23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

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.

Definitely have to grow it now. I didn't realize it was Mexican saffron. Thanks for the help!

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 .

I confirmed that it's Oxalis when I got home yesterday and it has indeed spread it's babies all over the garden.

How to tell if a plant is a weed:
If you pull it and roots come out with it, then it's not a weed.
If you pull it and only the top portion breaks off and roots stay buried, then it's a weed. :-)

Are these 'seeds' hybrid?

Seedless watermelons are sterile hybrids and are grown with a pollinator plant so they can produce fruit. In your case, I assume your Black Diamond will pollinate your yellow seedless variety. Good luck with them!

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.

So sorry for your hassle. Raised beds and hardware cloth are working for me. Jack Russels can do more damage than the gophers!
How does an electric fence work for gophers? I have one for the above ground pests.

Given that you already have a garden (so you can't use hardware cloth) and don't want to use poison (me neither) I think your best bet is to get Macabee traps or similar from other vendors. Macabee traps are no longer made in USA, so you might as well buy whichever ones you can find readily.

Next year, use hardware cloth.

This year, go fill in all gopher holes and flatten all mounds. Then watch for new activity. As soon as you see new activity (a wilting or missing plant, a hole, or a mound) place a trap. If you find a missing or wilted plant, you can dig in that area and find the gopher tunnel leading away from the plant. It can be tricky to find it. The act of digging may partially cover the hole. Probe the sides of your hole gently with your fingers. When you find the tunnel, place a single trap in that tunnel. Stake the trap so the gopher cannot pull it farther into the tunnel. Do not use any bait. Cover the whole area with a board or something so nobody trips or sets off the trap. If you catch nothing in 48 hours, give up on that location.

In my experience, there is little or no gore. Usually the gopher is dead when I find it. The trap is not supposed to break the skin. Some people like to leave the dead gopher in the hole. They think it deters other gophers. I don't do that.

In general, clean up after the gophers so that you can readily recognize fresh activity. When you see it, don't wait. Set the trap right away. After you do it a few times, and if you keep the supplies handy (gloves, traps, stakes, and a trowel or small shovel) you can set a trap in less than 5 minutes.

You can also probe for main tunnels by randomly digging around active sites or using some kind of stick to probe. If you find a main tunnel, dig it out, and place two traps facing away from each other in the tunnel.

I have a very high success rate trapping gophers with single traps in the tunnels leading away from a plant they have destroyed. These are feeding tunnels, and they come back to see if they can continue to feed, I guess. I have seen so many gopher damaged plants, that I can spot it very quickly, before the whole plant is gone. This may be a critical part of success. Once the plant is totally gone, maybe the gopher won't revisit that hole.

Gophers are solitary except during mating season and child-rearing. Once you catch one, you are usually done at that location. Don't bother resetting the trap in the same location.

Gophers do not hibernate (it is not cold where they live). Gophers stay below ground as much as possible. Trying to eliminate them with BB guns and slingshots and such will not be effective unless you have a team of people watch the garden 24 hours a day.

Gophers DO NOT climb over small obstacles. They will not enter a raised bed if it has boards around the outside that stick up above ground, and the bottom is closed off with 1/2 inch hardware cloth. For me, galvanized hardware cloth lasts many years underground, and comes up with no rust at all. The galvanization is critical to having it hold up. There must be no gap between the hardware cloth and wood. There must be no holes in the wood (I mean, no holes big enough for a gopher to go through).

Gophers may enter a raised bed if there is dense vegetation or a dirt mound forming a ramp to the top of the board. Likewise, they do not climb over wire plant baskets which stick up out of the ground, but may get in if dirt or vegetation forms a ramp. They will happily burrow through compacted roadbed gravel or decomposed granite.

The vast majority of deterrents don't work (according to UC Davis).

Chewing gum does not work. A researcher in UC Davis fed it to captive gophers for many years.

Gophers do not spontaneously go away. If you see no activity, that does not mean they are gone unless you did something. Gophers can tunnel horizontally for a long way. The same gopher may plague both you and your neighbor. Gophers can easily burrow under sidewalks, driveways and streets.

There may be plants that gophers don't like, but I don't know which ones they are. They like all plants that you might have in a vegetable garden including garlic. They like many landscaping plants, and can kill small trees also.

Feel free to repost with or without attribution (and don't worry, I didn't copy it, it is original with me).

Red Russian also self sows very effectively. I haven't had to sow any myself for years.

I'm growing Red Russian this year. It's milder and plant more than you think because it cooks down to nothing!