumbers. You need a bigger pot and fill it to the top... One hot summer day will kill that plant instantly. Mildew or not, you never had a chance to get a cucumber or two.

Veggies are not herbs. They need room to grow roots and when grown in containers, they need to keep those roots from drying out in a hot Kentucky sun.... The mildew was most likely just the final blow to an unhealthy plant.

Cucumbers are not hard to grow in most climates.

To Ceth_k, cucumbers are very easy to grow in the Ohio/Kentucky area. Grafting is not even a reasonable idea here. They grow like weeds.They just need to be sprayed with copper or daconil on occasion.

What i meant is that cucumber is not the most hardy plant in curcubit family. Even in this single first page of forum there are two posts regarding diseases and problems of growing cucumber. A lot of people face sudden death of their cucumbers but not many face sudden death of their pumpkins.

Over here there are many. many named cultivars selected for various traits including stringlessness. If you can only obtain something generically called 'Scarlet Runners' you may not be getting the best flavour. A bit like growing a crop of 'cabbage' or 'tomatoes' without a varietal name.

coffeehaus - thanks for the mention of Kaeferbohnen. I'd never come across that use of runners before. I have a stack of dried beans - I always keep far too many for seed. Maybe I'll try that recipe.

Millions of runner beans end up on composts heaps here, especially at the end of the season, because they are considered unusuable once past the green bean stage.

Here is a link that might be useful: Runner bean thread

I too have planted some under the trees just as flowering beans.
They do not produce enough(like pole/bush beans) I will harvest the few there is as shelly. I started mine in April(I think), they are still going with 3 to 4 hours of sun.
Another bean that I plant for just flowering purpose, is Hyacinth Pole Beans (aka lab lab) They are hot weather lovers and no are flowering. They are pretty, (flowers , beans, foliage) smell real nice and bloom till frost.

Is there a particular reason you feel that SFG is necessary? Do the locals have trouble gardening in the native soil? Maybe you are making life harder than it needs to be. Whereabouts in Sri Lanka are you located?

Relating to what Flora said :

In my previous location, in GA, I created a garden area of about 600 sf, where it had been all covered with wild berries, thorns, small pine trees, all kinds of perennial weeds.
The native soil was red clay that would harden like a rock. It took me gradually two seasons. It was a good physical activity for me, better than joining a gym. . In the process, I did not buy even a single bag of soil, manure or anything. I hauled topsoil , leaf mold, pine straw, from the wooded areas. I found a farm and got free horse manure. I buried fall leaves, brought a lot of earthworms from other places, throw them in the garden, added lime....
I created a beautiful blend with that red clay soil and all the organic matter. I grew just about any garden plants I wanted there successfully. Again, without buying a bag of any supplement.
I have heard a lot of negative thing about clay soil. But once you amend it, it is the best thing.

But the I understand that not everybody has time and instead they have finances to do it quickly with less efforts. That is fine too.

The spines are mostly part of the genetics of certain variety.
They serve, maybe, a purpose for the plant, like fending off certain animals or using them to breath, cool off, or absorb moisture from air(like cacti)
So the spine has nothing to do with ripeness. On the other hand, cukes should be picke UNripe and tender. So when you slice them the seed are soft and have not hardened. Also , over growned cukes may have brow/yellow streaks, tough and ticker skin.

Thanks jean and seysonn.

TA DA!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM SO HAPPY TO REPORT THAT I THINK I HAVE SOLVED MY JAPANESE BEATLE PROBLEM ON THE ROSE BUSHES, WITHOUT KILLING ANY BEE'S!!!!!!!!
AFTER MUCH RESEARCH OF READING ALL YOUR MOST KNOWLEDGEBLE AND INSIGHTFUL POSTS, THIS IS WHAT I DID;
4 tbsps. MURPHY OIL SOAP
2 tbsp. OIL OF WINTERGREEN
TO 1 GALLON OF WATER IN A GALLON SPRAYER.
I SPRAYED THE HECK OUT OF THE ROSE BUSHES YESTERDAY AROUND 4 PM.[ 7 KNOCK OUT ROSES VARIETY WHICH ARE JUST PLANTED LAST FALL; THEY ARE ABOUT 3' IN SIZE] SOAKED THEM.
NO SIGN...........NO SIGN OF ANY BEATLES ON ANY OF THEM TODAY. I CHECKED THIS MORNING AND AFTERNOON AND NARRY A SINGLE BEATLE!!!!
I COULD NOT BE MORE PLEASED!!!
THE BUTTERFLIES AND HUMMINGBIRDS CAME AND FED AND LINGERED AS USUAL AND DIDN'T SEEM ALARMED OR DISTURBED AT ALL!!!
I FOUND SOME OIL OF NEEM TODAY AT LOWE'S AND MAY TRY THAT TOO, IF NEEDED. I STILL HAVE THE ROSES OUT FRONT TO DO, STILL, AND I AM OUT OF THE OIL OF WINTERGREEN NOW. IT IS HARD TO FIND; I ENDED UP ORDERING IT FROM WALGREEN'S TODAY.
FYI, MY LOCAL FARM CO-OP STORE IS USELESS, THEY CARRY TONS OF STUFF, BUT , IT IS ALL TOXIC TO BEE'S. I HAD TO RETURN 3 BOTTLES OF THE ^^%$ STUFF!!! AND THEY DIDN'T HAVE ANYTHING SAFE FOR BEE'S. THIS IS WHY OUR BEE POPULATION IS NEAR DEAD!!!! DAMN FARMERS ARE POISONING OUR ENVIRON.!!!! I JUST DON'T GET IT!!! THEY SHOULD!!! WOULDN'T YOU THINK!
I TRUELY HOPE THIS HELPS ANYONE ELSE WHO IS CONCERNED ABOUT THIS PROBLEM!
THANKS TO ALL WHO HAVE POSTED! YOU ARE GREAT FOLKS!
BLESSINGS!

