23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Any organic matter helps - leaf mold, chopped straw or hay, cotton or coffee hulls, etc. Not as effective at compost but helps. Peat skews your soil pH so use depends on your pH. Sand, per all the discussions over on the Soil forum, doesn't help much and it takes a lot of it. Even unfinished compost works and it finishes composting in place. Did you fill the whole bed with only compost? Nothing else?
Your compost contains enough diverse components or just turf. Perhaps it needs more carbons added to decompose. Do you run an active hot compost pile or a stacked cold pile? What is available to you locally?
Dave
If you have soil that is heavily clay and tends to be slow to dry out, warm up, and tends to be cloddy, I think 3 inches of medium/ coarse sand can do wonders to loosen that soil up. For my silty clay loam I also add a good bit of peat moss. I love what this does for my soil. Just today I went out and tilled in the planting rows for a row of gladious and a half row of super sugar snap peas. How did the ground work up here in wetish Indiana?...like a sand box.
Rhizo1 ; Thanks for correcting my radical spelling of radicle. I actually do know better, but I'm getting old .....
(Interestingly the gardenweb spellchecker is objecting to "radicle." I wonder if I actually had it right to begin with, but the software radicalised it. Anyway, GW should know better!)
A passing update to soaking seeds, I also purchased some Lupine flowers which I hear are infamous for not sprouting without a good soak and possibly even some husk scoring. I soaked the seeds for 24 hours, and got about 50% of them swell and crack the skins to their seeds right off. Inside was a classic green embryo, however the others had shown no signs of swelling. I scored the ones who had not swollen with a simple nail file, and of those about 85% caught up to their siblings within just a few hours.
I've planted all my seeds now and already a Lupine has pushed from the starting medium and is trying to push out two cotyledons after only 12 hours. I expect 100% success with the lupines. :)
I'm never a fan of planting only 1 of anything. It cuts your odds of having any success way down. 2 plants will double your odds, 3 will triple them. Especially when cross-pollination is required. And one doesn't normally only plant one melon plant per mound anyway, you plant 2 and often 3 to insure adequate male and female blooms at the same time.
So I would success you sort your seeds, and if you don't want to grow them as transplants but decide to direct seed instead then plant 5-6 seeds of each in separate hills next to each other, close enough that the vines will be able to intertwine for pollination, and then thin each hill to 3 plants once the plants are 3-4" tall.
Dave
Hi Dave - thanks for the feedback. I do have asparagus in a bed all its own I have too many onions to put out in other places, and was thinking I might be able to use the room in the asparagus bed around the asparagus so it's not "wasted space" once the asparagus is growing to fern. Thanks for the quick feedback.
If your mix already has a little fertilizer in it, you're probably OK. You don't want to risk burning them. My eggplants were planted on March 14 and are still in their seed starting mix. I just gave them a very light feeding at 1/4 strength. In a week or so I will transplant to regular mix in 4-inch containers. They look a week behind the one you call your good one.
It is kinda funny about how some people plan their summer gardens on the basis of these hardiness zones.
Yes, although the hardiness zones are not necessarily indicative of frost-to-frost growing season, I guess they can be used that way. But formally, they aren't really all that useful for vegetable gardening. They're really mainly for shrubs and trees. The American Horticultural Society is specific about that, in reference to the hardiness zones -- "By using the map to find the zone in which you live, you will be able to determine what plants will 'winter over' in your garden and survive for many years."
Hey guys it matters!
Annuals will die earlier in different zones! I buy perennials and if it's hardiness is 20 degrees I won't buy it to high must be 0 or less TX weather is bi polar. I also determine hardiness by drought tollerence if it can dryout before watering and how long it will bloom here because plants bloom longer in different zones. Also lighting determines where I will place the plant as to what kinda of heat will be on the plant. TX heat and Sun time is a lot hotter...the suggestion for watering you can't follow here the same as other hot zones...Happy Planting
I don't know anyone who has rain all season. I sure don't and have to make sure the barrels are empty before they freeze and burst.
I set the barrels up to collect the early season rainfall. Sometimes I use it all other times I don't. If the barrels get empty I fill a couple from the hose which allows time for the chlorine to dissipate and for the sun to warm the water.
I have nothing to measure the pressure in the hose but I do know that soaker hoses require pressure to move the water from the inside of the hose to the outside. I have learned to use gravity where available and having a downhill slope to the garden does help the water to run to the end of the hose.
One secret to using rain barrels is to make certain they are on a level surface and they are elevated high enuff (alright two secrets) to get a 5 gal bucket under if you want to use gravity. I use cinder blocks, two high, with 2x lumber (say 2x8) across the cinder blocks to hold two 55 gal barrels.
A full barrel is extremely heavy say a 55 gallon barrel might be 50gal x8lbs = 400lbs. So you'll want to make sure the cinders are level BEFORE filling with water.
I do have to use a sump pump to get some rainwater up the slope to the barrels closer to the garden which I either use the soaker hoses on or just an open end hose for watering or simply washing/rinsing hands, etc. These are the barrels that I fill with city water if the need arises; been a couple yrs since that was needed.
I also use 30 gal garbage pails under the down spouts to facilitate using the sump pump (or buckets dipped in the water). I squirt baby oil on the water to deter insects such as mosquitoes.
The barrels have a cover and are not a problem with insects.
I do have another 30 gal garbage can with a spigot on the bottom I make compost tea in. Of course you can also just use a bucket to dip into the barrel. I use an aquarium pump in that to help brew but that is another topic entirely.
I found the article that I mentioned earlier...
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010137veg.roots/010137toc.html
ROOT DEVELOPMENT
OF
VEGETABLE CROPS
BY
JOHN E. WEAVER
Professor of Plant Ecology, University
of Nebraska
I've used trimmed branches as pea supports. Also, I sow peas in a 10" wide strip rather than single rows on either side of my current trellis.
Here's pic I found of branch supports - not mine, from the web - but mine were very similar...
I was going to ask how the area is prepared but I read again that it is a raised bed. In that case, there should have been so little weed in the first place. It seems like you have let it get out of control, though I have to admit that a 20x10 space might be hard to reach all the areas.
For a future time, you might consider making the space a little easier to access from outside of the bed. In the meantime, definitely a mulch will help.
I've always been pretty skeptical about weed-block fabric under a bed, because it's not going to block any weeds that establish themselves on the (hopefully deep) topsoil you have on top of it. That is, if it keeps weeds from growing because it prevents deep roots, why is that good for your tomatoes? I can certainly understand a wire mesh underlayment, to keep out moles, but vegetable roots can go right through that mesh. It won't stop the roots you want.
As to weed barrier fabric on top, sounds like a mess. You should know that at least Bermuda grass grows readily underneath such a layer. It'll keep spreading until it finds a gap to pop up in. As noted, the water permeability of the stuff is not very good. I know several people who have tried it, and nobody likes it.
I think the reasons are because of various people's different situations. For example, some will clear the sod and till up the area first. Others put cardboard or newspaper right on top of the grass. Still, others add the weed block to keep other plants down.
Some of it also depends on how deep your bed is and if you will mulch. Deeper bed and mulch helps reduce any unwanted weed seeds which may have been present in the original soil (assuming there was none in the soil above the ground)
So that's why there are so many ways to prepare a raised bed.
Obtain some packaged fertilizer for veggies, then follow label directions.