23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Thats a fun one! I have tried growing them for the past 4 years and every time I have lost them to some sort of disease or insect. I didn't bother planting them this year.

Very crisp, and good flavor. They love the heat too, chiefly due to the fact that they are melons botanically, not true cucumbers. This makes them a good choice for warmer regions... but not so good here in the upper Midwest, especially this year.

This is one reason I dont do much direct sowing. If I start seed inside under lights, I can be pretty sure I am not cultivating weeds!.

And Gypsy - no thats not broccoli either.

Thank you, mandolls!

The leaves looked right when it was small but then it just skyrocketed! No more outdoor sowing for me!

Today, the giant falls....

Fox Farm's Happy Frog tomato dry fertilizer?

Never used it myself but it comes up with good reviews over on the Tomato forum here.

Dave

Liquid fert doesn't add that much more water, and it takes up more quickly. I had good results using it on my broccoli, that were going all purple.

Mine look just like that, I dont know what is going on either. i've picked 3 so far but yeah your pictures reminded me of mine.

Make sure they get enough water especially when it's hot. In fact, feel free to take some of our excessive rain! Also, if they are only 3 feet long I wouldn't be too worried yet. Mine usually don't start really producing til their vines are longer anyway.

With that many different varieties growing then seed saving from them would not be recommended.

You can avoid some cross-contamination by bagging blooms and hand pollinating and then saving the seeds from only that particular fruit. There is a FAQ here on how to do it.

Foe example:

Crookneck is a pepto and so is Acorn
Or. Hubbard is a maxima
Butternut is a moschata

So look up each of your specific varieties and find out what family they are in.

Dave

What Dave said.

Also, zucchini is C. pepo, too. So it can cross with the crookneck and acorn squash.

I don't know about birdhouse gourds. Do the seed packets say what it is? The only reference I found online mentioned Lagenaria siceraria. If so that won't cross with any of the others on the list.
So I think saving seeds from zuchini, crookneck and acorn is out, unless you want to go to the trouble of isolating the flowers (or at least those flowers you plan to save seeds from) (like Dave said).

Assuming I have the birdhouse gourd species correct, you should be able to save seeds from the Hubbard and Butternut and birdhouse gourd with no special precautions to prevent cross-pollination.

--McKenzie

Here is a link that might be useful: grow birdhouse gourds

No, I couldn't find find it again. Am hoping it is one of the beneficial ones. If I spot it again , I will take a better pic.

Today I found a brown lace wing larvae on my bell pepper plant. Now I know that is beneficial. May be it was the pupa I found? I crushed some orangey eggs on my leaf surface. Now I think they may have been lady bug eggs :(

Is there a good site to know beneficial insects, their eggs, pupae and larvae by looking at them?

But virtually anything that produces edible leaves, stalks, or roots, will produce more with SFG.

Interesting but very broad claim Glib. More than what? A container of the same size as used in the SFG? An in-ground bed? Row planting? Raised beds? Wide-row gardening?

I do some SFG because I have some spaces where beds fit and it works. But there is no way I can grow as much lettuce or spinch or potatoes or carrots or turnips or chard in those beds as i can in my in-ground beds using both row and wide-row planting. Much less produce more.

SFG was never intended to replace other methods of gardening. It is just an alternative method for those who may not have the space, time, need, or ability to to garden in other ways. But it isn't, nor does it claim to be, the one perfect gardening method.

Dave

Uscjusto:

Story: A couple months ago, a gopher ate nearly the whole taproot, but left a small root ball at the base of the plant. I picked up the plant(cage and all), and transplanted it 2 feet over from the gopher hole. After some babying for a couple weeks, it stopped wilting and kept growing. I just picked the first fruit a couple days ago.

Kevin

I planted bush beans in between my peas , now that my peas have dyed out I pulled them and I'm still have beans coming from them.

I think if you water your plants really well they might stick around a little longer, but now that it's starting to heat up it might be too late. You really might think about just planting seeds next year as soon as you can get out into your garden. I'm by no means an expert, but I think peas aren't really happy being transplanted.
Our peas are still green and putting out blossoms. I wasn't expecting them to still be around this long... I planted beets in between them and the poor things are about suffocating. Oh, well, I am putting peas by the bagful into the freezer so I am not going to complain!
Good luck with yours - hope you can get them to stick around a bit longer.
Edie

Thanks for your help.

