23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

I agree with what was said above...I only see male flowers in your pictures. I have crookneck squash plants too and even my first pollinated female flower (I know it was pollinated because I did it myself) fail to grow into a fruit. I was disappointed but as long as that isn't the case every time, I'm assuming it's normal. When you see a female flower, you'll know!

Thanks so much. I'm starting to get the full picture now. I also saw a pic elsewhere on the web, that makes the female with the fruit on it more plain. I feel like I know now what to look for. Thank goodness for you folks on GW

The variety I grow for grist - hickory king - would be ideal. Massive strong vigorous plants.

There actually are varieties of maze corn (not to be confused with maize). Rupp seed has varieties of ornamental corn specifically bred for mazes.It was initially marketed as not producing hard ears of corn to keep pesky kids from being able to throw and or hurt people with it. This part of the description is absent from this years (2013) catalog, but the variety still exists. The name is not surprisingly "Maze Corn". Just take a look at their catalog. Catalog pages 60 and 61.

Rupp 2013 Catalog

Certainly any variety can work, but there are varieties being bred specifically for the purpose as agritourism becomes more popular.

That looks to me like a tricky proposition. The plants are very close to each other, and the pot is small for just one plant that size. I think that has to mean that the plants are root bound, and the roots are probably very tangled.

But I agree that the only option to try to keep them all is soaking, and teasing them apart. Just don't let the roots dry out. It will take a while for each to get themselves reestablished, and I suspect you'll lose half the foliage in each.

I would have half a mind, as you were thinking. to thin to two or three, transplant them together in some good deep soil, and see what you get. The plants will be healthy, but they won't grow that big, and it may be a challenge getting much fruit. If these were small peppers, you might have more luck.

Don't just soak the roots. Soak them in a bucket, but grab them by the stalks and swish around in the bucket of water. Then take an adjustable spray nozzle and wash off the majority of the soil. Then start tugging loose each individual plant. Then get them to their final growing spot and drench. If at all possible, let the soil dry out before the next watering.

I just did this myself about 2 weeks ago with 3 red bells and all are rebounding just fine.

Kevin

This post was edited by woohooman on Wed, Jun 12, 13 at 0:40

Your weed situation does not look unusual for an area that has only been tended for a year or two. Stay on top of the weeding this year and don't let any of the weeds set seed. Hoeing and mulch are great suggestions. Use the hoe when the top of the soil is dry and then most of the hoed up weeds will fry in the sun and not reroot.Try using a thick layer of leaves or straw over recently weeded areas whenever possible. It makes weed control and watering much easier for us. We'll be stockpiling raked leaves from non-gardening neighbors again this fall.

Next year should be easier for you if you keep up with weed control this year.....but weeds and their control are part of gardening. If weeds won't grow in your soil, do you really want to eat crops that will grow there?

Not sure if it can be said enough, but keep on top of hand weeding or hoeing this year and you'll see fewer and fewer weeds come up in successive years.

It's taken 3 years of weeding and a portion of my veggie garden still sprouts grass...

Sintria, GREAT photo's! I can see that (slug type) critter would be a muncher for sure. I wish I was able to identify bugs better, I will often to google image searches when I see strange guys in the garden. Problem with killing them outright without knowing what they are is, many will do some limited damage as youths, but transform into the benificial garden helpers as adults. So, I really hesitate to do anything about bugs eating SOME plants unless they are going to wipe everything out, I hate boarers though and earwigs drive me insane:( Often too, the more "bad" bugs you get, the more preditors you attract. If there's little or no food source for the preds, like wasps etc, they just won't come to the garden and take a good chomp out the few that we do get (but the few that could eat the whole garden up)
I "attempt" to work with nature when ever possible, and when it's starts to get me angry, I pull out my water gun and shoot me some bugs with soap and water, man that can feel GOOD (sort of ashamed to admit it:)
I think you folks in the warmer climates have a lot more to deal with pest wise, then those of us in the colder climates with the harsher winters. I'm in Ottawa Canada.
For the most part, I have made peace with bugs, so long as they only take a leaf or two. I had chunks taken out of my tomato's last year too and THAT I was cranky about, left with only half of each tomato for me! Now, squirrels are a different story, they are digging all over the place and not even looking to EAT the plants they distroy/dig up as they look for seeds and nuts, ARG!

I forgot about Tanglefoot. That is a good barrier. Sevin contains carbaryl, which will kill the beneficial along with the bad bugs. If you have lots of ants, look for aphids, which they farm - they protect them from predators and eat the sticky stuff the aphids produce.

The link below tells you more than you probably want to know about ants, but if you scroll down, you will see many suggestions for managing ants.

Here is a link that might be useful: ant management

I just found some cab loopers today on my broccoli I only have three plants so I just pic the little Nasty sob's off by hand and squish them with a rock very satisfying and entertaining .

Bt is one of the oldest and safest organic pesticides around. It's a bacteria that kills the larva of mosqitos, fruit flies and moths. It does no harm to anything else. And it's cheap. It's sold as Dipel in dust form or thuricide as a liquid.

Not sure about that. Gregor Mendel did his experiments on peas, and he was looking for effects that recessive genes had on the pods (that is, the fruit). I guess, simplistically, the way I look at squash fruit are squash pods for the seeds within. The fruit is, in fact, the seed.

I too am sure that you can get fruit with one plant. The question was whether you'd risk problems from recessive genes. I suspect that doesn't happen very often, because I suspect that lots of plants are fertilized from their own flowers. But if you're doing hand pollination, and have a choice, that's a useful strategy.

Mendel was growing the seeds of a cross to see the effects on the pods (the genes expressed in the next generation.)

It's always a good idea to give your plants a good look when you buy then and again when you get them home (as a form of double-checking).

Nurseries are generally open air vectors for all kinds of pests and when one is managing 100s-1000s of plants, they can't get them all...and they're not going to spray anything powerful enough that people can't access the plants for 24-48 hours.

Squash Vine Borers - nasty!

I wouldn't. I'd plant something not in the pepper family instead. But you can try. If it turns bad also then the virus is already in the soil there and it will need to be dormant for a season to die off.

If from the same seed source and you grew these from seed yourself then the odds are the rest of the seed is also contaminated and should be pitched.

Dave

Ugh.. Really stinks loosing a plant.. I just hope my tomatoes don't get infected. They are doing so well.

I tried almost everything including organic untreated potatoes. I put it right in potting mix, and it rooted, but no soots. Oh well, better luck next time. I grew 4 slips last year that my father in law brought up from Florida. This is what they looked like when I dug them up, and yes, they take a LONG time to mature especially up north. I used black landscape fabric.

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Edweather, those are beautiful sweet potatoes you harvested. I used the toothpicks method to suspend my sweet potatoes over water with about a third of the potato or less in the water. I've gotten lots of beautiful slips. When the slips are about 6" long I put them in a canning jar with a couple of inches of water in the bottom. They developed roots so fast I couldn't believe it. I hope I get as nice a harvest from each of mine as you did.

The sweet potato leaves from the one potato that developed a little sprinkling of white on them have died and it looks like it's spread to a couple of leaves on the potato I had next to it and the newest leaves on it have died. Isolation and destruction time. No matter, I have plenty more slips on the first sweet potato growing like weeds.