23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Right now is perfect for starting fast-maturing broccoli and cabbage in Z 6. I've had excellent results with Alcosa savoy, Pixie, Gonzales and a little pointed cabbage, Caraflex, don't see why Earliana wouldn't be fine. I start collards and kale two weeks after the cabbage and broccoli. Forget about the days to maturity, or add 21 days for starters due to shortening photoperiod, then more for inclement weather.
Pnbrown, that's a very nice summary of this discussion. There's a lot more to gardening strategy than a couple of numbers. I would just add that the usefulness of such zones, in the context of this forum, is just to roughly understand who we're talking with, and whether we're using words like "heat" in the same way. So those zone numbers in the profile are less about gardening and more about the person who is posting.
Seysonn, I like your idea about how to code the zone in the forum profile. I've done the same with mine.
My ground hogs scale my deer fence and gobble up tremendous amounts of foliage under 24". They even dig burrows some years. My wife won't let me hurt them, much less eat them, so I trap them (using a Have-a-Heart trap with apple, kohlrabbi, carrot, and zucchinni slices) take them to a park and release them to struggle/starve in an unfamilar place. I end up trapping one or two per year, since they keep moving in from other yards. Just never seem to get around to modifying my fence so they can't climb over.
I don't have a gun or a dog, so for groundhogs I use wire fencing with the 2x4 inch grid. I encircle the plants they like the best - like lettuce and cruciferous vegetables - with the fencing.
Now supposedly woodchucks can climb and they also dig, so I cut the fencing about 2 feet high, and cut it so there are pokey wire ends coming out the bottom and the top. The bottom pokey ends are stuck into the ground and the top stick up like skewers. These wires are sharp as anything - and the woodchuck can't get past them.
I have a small veggie garden and don't have many plants to protect so it works great. I just have to watch out I don't skewer myself! (Probably not the best method to use if you have small children though).
Agree with fruitnut above. Shift your focus to the individual plant needs not the garden as a whole.
Container plants and in ground plants cannot be treated the same when it comes to feeding just as with all other aspects of the two different types of gardening.
Container plants are fed much more often than in ground plants simply because the nutrients wash out of the containers. How often containers are fed depends on several factors - size of the container, how often watered, age of plant, type of plant, nutrient needs of that type of plant, etc. A very general guideline for feeding containers that is recommended on the Container Gardening forum is weekly with a diluted to 1/2 strength mixture.
Beyond that there is no set schedule for feeding plants, especially in ground plants. There are far too many variables for any set schedule to work and the needs of the various plants are too different. Feeding is as needed for each variety of plant.
Dave
Yeah. Haha. I tried everything last year to keep my dogs out. Rabbit fencing, pepper flakes, ect. Ect.
I felt like this was my only option. And it's nice not having to bend down to look through the garden. Everything is eye level, which I love.
And so far this season, I've eaten a dozen nice sized zucchinis. So I can't complain to much!
I'm excited for next year to get here so I can implement everything I've learned this year.
Those green marble sized seed pods generally just fall off my potatoes, so I don't bother with them. I planted in mid-late March and am starting to harvest blue potatoes. They look good, but it's definitely been their kind of weather so far this summer as long as they have adequate drainage.
This is the first year I removed them. The russets flowered big time and set a bunch of the pods. So I just figured why invest the plants energy in the growing of pods (I've had some up to 1" in diameter)....I'd rather focus the plants energy on the pods growing under the soil :)
Rather than a lack of something (phosphorus) it more often indicates and excess of something - nitrogen. When there is excess N in the soil root crops often produce lovely big bushy healthy green tops - but no roots.
The same is often the case with green beans - legumes don't tolerate high soil levels of N. Lots of bean plant with few beans.
Normally I wouldn't consider 10-10-10 to be high in N unless it was excessively applied. And while humus is nutrient rich it normally isn't high in N either.
Dave
I do not think that smell of whole garlic ,outside, in the garden , can penetrate into the house through the foundation walls, ... to the point of becoming offensive. People keep garlic in their kitchen(along with onions) all the time. The smell is released when the clove is cut or crushed.
I agree with florauk. It don't think what you have is the type of garlic you get at the store. Especially because you say it disappeared for a few years then came back. It sounds like an allium that reproduces by seed and those dormant seeds are what sprouted and grew. A picture would certainly help.
Rodney
This post was edited by theforgottenone1013 on Mon, Jul 8, 13 at 16:01