23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

The containers are about a square foot. I will eventually removed some of the plants to stretch the experiment but it will be too crowded to grow to maturity. The two 1:1:1 mixes started of quite equally but the one with the sphagnum moss peat started to outgrow the other one. The coco peat was not buffered so maybe there are issues with Ca uptake.

Sounds like the Square Foot Garden mix - Mel's mix.

They sure are healthy. What do you fertilize with?

Lovely plants but only time will tell ;)

How about some true scientific exploration, though. Document the habit, especially the flowering and suckering of the plant. Maybe you'll discover more dissimilarities that could help tell the two apart?

Right Steve - now I know you are in Yorkshire everything looks different. I sowed my first row of peas last week under cloches and I am probably at least 200 miles South of you. I think maybe you have been sowing too early. You need to adjust recommended sowing times since you are further North. I moved down from York and found Spring a good 2 - 3 weeks earlier where I am now. And if you are up on the Moors or somewhere it may be even cooler. I do not expect this first lot to do brilliantly but I get itchy fingers on sunny days in March. My best peas will come from an early April sowing. Try Douce de Provence - those were my best last year. BTW I would not soak peas in your climate. The danger of the weather turning cold and your pre germinated seed sitting for days in cold wet soil is too great. I would also never water them except at sowing time unless we have at least 2 weeks without rain (ha ha). We have long slow cool Springs compared with most posters on this Forum. Even those who are currently still under snow will get much higher temperatures than we ever have pretty soon.

Thanks Floral - We are down in Leeds and have a well-sheltered spot - but I think you are right. I know ouur "last expected frost" date for the area is mid-may (though just here I think maybe May 1st is safe) - while a friend in Bristol says his is late March!

This last batch were in seed compost in short lengths of gutter in the cold frame - sowed late February - but they showed no sign of life until I brought them into the greenhouse and put them on a heated propagator for a few days. By then, I reckon the damage was done. I'm going to wait for this current spell of bad weather to blow over before I try again - maybe next week - and under cloches.

Concur with one exception. Calcium has no effect on pH. The base in alkaline soil is the OH radical. Limestone( Calcium carbonate) does neutralize acid because the Carbonate radical reacts with acid. Same type of reaction as Tums in your tummy.Some places will sell calcium hydroxide which is a base and acts fast. Gypsum is Calcium sulphate a neutral salt. I certainly do not recommend it, but the commonly sold Rot Stop is Calcium Chloride also neutral, but I do not want to add chloride ions to my soil.

You might consider the following:

* Beneficial microbes (via manure, compost or whatever); these can sometimes help nutrients to be available

* Organic certified potassium sulfate (this should help your plants to be less finicky about water, and may help prevent BER; it may reduce your PH a little, too); additionally, there are many perks to potassium, if your plants aren't getting enough; potassium sulfate is better to use than potassium chloride, since potassium chloride kills beneficial microbes in the soil.

* Loosening or aerating your soil (you could till the ground, attract worms, add perlite, peat moss, cover crops, organic matter or maybe even sand); compact soil can cause issues with potassium and maybe calcium

* Add plain sulfur to make the soil more acidic. This potentially might make your calcium and potassium more available. However, it may take a long time to work. I hear it's easier to raise PH quickly than to lower it quickly. I don't know a lot about adding sulfur. There may be some drawbacks.

Sorry to bump up a thread this old, but I really want to know the answer to "aclum"s question 4 posts above. I have googled this topic, but still I am confused. Thanks for your help.

If all the plants are short, then row orientation is irrelevant. Taller plants cast a shadow, and the footprint of that shadow - and its movement throughout the day - needs to be taken into account.

I use both N-S and E-W orientation in my gardens. Whenever possible, I place the tallest plants in the North side of a bed, in E-W orientation. This results in a zone of permanent shadow, so E-W orientation in the middle of a bed will result in loss of usable space. Because of that, I often place paths in that location, or a block of corn. (And BTW, those shaded paths are most welcome in the dog days of summer.)

If I use tall trellises in a N-S orientation, then I try to grow plants of medium height adjacent to them, so that shading will be less of an issue. These might be shorter trellises of cucumbers, or caged tomatoes. In areas with hot summers (such as when I gardened in SoCal) some plants can benefit from being planted on the East side of tall crops, so they will be protected from the afternoon heat. Tomatoes really seemed to like that arrangement, it caused a major reduction of sunscald.

If you are planting a lot of tall crops, then the amount of shade increases, and wider row spacing is required to compensate for it. I often plant adjacent 6-foot trellises for various beans & gourds. With E-W orientation, the plants get full sun all day, but only on one side; and rows need to be spaced 3 1/2-4' apart. With N-S orientation, plants get equal sunlight on both sides... but the rows will shade each other both early & late in the day. If spaced too closely in either orientation, then the plants will be top heavy late in the season, with little growth - or yield - in the shaded zone.

