23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Peppers should easily be able to recover from a few nights in the high 40's. Low 40's might be a different story. You say they are looking better now. Were they blooming yet? Did they drop their blooms? Seems like in zone 7 you should be fine. Even in WI, I put mine out by the end of May usually.
WEED CONTROL METHODS:
1- just pull them up by two fingers.
2- use a hoe (short or long handle)
3- mulch, mulch, mulch.
Mulching serves often more than one purpose: it helps reduce weeds grow : It helps to retain moisture . It helps to keep plants root system coolER in hot days.
Hand weeding is therapeutic. Just like fishing in a stream. And like Dave said, you can find out more what is going on.
MULCHING MATERIALS: Down south, I used pine straw(needles), that I collected for free. Also used wheat straw and tree leaves(Oak, maple). I never entartained the idea of using plasic, cardboards, newspapers. The last two would get just mushy and sticky when wet. I don't like walking on them. Plastics in the garden ? against my gardening religion . heh
Some great info, especially on watering. #1 killer of peppers is overwatering.
It should be noted, however, that if you are located in a Mediterranean climate summer can quickly exceed the threshold for most chile varieties, at which time blossoms and fruit drop and continue to drop until temperatures subside. Point being that in these hotter climates full sun is excessive and results in a lower yield overall, regardless of slightly better growth/yield in early spring and fall. In my experience peppers in the hottest climates require less sun and benefit from a break at some point, preferably mid-late afternoon.
Many people locally avoid peppers like the plague because they are directed to plant them in full sun when in fact it is too hot for them. When stall from June to August they are often ripped out before they have a chance in autumn.
In most climates the OP is absolutely correct but this should be noted for Mediterranean or hotter climate gardeners. I have a piece of burlap shading my peppers now and it hasn't hit 100ð yet. Technically 70ð-80ð is the ideal temperature range, IIRC.
Njitgrad, here is a pic of the manifold. I'm breaking it out to couple more zones soon. If you click the picture it should take you out to my photobucket... I snapped a few shots of the dripper stakes throughout my raised beds and in ground plantings. The containers in the pics are modified to be raised beds by cutting the bottoms out and burying an inch or two of the container.
The filter in the pic is to remove any chlorine from the supply, it's probably not needed, but it was cheap enough to do.
You do have a pressure regulating valve, I hope? I have basically a very similar system - drip tape for my 4' wide beds of lettuce, beets, beans, etc. and tubing with drip emitters (1 gal. per hour) for tomatoes, cucumbers and squash. The drip tape needs a valve of no more than 15 PSI. The drip emitters can handle up to 30 PSI. Both of these are much lower than the normal pressure of a water system. That could be a big part of your problem. I recommend the Dripworks.com site - that is where I bought my system but even if you don't but anything their site has a LOT of information on it. (I found out about it through this forum.)
Need the dimensions and why only 1/2 full of dirt? Plus what is the variety? Some get much bigger than others.
But using the 5 gallon bucket for scale then I'd have to say that yes, it is too small for all those plants. Fill it with soil and leave the middle plant might work. Are there drain holes in that concrete planter? If not that will pose many problems.
Dave
they said they were giant cucumbers. Idk. Would it be a good idea to transplant them? I put them in there with the premise of moving them in only a couple of weeks. Unfortunately the plot for them has taken longer to construct. Is this a lost cause for transplanting into the ground?
We started experimenting with early planting of corn, zuchini, and tomatoes a few years ago here in PA. I know it breaks all the rules, but it worked out so well that we kept doing it. Early to mid May for the zuke and tomatoes, and even earlier for corn. I will post my experience separately on the corn story in case others are interested in experimenting. I never could wait for sweet corn and I picked some last year on July 1.
This year we had to fight some serious frost, but it looks like we made it again. One day we will pay for our rule-breaking, I am sure.
Frank
It got down to 33 here -- slightly higher than the prediction of 29. I had most of my tomatoes and peppers covered with floating row cover, and some newly planted roses and peach trees done up in burlap. Everything survived quite well except for the one tomato I forgot to cover. I lost quite a few young leaves on that mater, though the bigger leaves survived unscathed.
