23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Are you sure you have adequate drainage holes in the window box? You should be able to water until water comes out the bottom. You have fungus gnats because of the soil you are using, which is not really a good soil for containers in spite of what the label says. Push you finger deep into the soil mix and see if it is soggy or just damp. If it is soggy, your plants can develop root rot.
It would be better to use a sol-less mix that doesn't include the organic ingredients like bat guano and poultry manure. But, since you have already planted, I recommend adding mosquito bits (or crumbled up mosquito dunks) to your water and using that a few times on your soil. They contain Bt, a very safe organic insecticide that is the only thing that can kill fungus gnat larva in the soil. Fungus gnats won't kill your plants, but they won't help either.
<I have a 12" plastic planter and two 36 x 6.7 window boxes.>
Not nearly big enough for banana, bell, and Jalapeno pepper plants. 5 gallon buckets or equivalent are the very minimum for for those varieties. All 3 types are easily 3' to 4' tall plants, easily 2' to 3' wide and with a root ball 12-18" wide. I strongly suggest you invest in much bigger containers to transplant them into and as Ohiofem said, fill those containers with a good quality soil-less potting mix, not a potting soil for best results.
Dave
Good point about the flea beetles. At that size/age they can destroy the plants. When larger plants go out they can usually tolerate the flea beetles. So consider some row cover for them - will both warm them and keep the beetles off.
Dave
Agree. leaf miners. They don't pose any real threat to the plants. As mentioned just remove the leaves and/or squish the worm.
As for the yellow bottom leaves, that is usually from over-watering, a common problem when using containers as you are. Since nutrients leach out of the pot every time you water you need to replace them regularly and make sure your water pattern is one of consistency - not too much and not too little.
Plus there is clearly lots more room in your pot for more soil. The more soil in the container the easier it is to stabilize the watering.
Lots of info about all this over on the Container Gardening forum here.
Dave
Honestly, most all seed vendors - even the big box stores - now offer many heirloom varieties of seeds so you can probably buy many locally.
The problem is that for marketing purposes many vendors label them "heirlooms" when they really are not. They are open-pollinated varieties, not hybrids, but don't have the age or documented history to really qualify as heirlooms. So it is a shopper-beware situation if true heirlooms are what you want.
Dave
Very strange weather indeed NHBabs I wish I could send some of this rain we are getting to the NE. I'm just the opposite here in Kansas City area (where it is currently raining again), other than watering in a few seeds I have not had to water my garden at all this year and it is a good thing that I raked up raised beds in my in ground beds or everything planted in them would be drowned. I can't walk on the paths between the raised rows even though I put down cardboard and grass clippings over them. Things are looking up though with the 10 day forecast showing only a small chance of rain any day. I think most of the farmers around here managed to get their corn planted, but I don't think many soy beans have been planted yet.
Because my feeling is that the containers (especially with the loose 5-1-1 mix) won't support the spreading branches after a while. I figure the upper branches will rest on the cage as it grows upwards. It's just an experiment at this point. Last year I grew yellow squash in regular growing soil and it didn't do so well so every year I try something new.
In my area, we've been having problems with this sort of contamination for at least 5 years. None so far this year but it's very early in the growing season for us. Warm weather crops aren't in as yet.
When you obtain the manure, you can -- and should -- ask about any herbicides used on the farm or by the farmer.
But you need to know that some farmers won't have a specific answer because they have hired a pest control company/person to do their spraying for the crop/pasture. Even so, the farmer can request that info.
Okay, I first saw the info about managing soil where contaminated OM was used in WSU info about clopyralid contamination. (Clopyralid & Aminopyralid are very similar herbicides in their action & persistence.) http://puyallup.wsu.edu/soilmgmt-old/Clopyralid.html .
I don't see it now, but as I recall, the gist was to irrigate & cultivate actively through the season. Growing a "grass" (corn) would do the same thing and, IMO, make better use of the water.
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I thought I was well informed about contaminated OM, but I hadn't come across some which has been added to this thread.
So, here's a plea to PLEASE include URLs for the info you're turning up. Doing so helps us all.
Hard to say without a picture as there are different patterns of yellowing and they mean different things. I will say that putting potatoes out in Albuquerque just 3-4 weeks ago sounds rather late. Admittedly though, New Mexico is not conducive to potato growing but it is fun to keep trying.
Many tomato growers do advocate preventive spraying for fungal diseases. Chlorothalinil or Daconil is considered most effective, but I am nervous about using it. So I have used actinovate, neem oil and serenade with some success to slow down early blight. I haven't had problems with other diseases, so I don't generally use fungicides on anything but tomatoes.
Champion is an early red radish and yes it is a cool weather crop. That means daytime temps consistent below 90. If you are in a cool summer climate they should do ok. Tops make decent greens when treated as a turnip green. They don't have very large tops tho.