24,795 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

I've had good luck with D'Avignon, which is a fast-growing French Breakfast type. For round, German Giant works for me (despite the name, don't let them grow to a giant size - harvest at golf ball size or less). Radishes are best grown in spring and fall. If you're south of the 40th parallel, it isn't too late for you to seed a fall crop of radishes now.

Know all the methods of weed control. I also have my own liquid weed killer....that works on weeds only. WEED MAN is dead to me. .... Will be using landscape paper and outdoor carpet in a small area, just to see how it goes. My dad has outdoor carpet on the deck for years, never became moldy...just became thin with wear and tear. I think landscape paper will change the degradation of the fibers. Carpet that has been left out for tooo many years, with a lot of moisture will rot. for sure. Called a carpet depot... Dark brown outdoor carpet is not cheap, custom order. This is an experiment at best. Hope it works.

Lizzah, I think the difference between carpet on soil and carpet on a deck is air circulation. Decks have narrow openings between the boards that allow water to drain and sir to reach the underside of the carpet, whereas dirt maintains a moist surface against the underside of the carpet, at least here in NH where we get something over 40" of precip annually.


vamtngranny,
Heavy Hitter is a Clemson Spineless variety of heavily branching, high production okra. It starts producing tender pods within 60 days after germination, so it's popular with market growers, being one of the first varieties to be ready for sale at the Farmers' Market.
The pods are the same as Clemson Spineless in quality. They are tender up to 4 days old. Tenderness has more to do with pod age than with pod size. With lots of rain, a 6" inch pod will be tender at 4 days of age... With little rain, a 2" inch pod might be tough at 4 days old.
I pick the majority of my pods at 4" inches. Any longer, and no one at the Farmers Market will buy them, tender or otherwise, folks just don't trust long pods.
With okra, a lot depends on weather conditions, but if you are familiar with Clemson Spineless pods, then you already know Heavy Hitter. Just picture a much higher production rate, due to several fruiting 
branches.

Thanks. It seems clear from everyone that TP works, but I'm a little surprised because, in fact, TP doesn't start to disintegrate when it touches water. I can take a piece of single-ply TP, wet it, and pick it up with a penny on top. The penny won't fall through. It may be that after a few days it degrades some, and it may be that a seedling is just more knife-like as it sprouts than a penny. Kind of fascinating, really.
I really can't imagine it working well with paper towel, however.
I'll be trying this in a few weeks with some carrots. I found it VERY irritating trying to plant beets uniformly after the seeds had been soaked. They stick to your fingers, and to each other.

We use the cheap brown napkins that you get from a lot of the fast food restaurants (and they usually give you wayyyy too many). The trick is you want to use the cheap TP, or cheap paper towels, 1 ply, and not the heavy duty super 2-ply stuff. If you can dampen a corner and it almost falls off, your seedlings won't have problems breaking through.
I use the seed mat/tape method so much I even made myself a huge cardboard template with the spacing marked off in marker for different plants. Just lay my napkins over the right spacing and dot away with my glue/seeds. Works like a charm.

I've tried them a few times since that post, and have been very pleased every time. I am not saying that they are as good or better than a good, summertime vine ripened cantaloupe. But what had and has me so excited about them is that they are a great WINTERTIME melon!! To be clear, I know where they are grown and am not saying they are grown in cold (ie winter). But almost all the cantaloupes I get in the grocery store in winter time are just awful. I'm sure its because they have to be grown so far (south) away at that time of year, and the long journey necessitates them being picked very green and perhaps most wintertime melons are bred more for shipping stability than taste. All that may also be true for melorange,, but they are still very, very good melons in spite of all this. Best melons I've bought this time of year.
BTW...Thanks, daninthedirt, for the heads up on the seeds! I'm not at al surprised to hear they are hybrids, but at least now I know saving seeds is futile in all probability. Thanx

I made some pepper jelly with my bonanza of jalapenos. The recipe calls for bell peppers and jalapenos, but I just used jalapenos. Super yummy! It is the recipe in the Pomona pectin box.
I also smoked a bunch of the ripe (red) ones; then they are chipotles. I was going to make chipotles in adobo sauce at first, but now I think I will just grind them up as use as chipotle chile powder. My jalapenos never get very hot though. I thought is was because we just don't get that hot here on the coast, but it's been plenty hot this summer.


zeedman Zone 5 Wisconsin, you can set your profile to accept all messages at the bottom under edit profile and then advanced settings. It still just sends you a message that you have a message, but then it's easy to give that individual your email if you want.


There were some light, misty clouds here when the eclipse started which made for good viewing. But when the moon was about half eclipsed the cloud cover became heavier. Fortunately, when the moon was fully eclipsed there were breaks in the clouds and I could see the moon perfectly. Beautiful.
Rodney


Sorry I didn't get back to the thread sooner. I'll take a couple photos and post them. I haven't checked under the leaves for critters, but other than that I haven't seen evidence when working around the plants. It has been a weird year weather wise and the bugs have been busy. We had a massive Japanese beetle infestation on one single tree (a linden) which has never happened before.



Sugar production in plants is a direct conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide and water to sugar, by applied sunlight. That's photosynthesis. So I suspect you need carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight. It happens in the foliage, and not in the fruit. I guess in general a plant with the healthiest and most aggressive foliage, with maximal sunlight, will produce the most sugar. As you say, nitrogen is essential for lush foliage, so you could say that nitrogen is essential for sugar production. Of course, you could overdose with nitrogen and just burn the plants ...
It's certainly true for melons that plants with fewer healthy leaves make less sweet fruit. Of course, the sugars that are photosynthesized by the plant get divided up in the plant, and concentrated in the fruits. So it stands to reason that a plant with more fruits is going to have fruits that are less sweet.

Temperature is also partially responsible for upping the sweetness of fruits and veggies. Cooler temps increase the brix level because the plant starts to convert starch into sugar, which is why sweet corn picked in the early morning, after several hours of nighttime temps, will be sweeter than ears picked right before supper time, potatoes stored in the refrigerator become sweet, and also why some hardy greens are better picked after a frost (increasing the sugar level acts as an antifreeze to protect their cells from bursting).
So, for example your tomato, at least one of the myriad of factors could be micro climate. Perhaps plants in one part of the yard, say way out in the back 40, experience somewhat cooler temperatures than ones planted right up next to the house.




Wine cooler seems like a waste. Look on craigslist for a free/cheap fridge or freezer with adjustable temp.
Also hot garage = appliance overworking = shortened life + wasted electricity.
Veggies that don't store well at fridge temperatures, including in my experience, are eggplant, okra, green tomatoes, green peppers and sweet potatoes. For all of these except the sweet potatoes, a fridge set to its warmest setting will maintain 45 degrees which is warm enough.
Potatoes can be stored in the fridge provided you let them warm up for a couple of days before eating them, otherwise they do taste a little sweet.