23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Hi wayne_5 and farmerdill,

Thanks much for your responses! Heat has certainly not been a problem this year here! We have been unusually cool all summer really. Sounds like maybe I am being impatient as usual. I will wait them out and see what happens!

Thanks again!
DLup

Look down in the very center. If you don't see even a smidge of head forming and the plant is in relatively good health otherwise, then you still have a chance of a head.

I've never had a cauli plant that didn't at least "try" to form a head. Been a few duds though --- starts to head, but becuse of weather or what have you, sputtered out and left me with a 2 inch head.

Kevin

I grow in containers here on my balcony in Miami my plants hit 7'. Had to prune after hitting the roof. I grow organic in 12" pots using stakes and chicken wire to cage and mesh for fruit support. It is extremely aggressive tendrils will grab anything even a cacti. Very delicious cukes for salad or pick young for pickles. I start in domed sees trays then transplant to pots. Mine sprout after a few days and in 2 months over 7' with our hot sun I find it hard to over water, I have to water 2 to 3 times a day. Renner water the soil and not the plant. I use beem oil and diatomaceous earth for pest control

That is great! If I had any sun on my deck, I would so do this. I did balcony/container gardening for awhile and it was fun. Now I know more and there are all these ideas so I am hoping I get to try them out next year. I think I would try vertical gardening in a raised-bed. I am not sure where I will be gardening next year.

I'm so glad I saw this question, because I never get to brag. I plant spacemaster cukes in a planter on my front steps and let them trail down the wall. Picture attached! What you will see here is early growth really. They get bigger. I've planted as many as 8 in a 4'x1' container and they did great! (I also got compliments on my lovely "flowering vine" at my garage sale! LOL!)

Here is a link that might be useful:

Mine are in containers here in Miami my plants hit 7' organically raised. I use 12" pots and stakes and chicken wire for climbing and mesh support. I do urban vertical gardening.

after cutting it open . everything about it says squash .

Did her other pumpkins turn out ok? To me judging from the size and skin tone it looks like an immature large pumpkin variety that would have grown much larger and would have developed a more "pumpkin look" if it were left on the vine to grow. Best guess.

Oh, my. This is me embarrassed. I was, indeed, thinking of broccoli. Nevertheless, raab is in the same family and does require careful seed starting. Sorry!

No need to be embarrassed. The name broccoli raab throws most people. But it is actually a turnip. Grow like you would grow any turnip. It speciallizes in growing a seed head which remind some folks of a broccoli floret.

Here is a link that might be useful: Growing broccoli raab

Deleting duplicate post.

Here is a link that might be useful: Melon Meter App

This post was edited by jimster on Wed, Aug 7, 13 at 13:32

Thanks Wayne, the coopertown seedless sounds good, and yellow doll has been one of my favs for years now. Too bad the smallish melons have a shorter shelf life than the Big Boys, at least that's been the case here. Crimson Sweet & Lanthum sugar baby types do grow well here so I may opt for a mid size as bernadette mentioned and pick em' at their peak. Really love the Big Raspas....maybe just one plant...I can feel that hernia already :)

Sad to say I think it's too late. I have found that b sprouts have a very narrow planting window which opens and closes the first two weeks of June in Z 6.

You can direct seed kale, collards, kohlrabi and lots of other stuff now, though.

As planatus says above, it's probably a bit late for brussel sprouts now. His suggestion about direct sowing of kale is a good one, if you like it. A detailed description of how to plant kale can be found here:
http://alan-chadwick.org/html%20pages/techniques/garden_plants/veg_photos%203.html

Here is a link that might be useful: Alan Chadwick

Those look great!

Yes, and actually these are what I would call "seconds" as I tend to give away the nicer-looking ones! I have been picking 3-5 nice ones daily from my 4-foot, trellised row. (Probably 6 plants.)

