23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

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.

If you want to read through lots of "what's your favorite tomato" discussions check out the Growing Tomatoes forum here. There are several discussions running there now.

Are you more interested in cherries or beefsteaks, reds or some of the different colors, determinate plants or indeterminate plants? Don't really care much for cherry types except maybe Sungold and a few of my personal favorite large-fruit varieties out of the thousands of varieties available are Mortgage Lifter (any strain), Cherokee Purple, Giant Belgium, Richardson, Todd Country, Big Rainbow, Tidwell German, Sainte Lucie, Black Krim, and Neves Azorean Red just to name a few.

Dave

Here is a good discussion with some 90 responses with long lists of favorites for 2015.

Whether it is a vine or not all depends on the variety. There are easily 50 varieties of zucchini.

From the photo I would suspect it is just a break from the branch weight and that is a fairly common problem when even the bush types are grown in a container, especially when the container is to small to "contain" the plant. As the plant outgrows the sides of the container the weight of the branches causes bends and breaks.

However SVB (squash vine borers) are also a real threat. That yellow in the pic could be the dross of an SVB and I see all sorts of little black specks on the stems that are possibly eggs. But they don't normally cause a full break like that. No idea what your zone or location is but if you have a plant that big already then I assume you are in deep south and SVBs would already be active there so researching them would be beneficial. Tons of info available here about them in past discussions.

Dave

Sorry for the delayed response here. (Busy work week) Thank you both for your comments.

@balloonflower, I don't know enough about the variety to know if it's specifically intended for containers, but this isn't really growing in a "pot". It's a 4 ft x 8 ft planter intended to be used as a square foot garden. The Zucchini is planted in one corner so that it's leaves will be outside of the container on 2 of 4 sides.

@digdirt2, I'll look into SVB a little more. From what I've read after reading your post, I don't think that's the case in this instance. I havent seen any of the adult moths around and the "specks" in the photo are just soil debris from rain. That said I'll look into placing some yellow traps out to keep an eye out for them. I'm hoping it's just a weight issue. I've tried gently "lifting" the branch to see if I could just support it a bit, but it seems reluctant to bend upward. I suppose possibly it could have already begun to heal in it's new position. None of the scars / wounds are outside of the container though, the main stem hasn't yet reached over the edge.

I'll keep monitoring it. I'm in Zone 9 so it's already quite large and flowering. Hopefully nothing causes it to fail completely on me. Because of the space needed I only planted one.

Thanks again for the comments!

OOPS!!!

My bad Wayne. Not OragneGLo, I tried it a while back but got the same results you stated. I meant to type "Gold Strike", an orange watermelon that beats all I've tried so far and I think it was one you suggested a few years ago? At any rate I like it and Raspa as my 2 top sweetest melons though they both push my henia to the limit :)

vgkg, I have had varying results with Gold Strike too. Some are superb and some have lacked that extra flavor. Yellow Crimson is good....let melons mature.

I guess I just don't understand starting with Sugar Baby. I would think that it would be more of a fair melon than great. Melons are very disease prone and I would want my first endeavor to be of the very finest varieties...before I might get disease in the soil...been there much.

"I'm not sure about right there together, growing from pretty much the same spot, but I've read that if they grow a bit apart but have "leaves touching", it is a good way to grow peppers."

I can vouch for the benefits of that philosophy, for most peppers. Peppers enjoy humidity, and close spacing results in a tight canopy which traps soil moisture. It also reduces sun scald. For all but the largest plants, I use 12" between rows, with plants 24" apart in a staggered pattern. This results in about 15" each way between plants, and C. annuum peppers (which includes sweet peppers & most fleshy hot peppers) thrive at that spacing. Keep in mind that is in the ground, not in pots.

As for using 2 or more plants in a pot, that depends upon the size of the container. I would not recommend planting more than one tomato in a pot, regardless of size (unless you are planting in a large barrel or something similar). The only exception might be currant tomatoes; I've grown more than one in a container, to intentionally stunt their otherwise huge vines.

Pepper plants are more tolerant of being closely spaced, and you might be able to plant 2-3 in a large pot, but I would space them evenly. I've had good luck with spacing smaller hot peppers this way, but bell peppers are not as tolerant.

To separate small plants without damage, immerse the soil in water until it has become semi-liquid, and shake the container while pulling gently. Unless the soil was tightly packed, the individual plants will pull out easily. I use that technique to separate nests of onion seedlings.

So if I have 8 feet of row, I should try and plant 10 plants in a wide row? I am planting Ace which are small plants, and Biscayne not sure how big those are.

it seems like they would grow an awful lot in a month and a half. and take up so much room.. that would be quite a few 6 inch pots......ah well prob will try anyway.. why buy "starts" when I got "sprouts" from my organically grown ones..... Duh me..... thankyall

If the stems get too long, you can cut off 6-inch tips and root them to increase your supply of slips and control the size of the plants. I do grow mine in pots, but a friend over the ridge, where it's warmer, puts his sprouting sweet potatoes in a bucket of damp sand and keeps it in a warm place. He gets really nice slips this way.

Technically yes but it will be quite bitter.

Wayne - just type, highlight (as if to copy) what you typed then click on the I. When done click the I again to turn it off or the whole post goes italics.

Thank you Dave.

1. pallets are not usually constructed of pressure treated wood. It would be quite unusual to find any made with it.

2. the methods used to make pressure treated wood available to the public no longer contain arsenic (since 2002 laws).

3. painting and sealing is your option but I would hazard the guess that most do not do it. I wouldn't as it not only makes the project much more work and time intensive and is strictly appearance oriented, not functional. Plus it may increase the rot rate of the wood by not letting the wood dry out when wet. I think you'll find you'll will have enough other issues with using pallets without putting all that work in up-front. It is one of those recent trends that looks easy in theory but turns out to be more complicated in actual practice.

Hope this helps.

Dave

Dave your the man :) thanks for your advice, very helpful :) have awonderful weekend.... I may be back for future advice, keep an eye out please :) Off to make the possiblities a realityyy:):)

Yeah, normally the term "community garden" means lots of different folks will be using it to garden and each of them decides what they will plant in it. All the garden manager has to do is divide it into plots and oversee the usage and the access to water.

If this is instead your garden and you are growing for all the employees then you can plant whatever you wish after a survey of them as to what they would be interested in eating. For example why grow radishes or winter squash if no one wants to eat them? :)

The size would limit you on some crops as they would need much more room to produce much unless you wanted just 1 or 2 vegetables growing there. But tomatoes, green beans, leafy greens like spinach and lettuce, green salad onions, cucumbers, yellow and green summer squash, hot and sweet peppers are always popular.

You could divide the plot into 4-6 plots and treat each as a separate bed, 1 for each crop you pick, and that way you can do succession planting (ie: plant the beans in the lettuce plot after the lettuce begins to bolt from the heat).

Hope this helps.

Dave

I helped a friend plan a garden at a Kaiser Medical facility. It was not a community garden, but a garden showing how many plants could actually be grown in a back yard in this area!

I would also check out some community gardens in your area to see what they are growing, also ask the employees what they want and what is available in your area! Nancy