23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
The scape can be edible if it's *really* young. If it is already big it's probably woody, as Peter mentioned. Leeks make beautiful flowers that attract lots of bees, so I'd vote for letting it go to flower/seed. When it drops the seeds, it'll plant you loads of new leeks, so you won't have to start any indoors next winter -- just dig these up and plant deeply to get good white parts.
And you don't even have to start it indoors. You can direct sow lettuce outside. Put a sheet of clear plastic or glass over the soil to warm it up for a earlier start. For those planters you could just sprinkle a small pinch of seed and and start getting cut and come again salad quite quickly.
Have you considered that the underlying cause of such an infestation is excessive use of nitrogen fertilizes of some type? Excess nitrogen attracts them in droves.
Never had such an infestation such as you describe as I only use very low dose N in small amounts. S o the water hose and just stripping them off with fingers works fine for me even with hundreds of plants. The lady bugs take care of the rest. Corn is the only crop I ever have any real issues with them because of all the high N feeding it requires. But both peppers and eggplants require minimal N.
I assume you know that Neem and Safer Soap can also kill ladybugs so could be reducing your natural controls?
Another effective way of controlling them is taped fingers (masking tape) rubbed up and down the stems lightly. Picks up hundreds at a time.
Then there is Surround, a kaolin clay dust used to control various sucking insects. Quite effective but messy to work with.
Otherwise about all you can do is bring out the big gun pesticides like malathion and permethrin which I never advocate doing. Do keep in mind that the majority of the damage done by aphids is appearance type and usually tolerated by the plants unless the infestation is quite severe.
You might use the search to pull up all the 100's of previous discussions about 'aphid control' on this forum for additional suggestions.
Dave
May be my groundhog is a weak one, but it doesn't bother any beds that surrounded by 18 inches decorative wire fence and covered with black plastic bird netting. He can easily rip it off - but it doesn't happen, I guess it is just same unpleasant to him to touch the netting as for me to set it up).
A beautiful garden....
The first step would be to know what it is you are trying to deter so you don't waste your time and can be successful. Have you seen anything that looks similar to a beaver in your yard?
A woodchuck can be trapped in a Havahart where a deer cannot, so the approach is different. What kind of plants where eaten?
Do a google search one woodchuck/groundhog to get an understanding but they typically don't stray far from their hole in the ground. It can be under a shed, a deck, near the foundation of the house, or may be hidden in brush, etc. The hole will be almost 1ft wide so if you see a large hole and notice path in/out of the vegetation that could be the hole. It will go straight down for almost 3ft then out to to rest of the tunnels. It could come from the neighbors yard too.
You can buy smoke bombs at Home Depot or many garden centers that will create carbon monoxide that you drop into the hole. But you have know where the hole is. You can be sure they will ALL be in their hole after sundown.
If it is a groundhog (or deer) you likely have more than one. Which is why the smoke bomb is a better approach (I think). Because you will take care of the whole fam damily and not have to touch one. The hole should be filled in after tho - for safety and it will be used again.
IF you trap one in Havahart then you have to do something with it. I think it is rude to transport it to another place so it can be someone elses problem.
If you think it is a groundhog/woodchuck you have I can tell you a way a farmer told me what to do.
btw - woodchucks have been known to climb over or sun themselves on a fence. Or just dig under it.
I wouldn't risk with fresh chicken manure - it is too strong. The best way is to compost it with straw or leaves first. Or make a really high bed, to make sure roots will not reach it - but then it is a waste of manure... Also keep in mind that decomposing manure produce heat - if you in the warm zone it could be not good even if you put it deep down. I wouldn't be concerned about bacteria at all - birds are flying above your garden anyway and poop there... Just wash your veggies - as usual.
No if showing yellow they are past ideal picking. Different varieties are ideal at different sizes, both length and diameter. Which is why I ask the variety name. National Pickling for example tend to be fatter and lighter green while Boston Pickling are much darker green and shorter. Both will do well for dill spears and whole pickles. I prefer using slicer types for B&B pickles as they aren't as hard rind.
You can find much more about this over on the Harvest forum here. It is the canning, pickling, and preserving forum.
Dave
Then plant them and cover them to protect them from the night time lows. His point is a forecast low and an actual low temp at ground level are two different things. Much colder at ground level. Not to mention the soil is still too cold so they likely won't do anything growth-wise anyway so you gain little if anything by planting now.
So if you don't pre-warm your soil and/or you don't protect them from night time lows you are risking unnecessary environmental damage to the plants.
But is waiting until next week to plant really going to make that much difference? Very likely no.
There are all sorts of season-extension tricks that you can use to both plant earlier and harvest later when one lives in a short season area.
Dave
Probably best to just wait a week to plant then. If you;re still having lows in the 40's, then the soil temp is likely colder than ideal for tomatoes and cucs. The garden center seems to be warning you about possible cold damage to your transplants. Warm-season crops might be damaged with temps in the low 40's, especially if they were not hardened off well. A freeze certainly isn;t needed for damage to occur. Or maybe plant 4 of each this week and the others later.
Champion is an early red radish and yes it is a cool weather crop. That means daytime temps consistent below 90. If you are in a cool summer climate they should do ok. Tops make decent greens when treated as a turnip green. They don't have very large tops tho.
Are you sure you have adequate drainage holes in the window box? You should be able to water until water comes out the bottom. You have fungus gnats because of the soil you are using, which is not really a good soil for containers in spite of what the label says. Push you finger deep into the soil mix and see if it is soggy or just damp. If it is soggy, your plants can develop root rot.
It would be better to use a sol-less mix that doesn't include the organic ingredients like bat guano and poultry manure. But, since you have already planted, I recommend adding mosquito bits (or crumbled up mosquito dunks) to your water and using that a few times on your soil. They contain Bt, a very safe organic insecticide that is the only thing that can kill fungus gnat larva in the soil. Fungus gnats won't kill your plants, but they won't help either.
<I have a 12" plastic planter and two 36 x 6.7 window boxes.>
Not nearly big enough for banana, bell, and Jalapeno pepper plants. 5 gallon buckets or equivalent are the very minimum for for those varieties. All 3 types are easily 3' to 4' tall plants, easily 2' to 3' wide and with a root ball 12-18" wide. I strongly suggest you invest in much bigger containers to transplant them into and as Ohiofem said, fill those containers with a good quality soil-less potting mix, not a potting soil for best results.
Dave
Good point about the flea beetles. At that size/age they can destroy the plants. When larger plants go out they can usually tolerate the flea beetles. So consider some row cover for them - will both warm them and keep the beetles off.
Dave
Agree. leaf miners. They don't pose any real threat to the plants. As mentioned just remove the leaves and/or squish the worm.
As for the yellow bottom leaves, that is usually from over-watering, a common problem when using containers as you are. Since nutrients leach out of the pot every time you water you need to replace them regularly and make sure your water pattern is one of consistency - not too much and not too little.
Plus there is clearly lots more room in your pot for more soil. The more soil in the container the easier it is to stabilize the watering.
Lots of info about all this over on the Container Gardening forum here.
Dave
Well, I think it is solved. Saw some nice pepper seedlings at the nursery that looked a whole lot better than mine after 3 weeks so decided to just pull them out. Sure enough, they came out easily and the peat pot had only a couple thin roots that made it out, everything else was balled up inside. So replaced them with new peppers, but decided to try and see if I could save these as well. Peeled off the peat pot from each- was surprisingly not that interwoven with roots- and replanted. Probably a lot for some pretty sick peppers to endure but will see what happens. Thanks for the suggestions!
They are definitely not beyond recovery. Good luck!