23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
I had another male flower finally open. Again, not getting ANY pollen from it. I used different types of soft paintbrushes, but nothing. I also make the males kiss the females in a last ditch attempt!
Sadly, my fanfare cucumbers aren't growing as fast as my sweeter yet, so I don't have any other options when it comes to pollinating the sweeter yet cukes.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
I feel your pain. While we almost never break 60 at night, we will be getting into the mid-90s by Sunday. We have a chance of rain tonight and I sure hope that it materializes as some significant rain. It would help the fires that are burning and the plants are getting desperate (as are the bunnies). The only upside this year for me has been that weeding has been minimal.
Thanks, everyone for excellent advice. I go forth now with some confidence. I had never tried seeding anything here in July or August, and was wondering if it was a totally crazy thing to do. I resign myself to the fact that I'll be doing especially frequent watering.
I will take seriously the advice about Fortex as a good alternative to KW. Planting Fortex indoors and transplanting outside probably won't work here though, as hitting seedlings with 100F+ temps when they've been growing lazily indoors with a/c is probably not good.
One advantage with beans for hot weather sowing is that they get planted deep, so the soil they're growing in doesn't have to dry out.
If your soil is at all heavy, Dan, consider making holes in the soil with a dibble and filling the holes part way with potting soil, into which you will plant your beans, then cover with potting soil. Helps them pop out of the ground without messing up their first true leaves. Makes it convenient to inoculate them, too.
I start late beans and other seeds indoors in deep "root trainers" and move them into the 100 degree heat (with a little afternoon shade) as soon as they germinate. Have to keep them watered thereafter.
The Louisiana Purple Pod pole sounds good. Most of the time I plant bush beans, even though the harvest (especially on the most heat-tolerant varieties) is concentrated. I have lots of space for succession planting, though, and pole beans give out in our summer heat (pretty much no common bean I know of sets edible beans when temps are above about 104 for a few days). For fall, Espada is another white-seeded bush bean with some heat tolerance (probably not as much as Brio or Festina) which bears over a longer season. Some of the specialty bush beans also bear over a longer season.
The effect of plastics(similar to trash bags) is not so much for absorption of solar heat but slowing down the soil underneath from cooling due to convection(air movement). In effect, it keeps more of ground's own heat coming up. Average ground temperature is about 65F. which is almost perfect for most plants. So in the winter it cools down(even freezes) down to several feet and in the summer(depending on location) warms up to several feet.
I think, therefore, technically, plastics, black or any color, when tightly sitting on the ground, also traps the moisture. So as the surface temperature rises, the warm moisture penetrate deeper into the ground. That is the mechanism of heat transfer due to plastics.
I am not for plastics, because they suffocate the ground. I think the soil should get both sunshine and air. That is why the old tradition of hoeing makes sense. It might be hard work but it has benefits.
In other words, plastic row covering for the purpose of weed prevention and moisture maintenance, in hot summer days just not in harmony with the nature of the plants and the earth underneath. JMO, that's all.
Let me share my experience with row covers and plastic mulch. BTW, these are both new to me this year.
I have 4 raised bed, each 4'x 10'. For my cold crops, which I planted in early march (well before the last frost) I used hoop covers during times when the temperature dipped into the mid-twenties or less. I took it off during the day. I haven't used a row cover for them for about 5-6 weeks now and they have done great.
In another bed I have a combination of cold and warm weather crops. I planted mid-late April and even though I used a row cover, one cold windy nite zapped all of my peppers and tomatoes in this raised bed. I replanted and now all plants are doing well, including cabbage which is a new vegetable for me.
My other 2 raised beds are strictly warm weather crops (tomatoes, squash, melons, etc). They have IRT plastic mulch and row covers. These 2 strategies kept the crops in a warm environment even with cool daytime highs and they are doing great. I plan on covering the plastic mulch with organic mulch sometime in the next 2 weeks... depending on the weather.
Tom
Overhead sprinkling most definitely does *not* preclude deep watering. Once our plants are established, we usually only water once a week (if it hasn't rained) and it *does* go deep. I've dug holes myself to see for sure. You have to choose a good sprinkler that puts the water down nicely for your soil.