These Jackson Wonders are more like dime sized, which I think they're supposed to be. I'll go out tomorrow and see if I can extract any,

So these are the limas. I'd rather have them on the smaller side, as baby limas, but it's a lot easier to shell them when they've grown larger.

Still have to say they're harder to shell than peas.

Lacewing larvae. Just ordered mine yesterday. If you insist on spraying, do what Rodney said, about 3-4 days apart at dusk. Rinse plants with plain water a couple hours later or in the morning. Then move onto a weekly schedule after that.

And if that don't do it, try the same with neem oil.

Kind of difficult in AZ. One shouldn't use ANY pesticide when the temperature is over 80F. At dusk, it's well over 80 there, no?

if so, then do the spraying first thing in the morn before it's too hot. Make sure you rinse before the heat comes for the day.

Kevin

I sprayed with just a dishwashing soap and water, it looks like it got a good amount of the little suckers, and plants seem fine, I will keep with this until I can tell if it goes one way or the other. It was a little disconcerting seeing the entire leaves covered with insects. We are finally cooling down here only 100 to 108 degrees this week with lows dropping a little below 80, Thanks for the info.

Your string is awesome. :)

I started Guelph Millennium from seed in 2004 (if memory serves) and have a bed of two dozen here myself. Wonderful, wonderful asparagus variety. Our patch is completely neglected a still produces thumb-thick spears for a good six weeks and ferns taller than my six-foot hubby.

The last three or four years, we've been having the same issue with something eating the sides of the top of the shoots, causing them to curl. What's different in our case is that the nibble seems to be happening *before* the spear breaks the soil level. Because of that, my suspects are either asparagus beetle larvae or cutworms.

I've been over to my local greenhouse here in town and to Early's in the city and both places have recommended Sevin. I'm not comfortable using something that indescriminate, though, so I'm still in wait-and-see mode. Last year was the worst year yet (over half the spears had damage), which is why I was looking into control measures. This year, though, there were only a handful here and there. I wonder if the seemingly never-ending winter thinned out some of the pests.

Roughly what percentage of your spears are being damaged? Are you able to wait it out and see if this is something long-term or short-term or is the damage too much?

A mistake I learned I'd been making was using the ferns themselves as winter mulch (seemed simplest just to tuck them over where they lay). Apparently that provides ideal habitat for asparagus beetles to overwinter. I'll be doing away with them this fall and using straw instead. Hopefully that will improve the situation next year. We'll see.

macky77 my asparagus is also Guelph Millennium. :)

I never even thought that they may have been eaten when the were below the dirt but I think its very unlikely. I check (and count) everyday and I'm pretty positive they were fine one day and nibbled a few days later.

We are having a bad year for grasshoppers and about the time I noticed the nibbling we were at the peak (hopefully) of the infestation. Out of the now 60-ish spears maybe 1/2 dozen were nibbled so I'm not too concerned - just annoyed and wanting to prevent further damage.

It seems like every spear that was nibbled had enough damage done to halt their growth but I noticed new spears coming up beside the damaged ones already.

As for the asparagus beetle, I'm not sure how far north you are but I think we are safe from threats of them - unless of course you'll actually caught them!!

If your spears are being damaged below the surface could it be grubs? (japanese beetle larva) We had grub issues in our potatoes a few years ago - they would eat holes in the potatoes and leave exposed tracks around the potatoes making them very difficult to store. We ended up spraying with nematodes a few times in one year and haven't had much of an issue since.

We got the nematodes from Natural Insect Control - http://www.natural-insect-control.com

They were also very helpful in identify the pest. It might be worth contacting them to see what they have to say.

Fertilization, as suggested above, refers to incomplete pollination.

No, not rotting. I have seen that other years and know it's a pollination problem. They just stop growing, turn dark green like they should but that's it.

Or it was a hybrid squash reverting to one of its parent strains.

Spaghetti squash or not?

Odds are very high that it is not. Squash volunteers are very rarely true to breed.

Dave