23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Orange cukes usually means past ripe, past ready to pick. Perhaps your definition of "halfway mature" needs to be adjusted for the variety you are growing? Size isn't the most valid indicator.
On the other hand incomplete pollination and/or fruit abortion are other possibilities too but that normally shows up when the fruit are still small. If you are convinced you have adequate pollination then fruit abortion would be the most likely.
Stressed plants will abort fruit. There are numerous causes for stress - over-watering, lack of proper nutrients, root damage, weather, too many unpicked fruit on the vine, etc.
Dave
I also use the baggie/coffee filter method. Different varieties of peppers can take longer to germinate that others. I don't give up on them until the seeds mold or rot(sometimes after a few weeks). I take out any that have sprouted and pot them up, leaving the rest in the baggies to give them a chance.
Suggestion for growing melons on clay soils:
We didn't have room for melons in our garden until the guy who rents the farm ground around us started leaving a small field fallow. The ground was a pretty well spent corn field with heavy clay soil. Butâ¦
I found that I could grow good melons on the ground by giving just the soil for the "hill" some special preparation. I dig out a hole a bit over a foot in diameter and a foot deep, dumping the soil in a garden cart. Then I use my shovel or garden fork to work fertilizer, lime, and peat moss as deeply as possible into the bottom of the hole. I also mix a bit of fertilizer, lime, and a good bit of peat moss (about as much peat as the soil I dug) into the soil in the cart. I water the hole thoroughly, return the soil mix from the cart to the hole and transplantâ¦adding a bit more water with a bit of dilute starter fertilizer mixed in.
I mulch our melons with grass clippings, mostly from the part of the field we don't garden (and keep mowed as part of the deal with the farm renter).
We live in an area where much of the land south and west of us is clay soil where farmers grow lots of great, commercial melons. They're amazed we can grow good melons on our land. But doing each hole as I do is lots of extra workâ¦and the peat moss is expensive. But it just has paid off handsomely for us.
Here is a link that might be useful: Senior Gardening - Transplanting Melons
I agree that adding peat moss [and sand] to watermelon soil that is clayey, helps. I would spare the lime and give that to the cantaloupes.
Cucumber beetles can be a disease carrier for cantaloupes.
I find that diseases are a real problem if melons are planted into the same soil 3 years in a row. Orangeglo is a very healthy grower. Most of my favorite melons are hybrids.
Yeah, in my experience constant hilling accomplishes nothing. They don't seem to actually produce anything along the stems, just from the actual root cluster a little above. Hill them once just to help keep them stable, then let them grow how they want. When in doubt, have more dirt under them than over them.
Plants draping back down a trellis is normal/common/standard practice. Done with many different vining plants with no problems.
Cutting the main stalk doesn't stop upward growth anyway and only reduces production and since cukes can easily vine 10-12 feet tall or more there is no point to having a trellis so tall that you need a ladder to pick.
Dave
I follow this, because one time when I was putting onions starts in, I stuck them all over the garden, and I noticed that my snap peas in areas that had green onions growing in them only grew 50% or so of the size of the ones growing away from onions.
Now, this was just one season, so there could be another explanation, one trial is not conclusive, but, I find it pretty easy to keep my peas away from onions since then, and they all do equally good.
Maybe I will do this experiment again this year.
I have been growing walking onions for many years, and they grow all over. Because they are a perennial, they overwinter and start growing vigorously in early spring, right around pea-planting time. Whenever I have planted peas near, within their root-zone, the depressing effect on the pea growth is very significant. I speculate that the well-established onions have had time to saturate the soil with root exudate.
Spring-planted onions from sets or tiny plants would generally not have time to have that effect. Perhaps later in the season they could depress new-planted beans, but that is not a situation I have observed.
Found out most of the tank is chemical treated.
So I think I'll stay away from those.
One of my tank which hold random fish does not have chemical substance in it.
It is quite murky and you can see feces all over the bottom.
One of them, less murky and is used to grow tons of aquatic plants.
I assume those 2 would be safe to grow vegetable in?
I'm very new to this myself. Just can't get over the facts dirty water contain so much good foods for the plants!
Oh yes, fish water, especially dirty, poopy, fish water is great for gardens. I have had gardens since childhood, and also aquariums, and always put the water change water on plants. I use this to water my vegetable seedling starts exclusively until they go outside.
I would put it on my vegetable garden outside, but it is too far to carry buckets, so my hostas get it once I put my seedlings in the garden,
I can't think of any aquarium chemicals for FRESHWATER aquariums that would be an issue, with the exception of treatments for disease or parasites. I would avoid that tank water for a while.
my neighbor gave me a starter off her artichoke plant when she handed it to me the leaves were already wilted over the side of the pot, i water it and its still wilted, and the leaves at the edges are drying and starting to get a little brownish
how do i bring it back to life???
