23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
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.
This is exactly what I did last year. IMO, by the time the beans grow up over the trellis and shade the potatoes, the potato vines are starting to decline and have done their job already. I was reluctant to dig the potatoes (Purple Haze) close to the bean roots, so I left them in the ground until I cut the bean vine down...maybe 6 weeks later. The potatoes were perfect. I'm doing the same thing this year. The potatoes are just breaking the surface now and I'll put in the beans in another 2-3 weeks.
Use a hand-held magnifying glass to check the undersides of leaves for spider mites. They make thousands of pin-prick holes.
Predatory mites are usually used as a control in greenhouses. Act quickly, or you could lose your crop.
Here is a link that might be useful: predatory mites
Thanks a lot for the response, i checked and looks like spider mites. I will try to get the predator mites from Koppert, but that is going to take a few days, please let me know if there is anything else which could be effective, searching the web, i found the below, please suggest if this could work to slow the spider mites down until i get the predator mites? If not, please suggest an alternative:
- Mix washing detergent (1 tbsp) and neem oil (30ml) in water (1L) and spray the same on the affected leaves.
thanks,
nivin
Yes, lemon thyme is more cold-hardy but they will both be fine.
My experience with the dead looking thyme branches is:
1) Sometimes they leaf out much later, so it's worthwhile to not cut them now, and
2) Sometimes they are broken at the base from animals lying on them. Thyme plants are a warm, dry, good-smelling nest :/. If they are broken, you can pull them out.
Oh, and:
3) Sometimes it''s not the cold or animals, but shade that kills parts of the thyme plant. If your sun angle is markedly different in winter, for example. Thyme do not like shade.
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The oregano is just doing its normal thing -- it is a true perennial, which means it dies back to ground level in winter and resprouts from the roots. Go ahead and cut off the dead stuff; that part won't green up.
This year you can cut oregano to the ground in the fall and/or when it starts to flower, and dry or freeze it for winter cookery :).
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
There is no harm in planting it in the ground, quite deeply, just to see if it will take off eventually. But best to start some more at the same time.