24,795 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening


I wouldn't grow anything to eat there just yet. I despise rubber mulch. Rubber is nothing more than a combination of chemicals.
Today we are only scratching the surface at the many man-made things that are health hazards. To me when growing your own food YOU have control over what chemicals are used on your food - I choose to use none.
And while you say the rubber has been removed unless there has been some major diggin I am willing to bet you will indeed find pieces for many years to come.
Do you have another place (spot) you can garden? Is there a reason you chose this spot?
htmlgeek01 you are to be commended for doing a soil test - something many gardeners fail to do.
The first thing to consider in site selection is how many hours of "direct sunlight" the location gets. It should be 6-8 hours of unfiltered direct sunlight. If not find another location. Some shade can be helpful to allow time for working in the garden.
2nd would be a reliable soil test - from either a local agriculture dept or college. Begin building the soil the fall (season) before you intend to grow plants.
3rd plant and layout the garden not just in your mind but on paper. This can be a good winter project. Write down things you like to eat and start with those.
4th Do NOT start the garden too big but do build in a way to expand the garden if/when things work out. The reason many people fail at gardening is they jump in "too BIG" - find out it is more work than they can handle and the weeds take over.
Many other things to consider but just a few more are
Water - is water available? I prefer rainwater but that is another topic entirely.
Compost - do you plant to compost? If so try to build in room in or near the garden. Building a compost bins or simply using a ring made from wire fencing will be another project (maybe over winter).
Winter is a good time for garden planning. Read up on winter sowing - something to help pass the winter days.
Oh and this should prob be # 1.5 keep a garden notebook. Write in things as you think of them and review the notes in spring BEFORE planting. Write in things that went well and things that need to be improved on (each year).
To me gardening is on huge experiment - making mistakes is part of the learning curve - but making them repeatedly is just silly.
HTH
Best of health and luck to you.


This is going to sound completely crazy, but I assure you, it does work. I store my onions in the barn, they freeze solid, but when you bring one inside with enough time to defrost before you use it, it's perfect. Onions keep for me this way into April. If it's going to get very, very cold, like below 10 degrees, I bring them inside, then take them back out when things warm up slightly.
My neighbor told me some years ago that he did this with his onions. I felt that it was too crazy to believe, so ignored his advice until I found an onion one February that had been in the barn all winter. Brought it inside, and it was perfect. Been leaving them in the barn ever since.

Krissy- I often remove blossoms from plants until the plant itself is large enough to put energy into the blossom/fruit as opposed to growing leaves. In my opinion, you should remove the current fruit and eat it. Then spend some time fertilizing the plant- use miracle grow, GroPower or a well balanced organic fertilizer, per the instructions on the package. Once the plant itself is in better shape then let it flower and fruit. Currently my zucchini plant is about 3 feet across in all directions and I am finally allowing it to set fruit. Where are you located and what type of soil are you growing it in?


Well, the Scott's Turf builder herbicides are 2-4 D and Mecoprop, I believe. They act on different weeds. 2-4 D is a suspected carcinogen, but it degrades pretty rapidly. Most of it will be gone in a month or two. Maybe a bit longer for Mecoprop. If you had that stuff in your bed I suspect the whole plant would be affected, not just a few leaves. In any case, if this is your problem, it'll be gone next year. I'd be careful about keeping that stuff well away from your garden beds, though.

I dont think it should be a concern, sometimes it just needs a bit more water when the whether is hot. If soil is dry add water. The hot whether sometimes causes leaves to dry out but the plant could still be fine, and if you snip the dead leaves, new ones can grow, but those leaves dont look dead. Dont cut them off as you should keep some leaves to ptorect tge fruit from over exposure to sun. Also sometimes insects eat tge leaves. But that doesnt seem to ruin the plant


I planted beet seeds and only 3 came up so I planted lots more and not a one came up. This last planting was six weeks ago, We have had very hot weather. The seeds seem to have disappeared a I dug into the bed and found nothing. Could something be eating the seeds? LB in Oregon



"We grow our peas against the entire fence, & therefore we have wonderful peas through the winter"
Lucky you. You must be in a relatively mild winter area. For us northern folks growing peas in the winter (without a greenhouse) is a dream that will never come true. :)
Rodney

Normally I said go with new plants but given the weather this year if you have been lucky enough to keep your plants healthy I'd be inclined to give keeping them and trying it. As an alternative, you could do a bit of both, keep the best ones going but put some new ones in as well. That way you are covered.
Dave

Aphids can by hosed off most plant with just a stream of water. You may have to do it 3 or 4 days in a row to get ahead of them. You can also just run your fingers up and down the stems or on the leaves and squish as you go and rinse with the hose or a spray bottle filled with water and set to spray on Stream.
Make sure you aren't over-using high nitrogen fertilizers as it very attractive to them.
Dave

Thanks. But again, these are mostly just one sentence jab-and-go instructions. When I look more carefully, I see someone suggesting that, once the larva is found, to stab the vine in 1cm intervals around it in a line, and then go back and do the same thing 90 degrees around the vine. Someone else says to stab once with a toothpick and leave the toothpick in (!?) Someone else says to stab the vine at an angle so it penetrates the larva more or less lengthwise. If you stab the larva once anywhere, does that kill it?
The surgery option, which calls for removal of the larva, really doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you know where it is, why extract it? Just stab it and leave it. Or is the stem compromised by having a dead larva in it? Seems to me that slicing the stem is going to be vastly more damaging to the plant than sticking a pin or a wire through it.
A number of people claim this stabbing method to be unsuccessful. Why might that be? Because you don't really know where it is? If you don't know where it is, what are you going to do with a knife?

I agree, more info would be great - even for the slice the vine thing. There are often many of them in the vines. I know there were other posters commenting recently on removing many of them, hopefully they can chime in on how they found them, and someone can try stabbing one and seeing what it takes to kill it....
I think part of the reason any of these methods are unsuccessful is because by the time they are tried the plant is already wilting and severely damaged and killing the larva can't undo that. In fact, by the time people slit the stem, they probably wind up doing more damage than the borer.





I agree it is not worth the effort, just plant more beans, there is still time for bush beans unless you are far to the North. I'm planting a few last minute sowings this weekend. They don't transplant well.
ok thanks for the help, ill probably just plant another plant, i have plenty more seeds so it's worth a shot even if i don't get beans in time.