23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Oh my gosh, you are all so funny! I feel so much better now knowing I am not alone.
I went to the nursery yesterday to return a plant I wasn't happy with and came out much poorer. It was a trap. Easy returns but you're still going to pay! I have the stuff rolling around in the back of my truck. I'm hiding it from you-know-who. :)
Just to keep things straight, I really am not a hoarder. I just tend to get a little carried away periodically.
Many, many thanks to those in the military past and present.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Monday. It looks like its going to be great gardening/BBQ weather here today.
I have never had much luck with sweet corn between it's very finicky growing habits (as compared to dent and flint cultivars) and animal pests eating the ears as they begin to ripen. Sweet-corn regions tend to have very good ground, ideal climate and extirpation of pests. No doubt though we will all continue to try.
PN, read these
Western Diseases: Their Emergence and Prevention, by Drs. Trowell and Burkitt
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, by Dr. Weston Price
Health and the Rise of Civilization, by Dr. Mark Cohen
Food and Western Disease, by Dr. Staffan Lindeberg
Gun, germs, and steel, by Jared Diamond
If you want a shorter list, Diamond (brief history of the last 13,000 years) describes the transition to agriculture. Cohen does the best job of reviewing the archeological record. Lindenberg is of interest to you because he describes the lack of all diseases of civilization in a near vegetarian island (heavy smokers too, but they eat fish every day, and pork rarely).
Actually, if you do not want to fork the money, most of the work of Lindenberg is discussed in many older posts at Whole Health Source (tag: kitava). I have two copies of the Diamond book, which does not discuss diet directly, I consider it the most illuminating book I have ever read.
Cohen's work is the foundation of many websites discussing the paleo diet, although Dr Cordain is much more quoted. You can find Cordain on youtube nicely summarizing the evidence for humans as top predators. I am also very fond of the work of Weston Price, a dentist, his foundation has collected a lot of articles.
Sorry to disagree but properly grown pepper plants have a root system that is at least as big as the diameter of the top growth and usually as much as 2x the size of the top. The primary reason for using proper spacing is nutrient and moisture availability. Overly close plants are competing for both. The competition leads to stressed plants, increased BER, lower production, leaf drop, and disease and pest susceptibility.
Dave
You can find out much more about this over on the Growing Tomatoes forum here. it is called leaf edema and is due to over-watering and the plants being root bound in small containers. The excess water has no place to go except out into the leaf tissue.
They need to be planted ASAP or transplanted into larger containers of some sort and the watering reduced. The plant will recover but it will probably shed the affected leaves eventually.
Dave
Here in zone 5 WV the traditional planting day for the crops you mention above is either memorial day or June 1st (depending on which farmer you're talking to). If you can get a forecast a week out around memorial day that says no frost, and night time temps not much lower than 50, then tomatoes can go out. Last year this time it was HOT.
Good luck with your shivering plants! Hope they make it.
Winter squash is often harvested after first frost. Sometimes a light frost is needed to polish them up for harvesting. So if using the cover for season extension I'd think you can wait until just a few days before your frost date.
Of course you'll have some green fruit that will never ripen but that's normal.
Next year consider shorter DTM varieties or earlier planting under cover to get more fruit.
Dave