23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Glib, I'm sitting on 6.2 ph, which I figure to be pretty good for potatoes. Soils a little compacted, maybe more clay than I'd like... but I have access to large amounts of free compost and I'm adding a lot to the new beds. I guess I've never really seen firsthand what happens when ph is out of whack. Low yields? What else can improper ph provoke?

6.2 sounds great to me. Green with envy! :) Shoot I'd even envy glib's 7.6 as a starting point. But it takes a lot of work to get mine down to 7 with lots of compost, peat, oak leaf mold and sulfur.

As for effect of pH - skewed pH retards nutrient uptake - especially N - even when ample nutrients are available. Reduced top growth equals reduced production. In my vegetable gardens the most effect is on the root crops - garlic and onions, turnips, radish and carrots, etc. Doesn't bother much else as long as I can keep it in the 7-7.5 range.

Dave

Put a cover on them place on top of water heater t

3/23/15

For your purpose I would suggest a leaf type or a Romaine.

I would also suggest that you stick to a single type, as opposed to salad blend mixes. I grow lettuce indoors year round, and find that with the blends, some kinds overgrow and kill off others. Asian greens tend to crowd out leaf lettuces. Chard and baby kales grow at different rates. I'm trying to use up the blend seed and will then switch.

How can I delete it?

Can't delete it. Just don't comment on it and it will go away soon. :)

Rodney

You are welcome jenhp. It does not need to be this tall for broccoli. But I use it for Broccoli in the spring and fall and squash/zucchinni in the summer. The squash and zucchini try to bust out of the sides and the top. But without this covering, I can't grow these crops without a lot of losses or time wasted picking off insects or spraying heavily with pesticides.

I used tulle last summer to keep potato beetles off my potato plants. Worked well, so I expect I will do the same this year. By the end of the season I had some holes in the fabric, however - it seemed to be breaking down from UV exposure. I used 108" that I got at Joann's, which covered two adjacent beds, each of which had black plumbing tubing for a frame. I used water-filled milk jugs as weights on the edges and corners. I don't have raised beds. With a 40% off coupon it was about $1.65 per yard, so thanks for the links to various sources. I see that if I buy it by the bolt it can be ~$1 per yard.

It's another fine spring and as the snow draws back, I am sprinkling wheat-based pee-soaked cat litter on the sprouts from my bulbs. The squirrels were digging many holes and had munched the tops off some of my crocuses and tulips until I began this. Now it has stopped wherever the cat litter is placed. Luckily, if you have a cat and buy the more costly wheat litter, the supply of squirrel repellant is constant. It also worked for my sprouting seeds last year after much experimentation with various disgusting methods (see earlier in discussion). I hope it continues to work with my town squirrels. Dunno about the tough urban types.

We have indoor cats, and spreading their pee-soaked litter around my garden did NOTHING. Neither did pepper flakes. That was disappointing. Yes, it may be that urban squirrels are just tougher and more fearless.

As to chicken wire, be aware that squirrels will push themselves under the wire (yep, tried that), so the wire has to be very carefully anchored to the ground.

As to relocation regulations, yes, they vary. In my locale, relocation of squirrels to private property (without permission) is prohibited. But not being specified, relocation to public property has to be presumed legal.

I love what you are doing. Good for you!

Personally, I think you could put an indeterminate tomato on that pretty branch trellis. If it looks as if your plant might need extra support, you can simply tie a few key sections to the fence behind it to bear the weight.

I use a natural string made of cotton or hemp, even raffia, to tie up my plants so that I can compost it along with the plant later on.

The chain link is great too. Lean it against the fence with enough room for you to reach behind to pick peas or beans and it should be fine. It would probably work for cucumbers too. Check Pinterest for pea trellis and you will see all sorts of fun ones. I spotted one made from an innerspring from a mattress this morning.

A simple, cheap and renewable pea trellis is pea sticks, i.e. twiggy prunings. At the end of the season they can be composted along with the pea vines.

We live about a mile from a farm that grew cotton. Last year they grew peanuts. I think most of the bugs came to my yard that didn't get killed at their farm. I've had stink bugs and leaf footed bugs galore. I will definitely try your soap and tomato bucket. Thanks!

