23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
IMO, burlap is not an effective weed control cover.
Another thing , probably won't decompose for a long time.
use mulch(whenever I can), that will eventally become a soil improver. I like free stuff like tree leavrs, pine needles, wheat straw. if you have small garden(,Under 100 sqr.ft), you can just enjoy weedind a few minutes a day and cultivate the soill. Weeding is essential in the first half of the season when your plant are small and weeds compete with them for nutrients. After that small weeds should not be a problem. actually some of it can be benefitial.
Still looking for thought on germinating under burlap...Thanks for the idea of cutting crosses and pinning flaps back. And the other thoughts.Im committed to the burlap coffee bags this year...i find find a layer of two is excellent and any weeds are weak.
Not worried about too much burlap. Do others have thought on my main question? o others?
I overwinter peppers routinely. Here in central Texas, it's just a matter of covering them outside. Don't have to bring them inside. (Well, except for a very rare very hard freeze.) But peppers are, for real, perennials. As noted, you have a big head start. I get my first fruit of the spring season in April, and actually get a few stragglers before that.
Just leave it as it is until you plant it outside and then prune any dead limbs on it. I have a birdseye pepper plant that I have been growing for about 10 years and I never do anything to it other than trim it back everyonce in awhile when it gets too big. It will freeze back to the ground some years but it comes back and grows fine. Right now the plant is taller than I am.
Uncover them. You start asparagus by digging a trench, experts have tested different planting depths lately and have found that 5-6 inches deep is ideal. They will do fine if planted deeper.
But you start with a trench, loosen the soil of the trench, and spread the crowns on top of the losened soil in the bottom, then you fill in the thrench with just 2 inches of soil. The crowns you have don't yet have the energy needed to push spears through 8 inches of soil, so you fill it in slowly as the spears grow.
I'd remove some dirt from the top of them, but be careful not to damage what's growing... You should see emergence with what you've got, it will just take new crowns a while to sprout.
Make sure you fertilize them lightly but constantly this year, don't let the brand new plants want for anything.
The idea behind filling in the trench is not to stress the plants, to make them spend every ounce of energy they have in getting ferns up after a fresh transplant.
Are they growing at an angle because I laid the crowns on their side,or because I put too much dirt on them?
Yes. plant with the crown straight up and the roots spread out in a circle around it. Then cover with just enough soil to cover until the sprout and then fill in the trench.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: How to pics
Thanks, Dave. By small, I did mean shorter plant. My assumption (know what that means) was that shorter plants could be planted closer and therefore better fitted to a raised bed.
What spacing is recommended for raised bed gardening? I have heard differing info that varies from 4" to 9" spacing. I think one web site even suggested taller corn be planted at 12" spacing.
What determines spacing is access and amount of nutrients provided, especially nitrogen. I use 12" spacing because of the way I feed it. But you can go closer (I wouldn't go below 6" spacing) IF you can still access all the plants for side dressing/fertilization/picking/pest control and IF you really amp up the nutrient levels at each stage of feeding.
JMO
Dave
http://www.nha.org/images/sites/OH-June2007-5-copy.jpg
copy and paste (can't do better, sorry! i tried!!) on the above to see a picture of the Nantucket 'oldest house' garden i am trying to copy. i realize the wood will rot, i just like the rough hewn look of it.
I make a rough estimate , just to get and idea:
in 200 sqr-ft raised beds you can plant 40 to 50 tomatoes.
( I assume 4 to 5 sqr-ft per plant).
Pepperss, eggplants need roughly same amount of space.
per plant. Squash things(depending on type and whether it is trelise or not) can replace 2 tomato plants. In place of one tomato you plant maybe 10 beans....
FAMILY NEEDS:
I think a reasonable estimat of one plant of tomato per person is enough, if you do not intend canning.Make it 1.5 per person.
ALL IN ALL, for a newbie and a family of 4 an alotment of 200 sqr-ft should be more than enough. You will learn your ropes as you go along. Nobody can teach you every thing here. Gardening is somehow like swimming.; You cannot learn it outside. Got to jump in , strggle, drink some dirty water ..LOL
To simplify things if you're expecting frost overnight, you could also just cover the entire thing with a really, really, REALLY big tarp (see pic link). This one finally bit the dust last spring. We'd had it for 14 years. Used it for all sorts of things, not just on the garden. Getting it up and over everything - especially the pole beans - was something of an art. Pic was taken in the fall (you'll see other odd blankets, old sheets and even cardboard boxes there), but the principle is the same in the spring.
