23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
I use thorny twigs/branches (like prunings from my roses and hawthorn trees) to prevent the stray cats from pooping in my garden beds. I plant my veggies and then lay the branches on the soil around them. Works every time.
Rodney
I think that's what crop insurance is for. We get hurricanes blowing up through here, usually the garden is winding down, and mostly it blows over the tomatoes and pole beans. Low growing stuff just deals with the wet for a couple of days... Mind you I'm no longer living in a flood plain. I was hoping this would be the year we did not get a hurricane. We've been getting them every summer and we didn't used too so frequently.
"I just saw an article that says we're in for quite the hurricane season this year. I'm really going to be ticked off if my carefully planned garden gets blown away.
I can just imagine how farmers must feel when some natural disaster ruins their crops "
They can never really predict how bad the hurricane season will be. We are way overdue for a hurricane in this area but if one hits here your garden should one of the last things you will have to worry about. Though normally the garden is pretty much finished by the time the hurricane start in this area.
The funny thing is that I had gone on the "Name that Plant" forum on Tuesday with an unidentifiable flower and it was a safflower thistle! LOL.
Are you going to try and grow your seeds? The yellow thistle petals are used in cooking. Mexican saffron.
There are many species of wild grape in the US, I forget how many... More than 40? Hard to identify, given such a brief description. Anyhow, a shiny leaf like the picture shows is a newly leafed out leaf, so maybe wait a week or so for the lewves to mature and ID will be easier. You can do a web search for "wild grape species PA" to find a list of species you are likely to encounter. Cheers!
The Garden Betty blog talks about gardening in the LA area--might be helpful since I assume they have about the same climate. (Link below.) I think she's grown fava beans over the winter, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, peas, and the usual root veg. Just about anyone's fall garden list would work, though I think peas would be easier starting in November or so than starting in the heat. But, the bonus is that you'd have the "fall" garden for two seasons, fall and winter. I'd imagine your winters would be perfect for the cool-weather Asian greens like Chinese or Napa cabbage (perfect for kimchi) and pak choi too. Regular cabbage, too, of course, for the kraut.
The most interesting thing I've seen her grow over the winter is cold-tolerant Siberian tomatoes, which produce reliably down into the 40s and 30s, I hear. Since it doesn't freeze where she is (or you, I presume) it gives her a winter tomato crop. Dwarf citrus trees might be an option.
I'm super jealous of y'all's weather, by the way. Here in Texas, our winters are colder, precluding (for example) winter tomatoes, but our summers seem way hotter too. The last couple of years we've had long 100+-day streaks in which little produces. Sigh. And the weather is so variable and inconsistent. Maybe one day ...
Here is a link that might be useful: GardenBetty.com
I am looking to do brussel sprouts, peas, fava and daikon this fall/winter. I have some fava that I started late coming in right now. Hope to get a decent crop before it gets to hot, but I'll be happy as long as I have seed for my fall/winter crop of favas.
I have some white russian kale currently planted that has been slow to get going, hopefully they will survive the heat and kick into high gear when the cooler weather comes.
If it hasn't been more than a few days since transplant, you should pull the peppers and use containers -- 5 gal minimum. You'll get a nice harvest with minimum investment.
Regarding the one that came as three -- take it and put in a bucket of water. Swish it up and down, knocking loose as much soil as possible. Take a spray nozzle on water hose and spray off even more soil -- gently. Then, when almost all soil is removed and all you got is the 3 plants and a wad of roots, GENTLY tug them apart slowly. You can then take each one and plant individually.
If you don't feel comfortable doing this, then just follow brittany's idea.
Ideally, 3 feet is acceptable spacing for tomatoes -- unless they're determinate. maybe 2 feet min if they are. So, leave the above plot just for maters.
Kevin
I would do what woohooman described to SOME extent. Just to put in water and shake a bit until the roots are untangled. I would NOT wash it with hose or anything else. washing it , to me, does not serve a purpose.
Also, depending on how close they are , you might be able to break them off without needing to soak. The Least disturbance possible the better it is. You may also use a sharp knife to cut to separate them, if they are not too close.
On the other hand, if you just need 3 plants, just cut 2 off and leave one. DO NOT pull them up. It can disturb the one you want to keep.
I grew tatume last year. It was a huge vine, giving good competition to pumpkins and other winter squash for size. I cannot begin to imagine a trellis that would be large enough to support even one vine. Squash vine borers left it alone, which was a big plus. But to me, it had even less flavor than zucchini, to which I think it most closely compares in taste. This year, I am growing a bush yellow crookneck under floating row cover in one of my raised beds and will pollinate by hand to avoid Squash vine Borers.
Thanks for the suggestion, TxTwiggy. I decided to try out a cattle panel trellis since they seem so heavy-duty. And donna, I was lured by the zucchini comparisons, but I don't think I'll be too disappointed if they're not quite as good. It has two things going for it that most summer squash don't: SVB resistance, and (at least supposedly) good production in summer heat. And it gets hot around here.
I'm not seeing any damage, I'm just very curious about what is going on. We do have tons of raccoons, do you suppose they'd remove the 2x4s holding the bird net down, mess about, then put thr 2x4 back just to mess with me? It's a funny thought to be sure, they are crazy critters, last year my brother woke up to find one in his car, sitting in the driver's seat with it's paws on the wheel. It was hilarious though it was probably just trying to climb up to the leftovers on the dash.
Wow. This is amazing mystery revealed by Dave...
I never thought that raccoons would do such a crazy things.
Years back, I used to feed them like pets on my backyard porch. Of course , it was just one couple , living in the area, with their new borne .
Some fairly urban areas have deer, but the people who live there see them all the time. (Monterrey for example). And gophers are highly adapted to many urban areas. They are a plague in San Francisco. Or parts of it. But usually you will see evidence of their work all throughout the neighborhood. So the mystery continues...
I'm in Utah as well (Spanish Fork) and have a problem with earwigs. Last season they ate entire seedlings. I solved the problem by sprinkling garden dust (insecticide) on young seedlings until they were big enough to withstand some damage. This year they are more concentrated in my flower bed feeding on the dahlias new growth. I used garden dust on them yesterday and hope they will recover.
May be with more plants, we can harvest some baby leaves and some mature leaves .. Based on all this, I wont thin anything out, however, I am going to move them from the egg container to 3/4" pots and plant outside when they grow 3/4 inches tall.
Brittany, this was the first year of growing from seed for me and I had read somewhere that I can use egg container instead of flats. I did not punch holes or prick the bottom at all. Its made of cardboard and I assumed that extra water will seep out. Next year I will not be using the egg container as I am not sure that it has enough drainage or depth.
I heard the same thing, that's why I tried them too. Yeah, I didn't like them for the long-growing starts like peppers--ended up having to transplant them into larger containers. But for greens it might work better. The roots did grow into the sides of the egg container for me, though, and it was inconvenient to try to cut apart the cells once plants were grown so that I could try to spoon them out more easily. Plastic next year, lesson learned. But, there ARE plastic egg containers out there, so maybe I'll try that.