23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

>Main thing it make sure it is sturdy as it turns into a wall of beans and a good wind can lay it all over.

Yes. Beans have tiny root systems, nothing to hold them in the ground!

I like pole beans. I grow some on colored string wrapped around my porch posts, some on a trellis screwed to a south wall, some on a tripod of 1x2s with each stick stuck inside a concrete cinder block, some on a tepee/wall structure tied to a hedge....

I am describing all these so the OP or other readers can get ideas of how to make bean supports tip-proof :).

Scarlet runner beans are very purty, but some varieties are sterile and don't make beans! I was disappointed to get a packet like that last year. I normally save my own seed but I had not saved enough.

I have some bush beans. The first batch is getting loaded,
The second batch ,which also includes some yellow and purple, are couple of weeks behind and doing well. We have perfect weather here at the PNW for beans and peas. Our highs rarely climb over 85F. Anyway, I have come to like bush types. They are not labor intensive and require no investment in trellis.

You can find lots of info about radial cracking - what you have - of fruit over on the Growing Tomatoes forum here. Both the causes and prevention tips are discussed in detail there.

Dave

Aili: some varieties are more resistant to cracking, but basically what lgteacher said. Not sure about the whole fertilizing thing, but mine stopped cracking when I started mulching heavily. My watering ritual is about ONE deep long soak per week -- not the every other day soaks I did in the past WITHOUT mulch; and still had cracking. My mulch starts out about 4" thick.

Kevin

The neat thing about leaf lettuce is that you can pull off a few leaves at a time, as needed. With head lettuce, you have to harvest the entire head. But as Jean says, it's a pain growing head lettuce anyway.

You guys! Growing head lettuce isn't all that hard, it just takes more time.

I grow a variety called Summertime. It holds up quite well to the heat if properly grown. I consider it a challenge to get iceberg heads as large as possible.

Never needed a 2nd crop of zucchini before. Usually had it coming out of our ears with 2-3 plants. This year had a dozen, but got SVB (and SB) for 1st time.

That really is a shame that your squash got hit. I would still try and start replacement plants. You have nothing to loose.

This is my first year growing Summer Squash and right away SVB.

Hey Kevin, where did you get the lacewing eggs?

I did a ladybug release earlier and they did a great job on the aphids...until they flew off to greener pastures. It was fun having them.

I used to live in La Mesa and I am having a hard time with the coastal marine layer. I've been here 5 years now and it just throws me for a loop. I have one little rose bush in my front yard and I can't get the mildew under control. Yesterday I noticed the biggest mushrooms I've ever seen growing under the roses. I don't have any mulch down so I have no clue where they came from.
My cukes and zucchini are not faring so well either. I figure I'll just chalk it up for experience and next year will be better.

Will your cantaloupes fruit?

Jude:

You're going to have challenges with warm weather crops if you're on the coast. Not that you can't, just compared to East County, production will be limited. You might want to call the master gardener's extension and ask them what varieties do well there or call Walter Andersens's in Point Loma.

regarding the lacewings, I'm going to order online from rincon-vitova. I called City Farmer's Nursery(usually very helpful) and great organic product. And they said that they could order lacewings for me but then left me on hold so I just decided I'll get them online.

Also, I had problems with ladybugs taking off also until this year-- they came to me! I attribute this to creating an environment for the adults to propagate by planting beneficial attracting flowering plants that flower at different times of the year. Research IPM(Integrated Pest Management) and you'll learn loads. I'll attach a link of some general plants you may want to plant.

The cantaloupes -- a far amount is fruiting right now and have already picked about a half dozen. I just don't know if the plants are going to be able to hold out from the damage I exposed them to.

Good luck.

Kevin

Here is a link that might be useful: benefical list

This post was edited by woohooman on Sat, Jul 27, 13 at 18:08

Yikes! I know how that feels! I was victim to a bad hailstorm in early June that pretty much shredded my plants. Golf ball sized too... I was devastated and thought it was the end of my gardening season. Thanks to the good folks here, I kept faith and plodded on.

Happy to report today that 85% of my toms survived and are now thriving and fruiting, my Zuke is pumping out fruit, and I've already harvested my cauliflowers.
Some plants are just stronger than we give them credit for.
And if they don't pick up, there's always time for the fall crop!

Good luck! :)

Sending you good gardening vibes! I know how hard your zone can be to garden in. I can have similar weather although probably not as extreme. Every year is interesting to see what will happen and what the weather will be. I am always hoping the weather and pests will leave my garden be. It has been a roller coaster as a newbie. Keeping my fingers crossed your garden recovers fully!

Nothing to be concerned about. Just some minor environmental damage.

It could be a little downy mildew. But if that's all there is and the plant is established, it'll grow out of it.

pumpkin vines send out a lot of roots from the leaf nodes, as long as you let them grow on the ground and there is dirt underneath the vines. if so there are probably many additional roots that have formed, so they should be fine.

I've had many plants keep growing and produce even though they've been mostly cut off from the main stem (due to SVB damage)

Well that's reassuring because I'm currently watching mine.. It's been tore up bad by them, but somehow it still has half it's leaves that are green and perky.

Like any other veggies, cucumbers have also special requirements and tuning. The hardest part is getting them established. After that , they need regular watering. But cucumber leaves and vines are not very tolerant of mishandling while harvesting, trellising, .... The leaves can get injured easily.

But the GOOD part is that you do not have to wait for weeks and months to enjoy its fruit. The earliest tomato takes over 50 days from flower to ripe fruit. With cucumber it will take less than one week.

My cucumbers flourished until we had a heat wave (107 degrees - I thought the thermometer was broken and nor reading right, but that was the temp at the official recording stations). After that they were so bitter that they were inedible. Before that, they tasted better than any cuke I had ever eaten (not exaggerating here). Did some research on the A & M horticulture website - learned that once a fruit becomes bitter, all subsequent fruits are ruined (some kind of chemical messenger thing in the vine). Perhaps that really big cucumber you found sent out similar messages to the rest of the vine.

It depends a great deal on your location as to what works best. There is no "one size fits all".

In your zone protecting the crowns from frost and snow damage with a thick layer of mulch likely isn't required. In colder zones it surely would be. In your zone gus beetles could easily survive under the mulch and over-winter. In the colder zones they couldn't.

So the correlation isn't "mulch equals beetles" but more "no killing freeze equals beetles".

And of course some mulches work better than others. Compost or a layer of leaf mold would be much less hospitable to them than a layer of chopped leaves simply because leaf mold doesn't pack down like chopped leaves do.

Why not use your leaf chopper to make a big pile of chopped leaves to decay over the winter and have a big pile of leaf mold for next spring's garden instead.

The main thing is to get them fed.

Dave

Sorry, Dave, I'm not following!
Should I mulch the gus, or make better compost and feed it later?
I'm not quite understanding your post.
Also, should I spread composted chicken sh** (bagged) in the fall to feed the gus throughout the winter?
Nancy

O' sure. Those poor things are suffering from mal nutrition already and look so hungry and pale. But don't take my words for it(I am not serious )

I have about 6 rows of these. I've been giving them liquid miracle grow to help boost them up but I'd like to get some regular fertilizer if they need it.

A Follow up:
All the patients survived the emergency surgery. After I stomped on the worms, I covered the stems with leaf gro- a local awesome compost- as that is all I had on hand, and figured what the heck.
All of the plants are thriving and growing huge- and blooming- no squashes at all yet, however. I would have thought I would see some by now.
Thanks for the help.

Thanks for the update :). I learn so much when I see what works and doesn't work for others.