23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
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
Yes - they're inside. I keep them near a big bay window that gets a lot of morning light. I imagine it's been getting up into the 80s in my apartment when I'm at work since I don't leave the A/C on all day, but when I'm home it's usually in the mid 70s.
I harvested a volunteer head of elephant garlic last week. This is the time that you would generally harvest garlic in my zone. In the heat of July when 3 to 4 sets of leaves have dried out.
Each dead leaf set is one layer of "paper" around the garlic. You could pick them early if you plan to eat them soon but if you want to store them you need to let this develop as it preserves the garlic.
Well, I am a little south of you in Central Indiana. I sowed in pots on the picnic table. I sowed cauliflower and a dab of broccoli on June 17th for a mid July plant out. I also sowed the later broccoli about 4 days ago in pots. for late July plant out. My varieties are full season ones...not 50 day wonders [after plant out].
Next I plan to plant butterhead lettuce and spinach in pots about the 26 of July. Also snap peas in the ground then. I also will plant lettuce and spinach in the ground in early August.
Minami, Since you are in zone 10, the shishito may end up being perennial, in which case looking to the long term, rather than short term may be wise. Also, with many pepper plants, judicious pruning early on will help establish a nice thick central stalk that will be able to support fruit later on. I currently have a manzano rocoto pepper plant that I wish I had pruned more aggressively early this spring.
Oh, okay thank you!
Looking at those radishes again, I think there may be a problem, not just normal variation. But I don't know what it could be.
Here is a pic of some that I grew. French Breakfast can be very attractive.
Jim