Shebear brought up a good reason to use tall crops, which is as wind breaks. I plant tall trellises on both the North side (running E-W) and the West side (running N-S) of my gardens, to protect from cool NW winds. Here in the North, heat-loving crops (such as okra, eggplant, and watermelon) do better in those protected micro-climates. Furthermore, those outside barriers usually sacrifice themselves to protect the interior from the first frost.

I also use tall trellises as baffles, to block or re-direct pollinators for seed saving. In various locations, both N-S and E-W rows serve that purpose.

So really, the question of row orientation is dependent upon your gardening philosophy. If you have limited space, then using only short crops - or a row of tall crops on the N side - is the best utilization of space. Rows can be closer together, so you can grow a greater variety... and orientation won't matter.

But if you have more space, enjoy picking without bending over, or prefer to grow varieties that climb (as I do), then just consider that planting tall crops is planting shade, and plan for the shadows accordingly.

Depending on how you're suspending your light fixture, you may be able to suspend it at an angle so that there's a high end and low end to the fixture. Then you just arrange the plants underneath according to height as best you can - sort of like when the children line up in The Sound of Music.

Thank you everyone! I plan to plant the tomatoes and peppers tomorrow. I'll post a photo so you can see how it all turned out. :)

That's a pretty epic auto correct fail.

I would personally not be worried after a single winter.

oh boy, all this time I have planted where earthworms, mice, slugs, chipmunks, squirrels, roly poly and birds defecate. Garlic and brassica beds outside the fence get fertilized by deer, rabbit, and groundhogs. I am way outside of organic standards.

George, you've sold me. It certainly sounds like the garden huckleberry is worth an experimental season. Unfortunately, I don't have 10 acres to play with, and end up growing some things in 5 gallon buckets. So I have to plan carefully for seed starting, planting space and yield. But from your description, it sounds like the GH may just thrive in a bucket and I'm looking forward to a new garden experiment. Thanks for all the information, and I hope to hear more in the future about your jam.

Petro

Obviously, if you're getting green foam, you have picked the huckleberries too soon. When ripe they are uniformly a deep blue black. In fact, they may be mildly poisonous if still green. When they are ripe, you do not need to use baking soda or even lemon juice, just berries, water and sugar.

Cutworms do their total damage very quickly on baby plants and as Nitsua above mentioned DE works slowly via death of 1,000 cuts. By the time a cutworm dies from DE the damage has already been done. DE is best for killing insects that destroy adult plants more slowly such as sucking insects.

Yes, by that measure, DE might well be helpful in general control of cutworms. But it is uneffective for protection of specific seedlings. The lore is that it is good for the latter. It is said that a ring of DE is a barrier that cutworms won't cross. I think that is simply untrue. They'll cross it once, but maybe not twice. So the best way to apply it for general control is not as a barrier, but spread uniformly over the bed, ideally well before the seedlings are there.

I've got extremely bright grow light inches away, which is on 16 hours a day. I didn't want them to get burned!

Don't get over concerned about the looks of the plant. Just keep the plant alive and set your goal to produce a healthy root to transplant. You'll have your work cut out in preparing a bed and caring for the first year plants but if you keep focused on root issues all else will fall into place.

I will definitely look into someone who can prep the beds in advance of our arrival. That would be a lovely thing to pull into after a 1500 mile drive. I'll definitely take balloonflowers advice and come armed with my cuttings.
Galinas, you have outdone yourself. Thank you so much! I'll try to identify some good places for seedlings, but you may just end up with an email from me :)
You have all put my mind much more at ease. Now I feel like at least I know which way is up. I can't thank you enough. And I'll let you know how it goes!

I would start everything from starts for this year, anyway.

Get to know your new community. Where are the organic nurseries/places to find organic compost/soil etc. You might want to get in touch with your local freecycle.com to get manure/compost/soil. Freecycle is like Craigslist, but a little more local. Also check out the farmers markets, both for plants and veges you might not have time to get going in your area right away. In the NE, you seem to have a limited growing time (I'm in No C, so I have a 6-8 month growing time.)

I would look up your extension office to look up optimal planting times and transplanting times. I'm guessing that you have a fast intense growing period, where we have a long , slow growing time.

We are lucky to have a very organic area. Our dump compost is certified organic, there is a farm inside the city limits (100 YO) that sell their homegrown organic starts for 1/2 of what hoity toity organic nurseries charge. We also have several garden sales( ALL happening right NOW!) of organic starts. We also have a Baker Creek store just a town away! Nancy

I also have had no luck overwintering the purple sprouting broccoli, so this year I started some seeds early and hope the plants are mature enough to accept spring chilling. They are hardening off now, will go out under cloches in a few days.

Nope - didn't have a hoop house. Guess that was kinda dumb! Oh well, now I know.

I was lulled into a false sense of security by the broccoli that survived on my deck last year with no cover, but I guess the deck has it's own microclimate. We had a lot of snow cover this year (same as last), so I thought maybe that was the trick. Next year, I'll cover 'em.