23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
I think flat collars would be easier to fit than cups. You can buy them ready made or make your own. Google cabbage root fly collars.
Here is a link that might be useful: Root fly collars
Jerusalem artichokes are quite late to show here. Mine are not yet up. BTW 'germinated' applies to seed, tubers just 'come up' or 'sprout' ;-)
If the old stems are visible you could dig carefully down a bit next to one and see if there is any sign of growth.
We had a very cold spring over here and things have only just started growing. Hence the weed explosion. Nothing has yet germinated on my allotment and I didn't even bother to sow anything until last week.
Assuming you marked each end of your rows with sticks or markers of some kind, you could just remove any plants growing either side of, say an 8 inch strip along the row and leave the rest. Then your rows would be defined and once any seedlings start to appear you can begin to id them.
Germination is generally slow still due to the chilly start so you need to wait at least 2 weeks before expecting to see anything, maybe even longer.
Lastly, allotmenteers are usually friendly people, so ask for help from your neighbours.
Zucchini is not a plant that lends itself to container growing anyway. The stems and leaf shanks will always break as it drapes over the container edges simply from the weight of the leaves not to mention the fruit..
It works best in ground where it has support for the stems as it spreads. This one is beyond salvage I fear. You have plenty of time to direct seed in the ground.
Dave
Just so you know there is a Soil & Compost forum here for questions such as this.
What is enough? Recommended minimum is enough so that at least20- 25% of the soil in the bed is compost. More is better. Goal is 50% compost.
For most people "enough" means as much as you have or can afford to buy.
Old or new? Old means the composting process is finished and called "finished compost". So that is the best for mixing in with the soil. "New" means it is still decomposing, still using up nitrogen, and it isn't "compost" yet. It can be used as mulch on top but should not be mixed in with the soil as it can bind up nitrogen needed by the plants. Or it can be left in the pile to finish decomposing.
Dave
Yukkrui -
What I did was to store my leftover seed potatoes from the spring planting in the 'fridge. This kept the growth of the eyes slow enough that when I planted them in July and August they were "normal" I.E. the eyes hadn't formed 6 inch long stems!
Ok thanks, I have noticed that some plants are more temperamental than others. My cilantro and green sweet basil was very sensitive to the sun for hardening more so than my others that I have already hardened off. I just started hardening my ornamental peppers and red basil. I put them out for about two hours yesterday and four hours today in direct sun, they look like they are handling it well but it is a cool day today around 50 degrees. I just put them in the shade though to be safe.
I have just been putting my plants out as weather permits. Leaving them in full sun all day, but the weather has been cool so far with highs in the 70's. I just watch them and see how they do. Yesterday there was a few looking a little stressed so I moved them to the shade for the night. I will have to bring them back in this evening tho as we are expecting 30 degree temps again tonight.
Tammy
But then of course the weather changes year to year. I have planted cole crops in mid April - this year the snow keeps coming down, and the ground is still frozen. We just got another 2" last night ! I am hoping thats the last of it.
With your weather , everything you sowed should be just fine.
Re: the black plastic, is your concern that it will get too cold at night for the seeds to germinate? Be sure to check the temps under that plastic to see how hot it gets. Everything you planted actually prefers cool weather, so I don't know that you'll need to warm things up that much to get them going. Definitely make sure the plastic is off as soon as the seeds germinate - it sounds like an easy way to accidentally cook them. :)
Thanks, I hadn't thought of that. I kept thinking it had to be a seed thing, but my experience with seed germination was always a) it germinates and b) it doesn't germinate. I hadn't realized that a newly germinated seedling could be affected by the way the seed had been treated. Makes perfect sense, and now I've learned something new. It's almost as if the endosperm were affected and has not been nourishing the seedling properly.
Well, we'll see what happens. I'm guessing they will recover.
thank you so much. I am so glad that I found this site and joined. I am learning so much. It pretty much has to be container planting based on the rental property until next year. If anything it has been a great experince for my son and I researching and reading and watching the plants go from seed to plant. Thank you all.
It is always unfortunate when you are given bad news. If you really want to learn the most out of this and truely are limited to pots, then I say start new plants and keep the old ones going as long as they can. You can compare the difference between direct seeded and transplated squash/cucumbers. To have the best chance you want to get as large of pots as you can find, half whiskey barrel size is preferrable.
They're doing this to document climate change? I'm sitting here in Boston freezing my a$$ off - it just cracked 40 degrees at 1:00 PM. Weather Underground tells me the normal high is 59 degrees. All my early crops went in late, and are barely breaking the surface now.
I know why they waited so long - leaf out is late this year, so there was no hurry.
Those dates are recommendations. A week doesn't matter at all, go ahead and plant. There are very few things in gardening that aren't flexible.
Agree that those dates are just recommendations. They mean do not plant before but anytime after is fine.
Please include your location or at least your gardening zone in any posts or replies. Your location makes a BIG difference in the information we supply to you.
For example, in much of the country this year normal last frost dates aren't valid as frosts are coming as much as 2-3 weeks late. So be sure to check your long term weather forecast before planting.
For future reference, it is your soil temp that best determines when seeds should be planted, not some artificial dates on a calendar. So learn to measure and monitor your soil temps.
Dave