23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Any growing-on potting mix just as with any container plants. V-shaped holes in the bottom edges just as with solo cups and watering from the bottom is recommended but many do top watering. You just can't use the top of the soil surface as a valid indicator for watering.
You'll find many more discussions about all of this in the How-To FAQs and the discussions over on the Growing from Seed forum here.
Dave
The snow looks like it will be all melted by tomorrow, and I can plant if I wanted... Dixondale says the onions should be planted now according to their generic advice, but not sure it applies to a climate like this one where it can be in the low 20's a few weeks before last frost (and in fact it will be 19F tomorrow night.) The ground will also be soggy.
Maybe I will do some tomorrow and some next week?
On another note, should I rake the leaf mulch from the garlic I planted? It is extremely wet. About half the bulbs sprouted. They definitely took a beating this winter and have yellowed a bit.
Dave,
I hold your opinions in great regard. However, this time I may not have given you enough information. I happen to have a nice weather station with soil temperature probes x 4. The soil temps vary considerably. For example at 5 am the soil temp at 1" was 44 degrees. By noon it was 57 degrees and by 4 pm it peaked at 71 degrees.
When a catalog such as Johnny's suggests planting corn when soil temps are above 65 degrees, i'm trying to understand which temp they use. I suspect it's the 9 am temp but not sure.
Scott
I am willing to bet they mean the lowest soil temp.
fwiw - I have started corn for transplants before to get a jump on the season.
ps. I use a 6 inch digital kitchen thermometer to check the soil temp. Also keep an eye for when the forsythia bloom - which means the avg. soil temp is above 50.
Yes there are several varieties of bush watermelon. Easiet to find is Bush Sugar Baby. It is not really a bush but has short stubby vines that only run three ft or so. Another option is to grow a persomal size melon on a trellis. Yellow Doll, Red Delicious, New Hampshire Midget etc.
Thank you! Can watermelon be grown in pots? I have a rocky hill covered with ground cover with a flat rock in the middle. I could set a big pot there and let the vines go every direction for about 6 fit. Only problem is, there is no soil to make additional roots for the vine,so the pot will be the only food and water source. Do you think it will work?
No need to toss it - yet. Many times they recover. The badly damaged leaves will likely die and fall off or you can remove them but watch for new growth and it should be normal in appearance. If not, then you can toss it.
On the other hand, since you already pruned it the production will be markedly reduced as Sweet n Neat is a very small determinant plant to begin with. So since it is so early in the season you might want to invest in an additional plant to get more fruit.
dave
When I had raised beds at my previous home, we just mulched with woodchips that we got for free from the power line trimming crew. It did grow some fungus, but spread thickly it completely suppressed weeds. It drained well also. Buried edging or a V cut edge helps keep the grass from growing in from the edges.
I actually have/had mulch between the beds, but guess it might not have been enough. I had layed weed fabric down and put the mulch on top of that, but lack of free time to keep things nice and tidy have resulted in the fabric-mulch-weeds-plastic parfait going on right now. I had thought about using pine needles since I've got plenty of those in the back, but having something that flammable next to the house is not a good thing.
That's why I was thinking something more permanent - lack of time to devote to keeping things tidy. Although that looks like it'll be changing in the next month or so, so maybe ripping everything out of the aisles and re-covering them might be another option...
Thanks for the ideas, everyone. They're much appreciated.