I planted everything out just a week ago when the forecasts were calling for lows in the upper 40s all throughout May for our area. Silly me to trust the weather man. We've just moved to NH from NYC, so I can see that next year I will need to seriously adjust my seed starting and planting out dates. Live and learn.
This post was edited by galiana on Wed, May 15, 13 at 19:51
Let me guess - you bought the Jiffy "Organic" Seed starting mix this year? Gold foil-like package? Notice the difference in the texture and consistency? Been lots of complaints about it over on the Growing from Seed forum here the past 2 years since it came out.
Yes it gets crusty, no it is not sterile - has all sorts of composted chicken manure and feather meal added - and yes, germination rates seem to be very reduced.
Even the traditional Jiffy mix gets very mixed reviews at best but the so-called "organic" stuff seems to be causing folks even more problems than the traditional mix ever did.
Sorry for all the problems but for next year it really is worth investing a bit more in a quality, sterile seed starting mix. There are many brands available. ProMix BX is often recommended as the best but Johnny's also sells a good one as do several other seed suppliers. Fox Farm is another brand I have seen good reviews on.
Dave
Altito.
I meant what do you do with the harvested tubers. I know how to plant it.
I personaly like to pickle them. They make real crunchy pickle. You can also use the like Chinese water chestnut in stir fry or in soups(as you mentioned) or just raw .
I have never had to cut them back. But I can imagine that if you cut them they should grow more than one branch, just like sun flowers. When you cut them at 3 feet, they will grow branches which the will grow several feet.
pickling sounds delicious; i'll definitely do that next time. cutting at 3 feet does sound better when you explain it like that. it'll make the stem extra sturdy because the new branches should be fairly thin compared to the main stock. i like it. the extra branches should also be great for the bean poles. i planted too many compared to the jerusalem artichokes. this will even out the climbing area. thanks for the tips.
by the way, i'll cut some at 1 and 2 feet as well; for experimental reasons. check out this thread at the end of the season and i'll be sure to post an update.
Carrots are such a cheap item to buy at the store, that I do not bother growing them.
I think wireworms are the problem though, not cutworms. I would think that would be a big PITA to plant each carrot in a toilet paper tube... and not worth the effort for such a low value crop.
Different varieties of potato will different times last before sprouting. Looks like you got a variety that sprouts early. Personally, I'd probably compost those and start over. If you really want to use your own seed potatoes, you need to find varieties that will hold up until Spring.
If you want to plant those, go for it. It will be a learning experience.
What are you growing in there? If you are growing anything other than a leafy crop (lettuce, spinach, chard, etc.) that lighting setup won't provide enough light to produce a fruit, or anything worthwhile to offset the cost of the setup/lights. Does your apartment have a balcony? That would be a safer bet. I am amazed at the lengths you went to to grow something, and I wish I could see the face of your landlord if they ever saw that setup.
You pretty much have the same situation as people trying to grow vegetables in a shadier part of their yard. And the same advice applies here. Low light levels don't necessarily kill the plant they weaken it and make it harder for the plant to flower and produce fruit. So for something like a tomato or a pepper you might get one fruit on your plant. However if you grow something that only has leaves to begin with you have a much better change of getting something you can use for your effort. Everything will be weaker, stunted and more prone to disease, but as you have found out leaves still grow.
Thanks ABNORM ! Unfortunately I am a little scared to flood the system entirely since we are on the 2nd floor with the landlord right below us the last thing we need is to flood their kitchen as well! However, instead of the water running for 30 min increments 6 times a day, I just changed the cycle to run for 1 hour increments, 4 times a day. Hopefully this will allow them to soak up more water. The fabric we are using is capillary mat from the hydro store. We didn't know we were supposed to soak the fabric before using it, so once we actually soaked it the plants seemed to be doing MUCH better, however still not 100% I will let you know how they're doing with the new water cycle and hopefully there will be more improvements
WEIRDTREV, there a bunch of different kinds of cucumber, garden beans, and tomatos. And as for the landlord, he was actually stoked because he wants some fresh greens!
TO ALL, hopefully within the next week a larger, more powerful light will be added to the arsenal! Gardening is something very important to me as it is something I have been doing with my mum my whole life since I can remember. This is my first year not being able to have land to use so my incredible boyfriend built this for me so I can still enjoy this hobby.. I really hope they start to cheer up more!