Do these things have a name? I like to know what I am about to kill.

What else do they affect? I have my watermelons, cantaloupe, pumpkins, and summer squash in the same raised bed. Do I just broadcast spray the whole bed, or do I spot treat the watermelon?

They are leaf rollers. But there are many caterpillars that do this. Around here I've seen them on many fruits and pecans but so far not on any vegetables. Ours is probably a different species of caterpillar.

It won't hurt to spray anything with BT. It's very safe and will control other caterpillars like tomato hornworm.

Oh, we've got plans. DH is going to make footings all around the entire fence perimeter out of 2X4's set into trenches so the varmints can't get under any more. What's so frustrating is we live on 5 acres, right next to a huge brushfield. Not like there isn't all kinds of stuff for them to eat... we don't even kill off the clover in the yard just for them. So why they have to go to all that effort to get into the garden is an absolute mystery to us. Anyway, given that melons aren't fond of being transplanted and I'm sure anything I could find now would be horridly root-bound, I am going to stop on my way home tomorrow and get a new packet of seed (the one I had was so old I was actually surprised that 2 of 12 even germinated!) We will get them into the ground tomorrow night; it's supposed to be in the upper 70's for a couple of days then start getting warmer and warmer so hopefully they will germinate quickly. And since I'm starting over and we have plenty of room I'm going to try planting at least 6 hills. There is about a 12' X 12' square out there that nothing is planted in so that will be a good use for it.

Thanks for the advice; I do really appreciate it.

Edie

Two reasons they go into the garden: cover and they are browsers. If a rabbit can find really good things to eat and have cover at the same time, they will preferentially eat near cover. And as browsers they tend to eat a little and move, eat a little and move again... So they never really eat down one spot but when they pass through the garden it feels like they do. They don't understand that in all the world of a million billion plants you have an attachment to those two. :) They also probably don't recognize a barrier when they meet one, since they like to squirm through brushy mazes.

So far we've kept the rabbits out of the garden by three means: more cover where the clover is, the dog, and the outdoor cat. Our old house in suburbia the rabbits had to be physically detered since our garden was one of the few places they could find nutritous browse. A hex wire fence let the babbies pass through, so we added a plastic netting around the base and that worked. Best of luck!

I am just laughing at my first post here! The asparagus came right when I was leaving town for a week. It took me about a month to get the garlic moved and put up cinder blocks to make a terrace for my asparagus. I worked and worked on the soil and when I was finally ready to plant my asparagus the roots had begun to mold. I had put them in a plastic container in my refrigerator with a little water (should have put wet green moss instead) to keep them from sprouting. I am so completely surprised that every one of them came up and they look so healthy.

When I got them from Nourse Farms I was really impressed with the amount and quality of the roots. I really did not think my asparagus was salvageable with what I put them through, but I have to tell you that I will buy anything from Nourse before anyone else.

I've purchased strawberries and rhubarb from them before and I was impressed. Now my Guelph Millennium asparagus is thriving even after having put it through a grueling trial.

My garlic transplanted well also:)

All allium family plants are VERY transplant tolerant. Just make sure they are watered before and after transplanting.

Oldest leaves are pale while newest leaves are more green suggests nitrogen shortage.

Generally, the light green/yellow leaves are due to either
1- too much water that dilutes Nitrogen and leaches out.
2- Not enough nitrogen to begin with.
3- Too much shade, not enough direct sun.
4- Any combination thereof

OR, paint them silver, wear them, and you can be the Tin Man for Holloween :).

"macky is right. Potato stolens will spread several feet from the mother plant"

I dont' believe so. Here is a typical potato root/ stolon system.
As shown, the roots start from the seed and grow down or side way. Stolons grow on the stem (in ground) an spread side way. It depend how many seeds and how closely they had been planted in that hill.

It should be noted that only the roots need and get nutrients from the soil not the stolons.

Thanks for the responses. Regarding the question about location, I live in San Francisco Bay Area, which would be close to central coastal California

Ash, most people don't understand about SF bay area weather. It is not that hot this time of year, depending on microclimate. There is the day length issue (lengthening days can cause spinach to bolt), but we are almost at the summer solstice, so the day length is nearly maxed out.

Hope you work out what to do with the leaf miners. You can definitely start all over with new seeds or seedlings.

--McKenzie