23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

If you go to one corn plant per square foot, you should be alright, assuming your soil is optimally fertile.

As to your sun exposure, it depends on how tall your corn plants are. Most tomato plants will get around six feet tall, some will get even higher. If your corn plants are not taller than that, then each crop will effectively get only half a day of sun.

If you have another bed, it might be better to move the tomatoes to the left side of that bed and then plant something shorter on the right side of both beds. Suggestions would be squash, cucumbers, bush beans, or herbs.

Thanks Donna. I do have another raised bed, however the next bed is only raised half a foot above the ground and the natural soil below is poor. Would that be enough for either the corn or the tomatoes?

Also, just for reference, what is your thinking for planting the taller things on the left side?

Thanks!

This is how bad my watercress is doing. :-(

Cecil - slugs will mow down seedlings - yes.
Your picture show seedlings of what we grow simply as 'cress' or 'garden cress' for a crop of sprouts. It isn't water cress. Normally it would be grown very fast indoors on peat or even paper. As kids we would grow it on a piece of cloth or blotting paper on a plate in the kitchen. Growing it outdoors in soil means that the crop is vulnerable and gets dirty. It is used in salads and sandwich fillings when it is only about 2 - 3 cm tall.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cool cress video

Thanks so much. When I took the picture above on Friday, I thought there were only a few showing scapes. On the wonderful advice I got here, I went out this morning and found 33 on about 40 plants. I think they are growing fast now. I cut them all, and now I'm trying to decide how to use them. The smell is wonderful.

When I cut them up last year, my dad and sister didn't like them. This year I fried them in oil and salt, and they liked them then. A better use for them has been to roast potatoes, and depending on the temperature, in the last 5-15 minutes of roasting the potatoes, just throw them in and they taste good like that!

Was just going to start a thread about this as well. My very first bell has a hole as of this morning. We do have an earwig problem.

Aili: you can make earwig traps out of soy sauce and oil. Haven't tried it yet, but it sounds promising from the info I've read.

Kevin

Perhaps the supermodel analogy will help? Just like a woman does not need to look like a supermodel to be beautiful, your garden plants do not need to be pristine in order to be good producers. Free your mind from the shackles of advertising! ;)

There really are a small number of pests that are common and damaging. And even the ones that are damaging need to show up in large numbers to be worth getting upset about. You will be exhausted in short time if you allow yourself to get upset at every hole you find in a leaf (especially since not all holes are caused by bugs) and every insect you see. Take it more like the justice system- the insects are innocent until proven guilty. Which means catching one in the act before deciding it is a problem. This will also save you a lot of money.

I do not view bugs as nasty, dirty little things, but more fondly. They are amazing little things, very much alive and following their own purposes. Some are incredibly beautiful, and all of them are amazing. That last picture you have is a moth coccoon (technically a pupa). You can actually see the transition from caterpillar to winged insect in those, it is very cool. I do get rid of insect pests on my plants, but not from an emotional, angry place. Like with weeds, I do it because it must be done to get the plants to bear food for me. I'm not saying you need to think fondly on insects like me, I'm just putting out my way of thinking because it is different. Cheers!

Newatthis22 - it's hard when we are new at something and trying to learn as we go. The best thing to do is educate yourself on the bug world - what is beneficial and what could do harm. Periodic inspection of your plants is good practice - especially for organic growers - we become the insecticide by removing what we see by hand. You won't get everything and as susanzone5 said, it's all a part of the biology of living things. Beneficials depend on the not-so-beneficials for food.

Deep breath - remove what you can - enjoy your garden.

Potatoes are relatively inexpensive to purchase, but growing your own is the best way to ensure they will not have been exposed to excessive chemicals to offset their growing problems. Plus you'll have a lot more varieties to choose from. Oval baking potatoes and red potatoes have dominated the market, but there are actually over 1,000 different varieties of potatoes available for growing. The texture of potatoes, even more so than the flavor, is very variable from variety to variety.Therefore i love growing my own potatoes.

I agree. Growing potatoes is a blast. This year I'm trying out 24 varieties, plus all the no-name grocery store potatoes I've kept going for 30 years. I'm working my way through the bean, tomato, and squash varieties also. Life is good. Slugs, SVB, and CPB are bad.

Since you're in zone 5 I'm wondering if your seedlings are very small (mine are) so maybe it's rolly polly bugs? They get mine when they're v. small.

I've never had problems with my carrots, but birds would eat the tops of my beets when they were small. I eventually put a netted frame over the sowed seeds, which gets removed when the beet foliage reaches the top of it.

I mulch my garden almost exclusively with fresh grass clippings, straight from the bagger to the garden, several inches thick.

It works awesome at weed suppression and really improves the soil. I have been doing this for years.

It works so well I even went out and bought a stupidly expensive bagger for my riding mower so I could get more clippings than what the push mower was giving me.

When you first put them down, give the stems of plants an inch or so of breathing room, the clippings can heat up a bit as they decompose.

Grass clippings are fine for mulch, but as JWW mentioned, they should be composted some. Not only because of weed seeds, but FRESH grass is high in Nitrogen and a 3" thick mat of it will heat up like a compost pile. Don't want to "cook" your veggies.

Kevin

This post was edited by woohooman on Sun, Jun 16, 13 at 15:35

Chard has been fairly trouble-free for me insect wise; some years spotted cucumber beetles chew on it, but they seldom cause more than minor damage. Other years the grasshopper damage becomes noticeable.

But the worst damage I ever had with chard was due to... goldfinches??? A flock of them learned to peck on the leaves, and within several weeks, had eaten a stand 12" tall down to the ground. The next year I used floating row cover over the chard, which effectively stopped the bird damage, as well as the beetles. I highly recommend the use of row cover for the best-quality leaves.

Thanks for the advise!

To be honest I'm not to sure low levels of N is going to affect uptake of nutrients in the soil as the plant itself will be trying to uptake what it needs I do know that some of your micro nutrients do aid in the metabolism of the plant and its up take of macro nutrients I believe zinc is one of the important ones the only way to really tell is time if there is a deficiency the plant will show it then u have to identify and amend the soil don't worry as you can apply micro nutrients as a foliar spray for a instant boost as well as amending the soil if you can find them in liquid form

It probably depends on the OM%. My empirical experience is that with 21% OM, clay soil, the fertilizer is not leached by two inches. I also expect that leaching will be an exponential function of precipitation, that is, if x inches leach 50%, 2x inches will leach 75%.