Here is a link that might be useful: 
treehugger,
I use plain old shop lights. You need to keep them about 2" away from the leaves. I use a timer to keep the lights on between 16-18 hours. Don't start seeds too early to keep them short. I also give the plants a little diluted seaweed/fish emulsion to feed them. Last year, my peppers turned yellow and purple, due to phosphorus lack. They did very well after I added some fertilizer to my seed starting mix, which had none in it. Actually, it was my best pepper year yet.
Keski
If it's from "naturalnews" you can be sure it's crazy before you even click on it.
They specialize in half-truths, taking a point and going askew with it in order to fit an agenda of doom, straight out lieing, and general insanity.
This guy runs it...he's a guy with a computer degree who thinks he's an expert on medicine and health...and rather doomsday as heck...
http://www.naturalnews.com/038512_2013_predictions_insanity.html
Yes...that guy runs this site. That's what he thinks is going to happen to the US in 2013.
I read it. It is political of a sort, without a doubt
2013 will be much better than 2009, when the financial system was at the point of melt dow.
I believ that we have a right to criticize our leaders and government and voice our opinion but not with dooms saying. I have heard few of the dooms sayers boyh on the religious and political arenas over yhe years.
Agree with the others - that is not parsley. And I agree with those who said 2nd year parsley is worth keeping. I make a lot of taboulli, so have a big parsley patch.
In my experience, the 2nd year parsley comes up early in the spring - I'm a little north of you, and my plants are generally about a week or two behind those of friends in the Chicago area. Right now, my second year parsley is about 2 inches tall. It will set flower pretty quickly after it reaches full size. I will let it flower and set seed and will pull it only after the seed has scattered. That will seed my garden for next year.
I expect to start seeing first year plants any day now, growing from the seed of last year's second-year plants. The seedlings always come quite a bit later than the second year plants. I'll then transplant them where I want them to grow this year.
This system has worked very well for me. I haven't bought parsley seed or seeded my garden for at least 7 years and always have a nice, healthy patch.
About planting parsley from seeds & spacing:
I never try to plant pasley seeds by spacing or rows. Here is how I do it:
Get a container of about one quart, or larger.
Almost fill it with finely sifted garden soil.
Empty the pack of seeds in there. Keep mixing as thoroughly as you can. You can also do MIXING in a bigger container. Statistically and by the law of probabilities the seeds should be pretty much evenly mixed with the soil in the container. Even if it did not, the next step will do the trick.
Take a fistfull of the mixture and broadcast it over all of the patch. Take the second fistful and do the same...repeat untill all of the mixture is spread.
Now cover the patch with about a 1/8 to 1/4" fine soil or a with a mixture of soil, peat moss and compost.
Sprinkle the surface with fine and gentle watering can or hose shower. You don't want to disturb. so wait a few minutes and sprinkle a littl more ...third time... until the seeds/cover is fully moistened.
Once the seeds germinate and emerge, you may find a few that are too close and a few too far apart(less than 10 percent).
I would not thin any until the thinned ones can be used.
You will get to a point that no thinning is needed.
So, I did it!
I set up a table with its feet in tubs of water, and the starts have been on it for 10 days with no snail damage! They would not have survived one night without the moats.
I'm excited about this success, and will use the method again next year :).
Got you nila,
Today I made an arrangement for my seedlings outside.
I put a piice of pressed wood(4ft by fft by 1/2'' thick) on two upside down buckets. Then I sprinkled slug bait around the buckets. If the slugs get close to the bucket(to go up) they will die(melt down). So tonight I will sleep worryless. And since the slug killer is under the table, it will last quite a while even in case of pouring rain.
For table legs( 1.5" by 1.5") I suggested taping a rough sand paper., like 80 grit. Although I have not experimented this myselft but I thing slugs won't dare to crowl on that rough surface.
The unfavorability is all in the lengthening days and increasing temperatures. If you were to plant daikon, you would get the same story. Some vegetables are specifically fall and winter vegetables. Arugula behaves similarly.
Out of the 6 cabbages I had to pull 4 out of the dirt and the two left have not bolted yet. So I'm hoping with luck I'll get cabbage heads from those.