23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
thanks carol,
i don't know why it grows like crazy. I actually planted it in milk carton sitting on top of the small green container. The reason is becuase last year, gophers ate my pumpkins that were on the ground. Let's see if the gopher can chew thru it container. I think the roots are penetrating into the dirt. I planted it the same time as this one that's in a planting pot sharing with a manderine tree, someone it is three times bigger. I don't know why. they both get about the same amount of sun. I also apply lots of steer manual to both plants. they love them.
You could have blackberry plantlets from the root pieces (along with seeds from fallen fruit left in the soil sprouting more blackberries).
If you're willing to keep an eye on this soil, vigilantly removing any sprouts, it can be used.
Screening the soil might help if there's a lot of root...getting some of the stronger roots out of the soil. Some chicken wire on a frame (or something similar) screening it into a barrel/wheel barrel/tarp/etc.
If the berries grew extremely well in this patch the soil itself might be a bit low in pH, too...so that might be a concern adding it to a garden in large amounts unless it could help the pH of the soil you're applying it to.
This post was edited by nc-crn on Wed, Jun 12, 13 at 17:45
I am seeing the same thing on my early potatoes. One plant a day will look poorly, and when I pull it up there is a vein of rot in the main stem in the bottom 10 inches. The potatoes are mature and good to eat, but they will get bigger with more growing time. So far, all the affected plants have been blues.
One thing to bear in mind is that both thrips and aphids are way down on the insect food chain. If you want to keep beneficials around, they have to have something to eat.In addition to ladybeetles and lacewings, there are tiny wars going on too small to see. Syrphid flies are laying eggs near the aphids so their larvae can eat them.
That said, I'd have quickly clipped off that aphid-infested leaf and dumped it in the composter and then sprayed the plants with water a few times.
Nope. It isn't a contact killer. It's a bacteria which, when the caterpillars feed on foliage, kills them. Just spray entire plant(including undersides of leaves).
If infestation is bad, spray on a weekly schedule for a couple weeks and then on a 2 week schedule after that.
Kevin
Another thought I had is to plant things that people recognise and will tend to steal anyway. Raspberries and tomatoes are always stolen when grown next to the sidewalk and that may be desirable for you since it would be a demo garden after all.
The grass edge is actually now marked out at 1 foot all the way around. I had hoped this patch would absorb runoff and filter soil from hitting the streets and sidewalk, and double as a relatively clean place for gardeners to work from.
I can not mound the soil in any way because will promote loss of soil, and all the good amendments! Edging with some sort of protection is not a bad idea, but I think I will leave a lot of the perennial development of the garden to another year. Right now I want to get the garden growing something, and for it to look good.
As for the edging, that sound pretty important. Would rock edging really do that much more than plastic garden trim/edging? Sinking rocks into the edge sounds like a ton of work, and I don't think we're ready for something so permanent.
So far I'm gathering that I don't so much need to replace all the soil, as add some good compost (the cafe just began their 3-bin compost 2 weeks ago) and maybe some coir as required.
I plant the same crops in the same places every year, because I have found the arrangement I like.
At the end of the season, I till it a bunch with my tractor powered tiller, which moves the soil a long distance. Thus, I rotate my soil instead of my crops.
I have experience that cucurbita bloom early in poor soil. That can happen in the pot when kept too long. The grow tap root and when it hits the bottom and the soil is poor and there is not enough room for roots, they figure they have reached the end of their rope and must get on with their mission, i.e. flower and produce fruits/seeds. The same can happen in poor soil in the ground too. But if they are provided good soil with adequate nutrients, they sould resume growth.
Female flowers open VERY early in the morning and close back up fairly quickly thereafter. I go out before six o'clock each morning to hand pollinate and still have to force some of them open. The male flowers appear to stay open all day long. Try checking on your plants just as the sun rises. And sometimes, no matter what you do, females are open, but males are closed, etc.
Too much water and improper time to apply fertilizer (after a heavy rain).
The best way to take care of the fertilizer issue is to flush it out of the root zone...but given how saturated the soil is, that would not work so well. It would also exasperate the saturated soil issue, which is effecting the soil/root/oxygen (which is quite important).
About the only thing you can do is wait for the water saturation issue to sort itself. The root/oxygen issue is currently more important of an issue to resolve than the fertilizer application issue.
The plants may still recover even with some leaf "burn" taking down some (or parts) or the leaves.