23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Just an update - I was going to throw out the top of the pepper seedling I was trying to root in water, but it has 2 tiny roots now (weeks later!). So may be too late to plant in garden for you if you do this (maybe you've already composted the tops of your plants), but it does work, though they're much slower at it than tomatoes. I plan on putting this one in a pot and trying to keep it til next year.

Very sorry to hear about your hail storm. Last year we had one, nothing like yours, but big for here, and it severed the growth points of some of my tomatoes and watermelons. They all made it, but it took a little while for them to recover. Your tomatoes should come back strong.

The floods washed the nutrients from my broccoli bed and left it with purple, dying leaves. A couple doses of liquid fert brought it right around.

Whether the heads will be worthwhile or stunted is another question, but no more purple leaves.

Your squash needs feeding. Mine looked that way, I sprinkled a small handful of 13-13-13 on top of soil and watered it into the ground. You'll see it turn bright green in about a week.

squirrelwhispererpup,
I also suggest burying your vines, or mulching your plants heavily so that the main vines are covered up with dirt. That protects the main vine from SVB eggs, and also helps the plant send down more roots. That way you have less vine you have to inspect and inject.

This post was edited by ccabal on Thu, Jun 20, 13 at 12:04

Thanks ccabal. They are in large smart pots and their vines hang over the sides but I think I will see about adding soil to the pots to raise the level and cover at least the bases of the plants.

The okra issue looks physiological to me. I'd say it's sunburn in the first pic. Not sure about the second pic but could be an opportunistic fungus because the soil looks really soggy.

A few things I'd like to point out:
- the okra plants are too crowded. Okra can get huge if the weather cooperates. One per pot is sufficient.
- Don't use insecticides, particularly Sevin, unless you have a very good reason to use it, such as an uncontrollable infestation. Sevin should never be used as a preventative. It kills off beneficials, which sets you up for a future infestation.
-the tomato problem looks unrelated to the okra issue. I'd say that is blight but maybe a tomato expert could chime in.

This post was edited by Slimy_Okra on Sat, Jun 22, 13 at 19:16

Thank you! I had planned on thinning out tomorrow, but didn't know if my strongest plant had issues or not. Thank you for the feedback!

Beautiful! So much creativity.
What is planted next to the lettuce (?) - is that borage? I love not having to bend over for everything too. I just put mounds and mounds of compost around my many tomato and pepper plants this morning...a little stiff I am.

LKZZ - thank you - I assume you are referring to the bottom pic in the original post?

Thats actually not lettuce, it is napa cabbage, and purple cabbage in front of the peas. The blue flowers are lobelia, and there are petunias and zinnia squeezed in here and there. There are a few borage around the garden that seeded themselves from last years plants, but I didnt plant any this year because they got eaten up by bugs last year and looked pretty ratty.

The first week or two of gardening season I am always stiff and hurting. But its good hurt usually :)

I am in N. Florida and it has been raining a TON the last week, I haven't watered in over a week because of the rain. The soil is pretty wet. Not mud consistency but wet. There isn't much I can do about the rain though.

The plant is far from dying but it is stressed and as Ed said most likely from over-watering. The leaf roll is a classic sign of over-watering. So if it has been "raining a ton" that could be it. It always pays to have a rain gauge in the garden so you can keep track of exactly how much rain fall there has been.

Pepper plants don't like wet soil. They prefer to dry out between waterings - be that rain or gardener supplied water.

Dave

Bush beans don't need a trellis. They don't climb. Plant them close together and the plants support themselves.

It is late to plant beets unless you grow them just for leaves.

Dave

Dave, thanks for the info on the trellis. I planted the beets yesterday, should I just plant more beans over the beets and pull the beet seedlings out when they emerge? This way that whole bed will be bush beans, with a row of carrots and a row of dill on the perimeters of the bed.

I bet you can still find seedlings at your local nursery. Peppers, Eggplant and there are smaller varieties of zucchini made for container gardening. My local nursery has a zucchini called EIGHT BALL for containers.

Cabbage (red or short season green) is a perfect fit for 5 gallons, and will give you the most food per area.

You can provide shade and some insulation from direct sun during germination time. Seeds do not need light/sun to germinate but proper soil temperature. So , if the things you want to grow are heat loving types, then they can benefit from warm weather. I know, for example, that eggplant and peppers are like that.

Here's my favorite chart of optimum soil temps for germination of various common vegetables - alas, not your oriental varieties.

As other posters are saying, the key is soil temperature. To take soil temp, get a digital meat thermometer. I find it really helps at this time of year to use cold water out of a hose - let all the warmed water out of it before turning it on your seeded rows.

Here is a link that might be useful: optimum soil temperatures for germination

Are your silks supposed to be red like that or is it just my screen?. I got corn rust one time & it turned the tips all over red & pollinated horribly.

The silks look normal to me, a bit of red tint is common in the corn I planted. The tassel looks weird, I'd never seen anything like it. Sorry, can't help you with that.

Do you mean allergic by ingesting them or by contact? I am severely allergic to them by touch and have to cover my skin thoroughly when working in the garden. But if you mean you're allergic to eating them, then I am so sorry. :(

I also have nightshade allergy. I had a bad episode as a child and was never allowed to have a raw tomato (but growing up in an Italian home, had lots of tomato sauce or gravy, as we call it). Unfortunately a few years ago, it started to get worse and I can't have eggplant or peppers either. Nightshades have toxins in them that cause problems in some people. I even have a tough time with the tomato plants (my husband loves tomatoes, so I grow them for him) touching the leaves and then touching my face gives me a rash.

I don't know of any low toxin variety. The neurotoxins that are in nightshades are saponins, alkaloids and lectins. Tabacco is also a nightshade and it is some of these toxins that cause inflammation and even cancer. If you are sensitive to it, I suggest you avoid them.