23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
I always let my chard bolt. I haven't had to sow fresh seed for years. And I continue to harvest the leaves on the flowers stalks. The small leaves and some of the flower heads go into salads. Bolting chard amongst Papaver somniferum on my allotment:
This post was edited by flora_uk on Wed, Jun 19, 13 at 16:38
Forgot to mention... with bush type squash, its easy to keep the SVBs at bay with BT injections, along the stems. I did that last year with my yellow crookneck, and did OK with them. Would have been better if the spot I picked for them had not become very shady towards the mid Fall, so they ended up getting little sun.
Mine plants look ok, but the squash themselves are awful. They are VERY orange, instead of the nice yellow color, and their skins are very hard, with dry, tough insides?? We grew them from seeds...can seeds go bad? This is our first year to garden and we aren't having much luck. :(
Hope I can help everyone with this pest. I have also for the first time experianced this bug and have done some research. They say it wont "kill" the plant.. but like all of you I dont like anything chowing on a few leaves! So... I took a little recipe I got from Jerry Bakers "Supermarket SUPER gardens" As with any home remedy spray a few leaves and let sit 24 hours. Mix 1 cup of rubbing alcohol ( NOT denatured alcohol ) with 1 tsp vegetable oil into 1 quart of water. Pour into a hand held sprayer and spray top and bottom of leaves that are affected. Good luck everyone...... Happy tomato/pepper season :-) (these bugs like peppers too :-( )
Hey Sandra,
Just wanted to let you know that - I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL!!
I too have had major issues with this beetle, and for the last 4 weeks I had NO IDEA what it was and how to safely and organically combat it. At first I thought it was a type of lady bug and was keeping a close eye however I determined it was the culprit after a short period. They started with my tomatoes but have moved on to the eggplant, pole beans, squash AND my cucumbers yada yada.
Anyway, I know exactly what you need. Check out http://ourgardenpatch.com/ under agricultural products youll find the plant wash concentrate. This stuff is organic and inexpensive (at least to me, a 10 dollar 16oz bottle of "organic plant soap" lasted me 2 garden sprays where as with this stuff you get the concentrate and can make it by the gallon!!)
I sprayed this stuff on at night and by the morning there was no sign of the beetles. I respray every 1-2 weeks and after heavy rains and my veggies are looking great now!
When they are young and small it is easy to do but probably too late now to do it with out killing one or both. Still I have had a 2fer grow and do fine as long as they get enough water and nutrients. Maybe the individual heads are quite as big as they would be otherwise but still worth growing and still better than trying to separate them.
Dave
just relax and let them do thier thing. If you prepared a good seedbed and started them early enough you have done about all that is needed other than weeding and maybe watering. They are a cool season vegetable and will struggle in hot weather. They have a relatively short harvest window so unless you have a giant variety, harvest when no larger than baseball size.
I'm going to get the soil tested before doing anything...but I'm thinking its more of a nitrogen problem now because I also have a hydrangea in this bed, and it should be doing great with the acid but it's not. The blooms are also pink which leads me to believe there is a problem.
What do you recommend for increasing the nitrogen in the bed? I looked up some stuff, and found many different fertilizers so not sure what to use!
That sure looks like a lot of shredded wood which would deplete soil nitrogen temporarily while it's decomposing.
Miracle Gro or any high N soluble plant food will help with that.
The pH sure is weird though.
Any topsoil blend is probably better if you buy it in fall and let it rest and age through the winter. These kinds of kinks have time to work themselves out.
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Your soil looks reasonably OK but yes you will need to fertilize with a balanced fertilizer. The other thing is that some of your plants are too crowded, especially the squashes and the peppers/swiss chard (swiss chard will easily shade the pepper plants next to it).
My potato plants always grow a couple of feet tall, and I try and hill them as much as possible. Cut down on the nitrogen at this point. Some fertilizer is good, but low on the nitrogen. You want to concentrate on the tubers, not the foliage.
Actually some ants do bring the aphids to the plants, others are opportunistic farmers. It's misleading to talk about ants, or aphids, as if they are all the same. There are thousands of different, unique types of ants in the world and they don't even all eat the same things. There are populations of aphids that are winged and fly to new plants, others are carried by ants. The OP probably has both types occurring. There are some cases where I ignore aphids happening, like trees and sunflowers, since large plants often don't seem to care. Also some populations of aphid are not large enough for me to bother with.
Anyway, for the OP's particular case, I would say if the ants ignored the bait, then it isn't the right type of food for them. Baits can be protien based or sugar based. Sugar based baits are probably appropriate for the ants in question, but even that may not be enough to get them to sample it. Since they are feeding on honeydew, it is likely that these ants will go for a bait that is in a liquid or at least gel, form. I think you can find baits and traps online that will work. I made a homemade bait of sugar water and borax that worked pretty well last year, but you have to be careful with the borax. It's pretty much harmless to us and most wildlife, but the plants really don't like excess boron.
Don't know if any of that will prove useful to you in the long run, since a lot of what you are seeing sounds environmentally based. But sometimes a little intervention can give a plant enough energy to survive until the weather or soil get to be more copeacetic.
If the plants had been in the original pots too long before they were transplanted, they can be stunted. With Brassicas always buy nice looking thriving plants. They will either come out of it or they won't. The 14 inch plant is normal for it's age. The will grow all summer long, and not be affected by the heat. As it cools down in the fall, they will form the little fruit at the leaf nodes. I plant mine in early spring, but know that they won't be ready to harvest until October/November. Some varieties are listed as 150 days to maturity.
You can use coffee grounds. They don't have to be fresh. If you need a lot just stop by a starbucks shop and ask them for old coffee grounds. That will take care of the slug problem. It want kill them but they want cross over it to get to the plants.
I am working on a formula:
= two parts coffee grounds(used)
= two pars sand(I have some paver san. Play sand will do too)
= two parts saw dust
= less than half part table salt(spice it up..haha)
(thinking about some fine ground chili. but I have to do a clinical test on the subject..heeehaa)
= half a part fresh coffee grounds(for more power)
= one part Epson salt
= one part any slugo type thing.
Yesterday two slugs crossed over and were killed. They managed to run away but coul not go far and died of their wounds. With 100% Get - BUGA, the manage to run away, leavin a trace . But with this formula they die or are half dead nearby.
My experiment is ongoing and not conclusive yet. The good thing about it is that I can use it more generously, because other than GET BUGA the rest don't cost much.
Check with your county extension. Usually there are different planting dates for brassicas for SEEDS and PLANTS.
I do all my brassicas as indoor starts. It's just so much easier, especially for fall plantings. 6-8 weeks before expected planting. Also... it's easy for ME to say because we hardly ever get a hard freeze here, but brassicas handle frost pretty well -- upper 20's no problem..
Kevin
My frost date is Oct 10, but we have long and lovely falls that last through November. I start B sprout seeds June 5-10, cauliflower June 20-30, and broccoli and cabbage right after that. In July I direct-sow rutabaga, but start all the others in pots so I can watch them. If you wait for retail seedlings, it will be too late. Good luck!