Another thing:

Look for the reason why bugs are attacking your plant. They often go for plants that are already weakened by something else.

Does your plants need more food? More sun? More shade? More water? Less water? To be grown at a different time of year?

Aphids, for example, will *cover* brassicas in spring and fall where I live, but leave them alone in winter and full-on summer. So I primarily grow them in winter :).

For pretty much everything except brassicas, in my garden, aphids mean the plant either wants more sun or more water. Powdery mildew, same thing. I give the plants what they need and the aphids go away. If there is a huge population, I squish and soap-spray the ones I can reach, to speed things up :).

I also save seed from the plants that do well in my garden. I now have strains of brassicas that are aphid-resistant, basil that is slug-resistant, and pole beans that are leafminer-resistant, for example.

Gardening takes years of practice and experimentation and study. There is a lot of stuff on the web now telling people that it will be effortless -- which inspires many new people to try growing some food, but also tends to lead to absurdly high expectations for beginners.

Once their skin gets bumpy and tough, the seeds inside get too tough to enjoy. At the size of the one on the left in the picture, I cut them in half, scoop out the seeds with a spoon, grate them and add some grated potatoes and onions, an egg, a little flour, salt and pepper and make patties to fry. Excellent eating but a little more work than the young and tender ones.

Sandy

"Have you ever seen (or bought) crooked necks in the stores?"
No. I have never seen yellow crooknecks in the store, only smooth ones with straight necks. At a farmer's market occasionally but not in stores. Yellow crookneck is one of my favorite vegetables and is superior tasting to other yellow squash, IMO.

I like to pick crooknecks soon after they start getting bumpy. Then slice and saute in butter.

Jim

Here my one any only butternut squash..,should I leave it or pick it?

You could try putting pieces of cardboard under your fruits and getting them out of the mud, where creepy-crawlies dwell.

Ya, mine kind of looks like yours, Super, just shorter at the moment. Your plant looks so happy! I wish it would stop raining every other day so my peppers would get a good dose of sun a few days in a row. They aren't "sad", per say, they just seem...slow to grow (height, circumference, etc). They definitely aren't getting their 6+hours of daily sun...

So, just wanted to update you all but I must have 100 tabasco peppers on my plant with more still budding! My plant really took off in July. I only have 3 peppers turning red right now but all the others will turn red soon, I think. Home made tabasco sauce is in my future!

We have had a strange summer in the D.C. Area too. Much of August has seemed more like autumn than summer. This could also be part of my smallish peppers this year too. My habaneros are doing well at setting fruit and it seems normal sized, but I am worried that the cool weather may cause them not to be very hot this year.

Just for discussion's sake, I am growing bells this year in pots (same variety) after growing them in the ground the previous two years. I have seen very little difference in size of the fruit, but the plants seem a bit smaller. We too have had a cooler than average summer, but temps have still been in the high eighties since mid June. I have two Big Bertha plants and have frozen two gallons of chopped peppers just from them. They are loading up for another picking later. (I let them all mature to red unless I just need to pick a green one here and there.)

So did you find your fungicide?

I purchased some Daconil but it doesn't seem to be working. I am planning to leave it and move them next year to a different location.

Len, thank you for posting your instant potato patch! Why do you use the dolomite and gypsum? Do potatoes need a lot of sun and water?

A couple times I have buried the old potatoes with the eyes growing out of them in the garden compost pile (just garden and yard debris, mostly browns) and they've grown and produced small potatoes, but I bet if I actually put some effort into I would get better potatoes.

we get volunteers from where we grew them because we miss some little ones, but also have had them appear from peelings.

dolomite not regularly used just here as it was X pine plantation so we get spots of high acid soil, so where we eat like 'tater's i do it to be sure they taste nicer.

no along with adding organic matter(heaps of mulch) gypsum breaks up the clay allows for better moisture absorbancy and holding, also releases entrapped nutrients.

we use heaps of gypsum and get great growth from all plants, picked 6 of those 'taters yesterday(to create planting spots for tomatoes and pumpkin(volunteers). got a bucket of spuds, around 4.5 kilo's, from about 1/2 what we bought, we bought 1 kilo seedies and planted in late feb' @ $2.50 AUD a kilo

the shop still has them so will buy more and chit them for next feb'.

we give them full sun through winter, and yes we maybe would get best of show if we had more water, they like water. but we are happy get more than enough for little input to share with our kids.

as these are new spuds we eat them unpeeled.

len

I should have said, Burbank bred the Russet Burbank potato, from which many other cultivars have since been bred.

sounds like too much work ! i'll stick with planting organic potato pieces...no lack of sprouting there. thanks for all the info !

btw, i got 2 1/2# of red potatoes from 1 plant about 2 weeks ago. i have no idea what a good yield is...can anyone give me a range ?