Healthy plants, at least those I've observed, do not sag under the weight of water from an overhead sprinkler. If they are, they're either already stressed or the sprinkler is applying the water too fast and/or the droplet is too large.
Watering with a good-quality overhead sprinkler is *not* aimless. If it is, you're not positioning it properly or you're trying to water in the wind. Get a better sprinkler if you're having problems getting the water where you want it.
Yes, some plants shouldn't be touched when they're wet. In my garden, it's beans. The solution is simple - handle them before you water them, just like you would handle them (weed, pick, etc.) before a predicted rain.
My beds are rectangular (11 by 15 feet on the west side and 11 by 18 feet on the east side) and Gardenia makes an adjustable (I have some other slimmer beds as well) oscillating sprinkler that's just perfect for their size and shape and the water pressure we're putting out with our pump. That's not to say it's the perfect sprinkler for someone else, though.
We're all entitled to our own method, experience and opinion. That's true. Those of us who overhead water - and have done so successfully for many years - are just sharing our equally valid points of view as well.
Annew21, in my climate and conditions, there is no difference between rain and sprinkling. I can't comment for anyone else's climate and conditions, though.
I've seen multiple ears coming from one node, but never with developed kernels on the multiple cobs...usually they're bare or extremely underdeveloped to the point where they're practically bare of kernels.
Neat.
Physiologically...a corn ear shank is part of the stalk...so it can produce multiple ears, it's just highly uncommon.
This post was edited by nc-crn on Thu, Jun 6, 13 at 0:54
Im way behind on both.. its been so cold and rainy here, of course the 3 days of sun we had got into the 90s and back to 50s and rain for this weekend.
Not really complaining, not just opitimal growth pattern. Still its nice to be outside from time to time.
Lettuce likes it =)
If you provide the good growing condition, they will resume normal growth. This happened to me once. There was a gourd plant , out of my garden in a hard clay soil. It was about a foot tall, yellow and had few flowers on it. I dug around it, removed the clay , as much as possible and replaced with good garden soil , watered it and took care of it. The plant dropped the flower and start growing and became a big healthy gourd plant ,with tens of feet healthy vines ,with many gourd on it.
Usually asparagus is fairly cheap. Were these bare roots?
It is going to take 3 years before a good crop happens. I have never staked any asparagus.
If you have critter damage you just need to protect them in some way.
Fed them heavily, make sure the soil is rich and deep and they should eventually reward you.
I guess patience is the key ingredient in growing asparagus.
Kevin... Alas, the bane of my existence strikes again... too short of a season! ;) But yeah, my main heads of broccoli average 1 to 1.5 lbs each. Love that!
QBush... re: right fertilizer at the right time...
I test and then feed the soil in the spring (if needed), use a soluble starter fertilizer when I transplant (I start my own from seed) and then add nothing the rest of the season. My neighbour down the road (we're rural) has very similar soil, but they don't add as much organic matter as we do. She plops greenhouse starts in the dirt, waters when she remembers, doesn't fertilize... and gets lovely heads every year.
Could it be that brassicas *like* to be somewhat starved in order to form nice heads (or sprouts in the case of the Brussels)?
Never heard that one macky. I think they all prefer pretty fertile soil. I think it's all about a timing thing. I've had differently timed successions of broccoli and cauli in the same plot turn out different sized heads. I can plant them from Aug-Feb, but I notice the closer I get to the winter solstice to planting, the smaller the head. Which makes sense because the amount of sunlight. I also notice that my winter harvests(when planted in late/summer/early fall) are a bit better than my early summer summer harvests.
With my Brussels, I get big plants and I get sprouts. They're just always loose leaf sprouts. I read last year that July is supposed to be optimum for them here, so I'll give it one more shot I don't know how that's supposed to work out though -- our summers don't really get going until late july.
Kevin
I had hard time growing my first artichoke. It did not give fruit/artichoke in the first year. It was planted in an area where it had full sun almost all day. Then I dug it up and moved it to a more shady part, and it grew way better. The long exposure to sun in Southern California seems bit too harsh for artichokes.