23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
"the mulch has a hard solid feel to it and only loosens up when you dig into it with your fingers"
That's the statement that I was basing my previous comment on. The only way to know if it allows water through is to check your soil under the mulch. If the soil under the mulch is moist then water can get through it and it should be fine, the fungus isn't a problem. And/or you could sprinkle a small amount of water on the surface of the mulch and see if it soaks in. If it soaks in then it's fine. If the soil isn't moist underneath the mulch then I'd remove it.
Rodney
Thinning them down to a couple plants will help the remaining plants grow better. So will the addition of some nutrients.
And no, you shouldn't have separated them when you planted them. Even as seedlings they don't like their roots being disturbed too much.
Rodney
I have the same thing - we are in the same area. It's some type of leaf blight which a fungicide would help control but with the CONSTANT deluge of rain it is next to impossible to spray and have any lasting effect.
I am harvesting what I can, removing the worst leaves and chalking it up to a very, very, very wet summer.
Here is a link that might be useful: Cucurbit Leaf Disorders
Yes, it's a slime mold. But the name is very misleading because these unique organisms are not molds nor are they fungi. As a matter of fact, they aren't even related to molds or mushrooms.
Not harmful in any way to you or your plants and they are not toxic.
yes that can happen, it doesn't seem to cause any issues, like mushrooms it is living off rotting material in the soils.
len
Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page
yep if spuds are healthy then use them, we do.
len
Here is a link that might be useful: lens instant potato patch
Agree with Kevin. Bell peppers are very susceptible to sunscald and even if it was BER it wouldn't necessarily be lack of calcium but more the inconsistent distribution of the calcium throughout the fruit - that is usually due to watering problems.
Have you successfully grown colored bell peppers in the past? It can be difficult to do in the home garden since once peppers are left on the plant to turn colors the plant tends to slow or shut down further production. many find that to actually get colored bells they need far more plants simply because of the decreased production one gets from each plant. But some varieties work better than others.
Dave
I don't know if this is what you're referring to, but last year I grew sweet yellow and green/red peppers. They initially produced a ton of peppers, then it took forever for a second wave to be produced and there weren't that many in the 2nd round. Maybe that's what you're experiencing? I'm not sure why, maybe I didn't fertilize enough....or maybe that's just normal.
This year, I am doing foliar feedings of diluted epsom salt/H2Oto help with BER, (but only during the evening or early in the AM on a cloudy day). I have already had some sunscald, also.
Guess it depends on what you like to eat. Personally I can find lots of uses for them fresh and dried. Salads, steamed as a side dish, lightly fried as a side dish, grilled, diced on top of fresh tomatoes, on baked potatoes, great on a hamburger either fresh or grilled, any thing you would use chives in, scallion pesto, in scrambled eggs, in spaghetti sauce, diced into meatloaf, as a taco burrito topping, etc.
Check out all the posts about them over on the Alliums Forum here. The search there pulls up lots of discussions on growing and using them. And you can find cooking recipes for them over on the Cooking forums here not to mention Google using 'scallion recipes'.
Dave
Looks like a japanese beetle. Best control is to hand pick. They will play dead and drop when they know you're after them, so hold a jar of soapy water under them and shake them into it. If you have zillions of them, you can shake into a tarp and dump the tarp into a bucket of water.
I would not recommend the Japanese beetle traps -- they only seems to draw more to your garden. (That's what the Rodale people found in research, and once my neighbor who had traps moved, I've had many fewer beetles.)
They're not terrible as long as you keep up with them. Check your beans, too.
My potatoe plants leaves are turning yellow as well. I have very sandy soil so to moist doesn't seem to be the problem. You mentioned fertilizing them from underneath does that mean I should work fertilizer into the ground around the base of each plan? Also is milorganite a good fertilizer for this?
Save it and eat it! I hear it's put in quesadillas sometimes. I think I've also heard it has a strong, perhaps acquired taste, but I can't find any corroboration via googling, so I might be wrong about that. Anyway, if you can do something with it, why toss it?
Be careful with that. It must be cooked, toxic raw. Find cooking instructions from a source you trust.
Those look too old to consume. They need to be harvested at a less mature stage.
This post was edited by tdscpa on Sat, Jul 6, 13 at 4:51