I'm not too familiar with artichoke...
In general when taking cuttings, it can be very helpful to remove most of the leaves (all but the tiniest new leaves) to prevent water loss.
Keep in full shade, keep the soil moist, but not soaked. Misting it a few times a day may also help.
Unless like every leaf is destroyed, it'll recover on it's own. Although I've never seen a whole leaf sunscalded, and it's been a big problem for me. Well, a problem as far as aesthetics are concerned. My plants produced fine even with the scald.
Cucumbers? Maybe, if you plant one to a pot and trellis them-you need some sort of watering system for hot weather though they will dry out so fast.
Green beans-absolutely probably 4-6 plants per bucket if you get the bush variety, I don't know about pole beans-they are much bigger plants but I haven't grown them and don't know how huge the root system is.
Snow peas-you can plant 10 or so in a 3 gallon bucket-maybe more-tiny superficial root systems and short plant life to begin with-they will die when it gets hot regardless of where you plant them.
I have four 5'x10' boxes terraced into a hill. I've grown all kinds of beans in the boxes, as well as tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, peppers, eggplants, carrots, leeks, lettuces, herbs, peas, cabbages, kale, you-name-it.
I find the boxes offer an advantage with certain vegetables, although some of that is because they are terraced, with one side about waist high. With beans, for example, I sow the seed fairly densely, use no trellising, even for pole beans, and get a nice dense mat of beans climbing all over themselves at a perfect height for harvesting.
Planting big leafy vegetables like zucchini is pretty cool because I can easily peek underneath and admire the whole other world under the leaves that looks like a veggie wonderland.
I have three 4x8 beds, and two 5x16 beds, and a long "u" shaped bed around the perimeter of the garden. I have grown pole and bush beans in the beds and they have done very well. Bush beans can be succession planted by planting again as soon as the other is done. With pole beans you should be able to plant things around their base that dont get too big.
Tammy
Here is a link that might be useful: My beans in raised beds
Inadequate/insufficient pollination (aka fruit abortion). A common problem when grown in greenhouse where insect-vectored pollination is difficult. There is a FAQ here about how to hand pollinate.
Some plants will also abort fruit when they become overly stressed. For example you have several cukes there that are clearly ready for harvest if not going past ideal harvest. Leaving fruit like that on the vine stresses the plant. It can only support so many fruit at one time and begins to shut down if not kept picked. Cukes are notorious for shutting down if not kept well picked.
In a GH excess heat can also be a problem.
Dave
It is often called wide-row gardening - fairly common practice been around for probably 30 some years - see link below for pics in links to info.
And yes i have used it for years. Others here have posted about it too but I can't recall who off hand. One recent discussion I'll see if I can find for you.
Some do enclose the beds but usually with a moveable frame of some type. I guess because they like the appearance better or something. But most don't. I don't. You don't have to alternate the beds but it is easy to do and quite good for the soil improvement. And if you have a series of them then rotation is easy to do, just skip 3 rows over for tomatoes or whatever each year.
If you use clover or rye for the ground cover (aka green manure) you'll get good break-up of the clay soil too.
Bought compost can be risky from what I have heard. Never had to buy it as we do plenty all on your own with the hay fields and cattle manure. But you have the space now to start doing your own so get a good load of manure and get a big pile started. Meanwhile there is good stuff out there and you'll need to track down a good source to get incorporated into all your tilled clay.
You can buy it in bags but that can get expensive so look for a source that does active hot composting rather than just stock piling it, uses diverse ingredients, and that is at least 90-120 days old. It should be a good dark brown in color, smell like earth not ammonia, and crumble well in your hand with no big recognizable pieces.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Wide row gardening
I wouldnt go to the big box stores for my plants. They dont know what they are doing. The Home Depot near me had tomato starts for sale in late March, when the safe planting time is typically Memorial Day
My friend used to work at HD, and they stuck him in the garden center. When he told them he didnt know cr*p about plants, they told him "just fake it"
Ya, no kidding.. I walked in home depot nursery and asked the lady if they have blueberries in stock yet, she said no.. I walked a few steps, and right behind her was dozens of blueberries.. She then walked down the isles and took note of what they have, at least she's smart enough to learn...that's a good start.. That being said, big nurseries, people who know what they are doing ship plants to big box stores, they just waters them,etc... I would buy at my big box stores if I had to, they had very strong bushy plants.. I bought blueberries at home depot for $4, they would be 20-30 at my nurseries.. They are in great shape.. Keep an eye out for farmers markets/flea markets, they sell very cheap.. Just call around, you'll find something..
Joe