23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
You can drape something light over your remaining plant during the hottest part of the day...I used a semi-sheer curtain. My plants were on the west side of our building(when we were in Wisconsin)and it got very hot. The fabric kept the plants cooler but I still had to water the containers twice a day.
Warm season crops will grow much better if you can maintain a minimum of 60F soil temperature. But you don't need to do it all courtesy of your electric bill. A black soil surface, black plastic or weed barrier alone or combined with clear poly over black will also heat the soil.
Generally ants (except fire ants) are considered garden neutrals and do little to no damage.
The possible beneficial role they play is to alert you to the presence of aphids - which are NOT beneficials and love corn plants. The ants eat the 'dew' the aphids produce. So examine your plants carefully for the presence of aphids. An infestation of aphids can do in a corn crop.
Dave
EricEngelmann... We have 8x9" (approx.) timbres boardering parts of our garden. The quackgrass goes not only around, but through the wood. I'm liking the vertical concrete paver idea (with bigger pavers), but how do you handle the seams? Doesn't the grass target those spots and get through anyway?
Currently, we pull as much as we can by hand and spot treat with glyphosate here and there. I've pulled two full wheelbarrows of rhizomes this week (my hands are sore!) from the front flower bed (2x50') and I haven't even gotten into the main veggie garden yet. It doesn't matter how much I pull - and I'm getting right down at least a foot, loosening first with a garden fork and then searching every square inch of soil for bits and pieces - it's a never-ending cycle. I think the stuff is unkillable.
I hate to say it, but that's pretty much the only solution for a bed in use-removal over and over again. I was lamenting how 3 years in I am still finding roots in the middle of some parts of my garden... Then we broke some new ground nearby and I got reminded how much worse it was when we started. :) Get something like a hori hori (sometimes sold as a soil knife or garden multi tool) if you are going to tackle it by hand. It makes the job much easier!
I've been told that a good dense planting of soybeans will shade it out, which is great if you are a farmer, and also that sweet potatoes and winter squash plantings will do the same. Haven't tried those methods, though I'm playing with the squash this year. If you want to start a new bed, get the plastic out now and solarize a new spot for about a month around the solistice. We're going to give that a whirl this year too, since we have a honking big sheet of plastic left over from building the hoop house.
And I've taken to rototilling a moat around my garden- a single pass around the perimeter every couple of weeks to help keep the stuff from invading the edges. Since it is already trying, and failing, I feel like maybe I won't be spending a hot august cursing the stuff again. Good luck with whatever method you choose, it will probably be an ongoing battle for life. My goal is just to turn it into a managable chore.
Sounds like it might be a cutworm. You can put a cutworm collar around the base of the plant. Use a toilet paper tube or a paper towel tube. Two or three inches inches high. Put it around the base of the plant and push it into the ground. Diachenous (sp) earth will kill snails and slugs. It is make of crushed shells, so it isn't a chemical. Try not to inhale the dust if you do use it. It can hurt your lungs. Good luck! I lost several kale seedlings to those boogers.
My brother gardened on Cape Cod back in the 1970s and got very good results. As soon as you scuffed the surface, you got sand. He used eelgrass as compost and mulch. If nothing else, I'd focus on crops like carrots and parsnips - they'll grow great. Anything that likes good drainage shouldn't need a lot of soil amendment.
Aphids seldom move rapidly.
Thrips do. - a potential problem but no reason to be present on dying leaves.
Psocids also move rapidly. -- not a problem.
But since the leaves are essentially dead, remove & discard, then keep the healthy part of the plant healthy.
Usually that's day from planting the seed and assumes good, warm, growing conditions. If planted during cold weather in spring it takes longer. 50 days from transplanting seems very short to me. But I'm growing large fruited melons rated more like 85 days.
It sounds to me that you have 90 days growing season from transplanting. That should make early melons OK.
Um what could I use as insulation on the outside of the container?
Also a very dumb question but you said if you were to wrap something around the container that's wet, it would reduce dewpoint (as you said the temp of the container). My other question about wrapping something wet around the container, would you wet it before you wrap it around the container, would put it already wet on the container, or does it not matter either way?
The problems I'm referring to with sun scald is on the foliage not the fruit of the plant.
You're not reducing the dewpoint. The dewpoint is the dewpoint. It's a function of air temperature and humidity. You can see it in your local weather report. It's a property of the air around the container (and you).
Excuse my lesson here ...
When you're wet, you feel cool, right? That's because as the water on you evaporates, it cools. The warm molecules of water depart, leaving the cool ones behind. The dew point is what the temperature would be if the humidity were 100%.
See here ... http://www.dpcalc.org/
As you can see from that handy calculator, if the air temperature is 90F and the humidity is 50%, the dewpoint is 69F. So if you're at the pool, and you're wet, as the wind blows on you, it's going to feel like 69F. If the humidity is lower, you'll feel colder, right? Ever been wet in the desert? Ouch! In fact, that's why air conditioners in the desert southwest work inexpensively by blowing air over water -- "swamp coolers". That only works well when the humidity, and the dew point, is low, which it usually is in the desert.
So the idea is to keep your container wet, so as the breeze blows over it, the container will be cooler. It's hard to keep a plastic container wet. It dries off fast. But if you cover the container with a thick layer of absorbant cloth -- a towel, or a piece of thick rug, you can soak it with water, and it'll stay wet for a while. When it dries off, just hit it with the hose. As the water slowly evaporates, the cooling cloth will cool the container.
That's why a porous planter is a slick idea for this purpose. The moist soil inside keeps the outside a little moist, and so cooler than the outside air. With a porous container, you don't need to be wrapping towels or carpet!
I've never really heard of someone trying to cool a planter, but if you're serious about it, this is the first thing I'd try.
Thanks Dave, I never thought about ventilation. Having said that, I don't think cooking the plants will be an issue. I live in Ireland. We don't have an abundance of heat or sunshine here. Quite the opposite! Thanks also to fruitnut, that info is handy to know for next year but since I've already bought this roll of poly, I might as well use it this year.
This post was edited by Growing-In-The-Dark on Sun, May 19, 13 at 16:34
As long as it's think enough, your plastic should hold up for a season. If you decide you want to grow under plastic next year, you would be better off getting UV-resistant greenhouse plastic. Do be careful, though - just a few hours direct sun can cook plants if there's no ventilation.