I have used a similar method to drown codding moths that attack my apples. This "brew" consisted of water, vinegar, molasses, and a bit of banana, hung from the tree limbs in cut off milk cartons (the plastic gallon sized ones with handles work best). The containers fill up fast and need scooping often, the brew just gets stronger with time and needs refreshing every 2 weeks or so.

I'll have to give your tomato/bucket method a shot as stink bugs and leaf footers are terrible here, for the asst fruit trees as well.

I am not a market gardener who is trying to make a living from what he grows, but I do grow vegetables for our family and of course, I want to produce as much as I can. And no one enjoys working hard on their garden only to see some of it destroyed by pests of any kind.

I was lucky enough, that my first gardening experience was meeting a new friend who had an organic vegetable garden. His enthusiasm and success was inspiring, and I started my own garden the next spring. That was back in the 1980s and I'm still gardening organically. I have not had a pest problem that ever tempted me once to buy an insecticide or herbicide.

Yes, I sometimes get a minor amount of slugs, oriental beetles and plenty of aphids and two years in a row, I had amazing numbers of ear wigs, but if I leave the aphids alone, the ladybugs are right behind them and make quick work of them. The ear wigs required a trip after dark with a flashlight to knock them into a cup of soapy water for about a week. Last year, we had cabbage bugs in the broccoli/cabbage and the next thing I noticed were wasps patrolling that bed and no more damage on the brassicas.

I have winter moths in my trees which I do nothing about. I have Red Lily Beetles that I hand pick. If I get too busy with other chores, the RLLB can get away from me and the foliage on my lilies can become a mess. But I can live with that. If it bothers me that much this year, than next year, I am sure I will pay more attention to picking them off. And if I get sick of picking them off, I'd rather dig them all up and get rid of them, than disturb the well earned equilibrium of my garden, by using a pesticide/herbicide.

This year, I'm concentrating on increasing the diversity of plant material that attracts beneficials and I want to provide pollinator homes and saucers of mud for butterflies. There's always something new to learn or to try that benefits an organic garden, and the more that benefits it, the easier it is for me.

Thank you Dave! I learned from the best.

:)

Kevin

I just bought myself a rechargeable Worxx Jaw Saw to keep the woody stuff beyond the garden under control and it is awesome. First chain saw I ever used that I can control with confidence.

Advice to others: don't try to use an auger with a rechargeable drill or you will kill the drill like I did.

The tractor is great for moving manure, mulch, etc. I otherwise mostly use hand tools in the veggie garden.

Just in case your open to organic suggestions I attract birds and hummingbirds to my garden. If a caterpillar eats so much that its walking on bare ground, it ain't got long.

That's not caterpillar damage I have cabbage worms and we both eat just fine.

This is cabbage worms

I know I like white butterflies so I plant ten for every one I expect to eat. Mature caterpillar will much on the peas.

so here is my suggestion

1. broadcast the seed so you have enough food for wildlife.

2. Grow some sunflower, sweet corn or sorghum.

3. Trellis some runner beans for the hummingbirds

3b. Grow a huge winter squash to shade the cabbage, later open one up and leave the seed for the swallows. Best mosquitoes eliminater ever

4. Put a little composting stuff near your vegetables to attract tiny flies that pregnant hummingbirds eat

5. Put a shallow puddle of water out

6. Plant some dill and other host herbs, let them flower.

7. Use compost tea to fight disease mine is made with tansy, soapy water for aphids until the hummingbirds clean them out , and yogurt paint for mildew.

8. Late at night arm yourself with a garden flash light and some bug squashing boots, then go get EM Slugs fyi kids love this.

lastly keep planting more tightly we never know how many hungry mouths are in the garden.

SJane's - I looked at your photo of the damage to your plants and I was thinking it also could be ear wigs. I've had damage, that I couldn't find a culprit for and decided to go out with a flashlight at night, and that's what it ended up being, ear wigs. Which I knocked into a cup of soapy water for a few nights until I felt they were under control.

At any rate, I never use a pesticide and I find that my garden has found it's own equilibrium, which just tickles me. Aphids show up and within a week, when I leave them alone, the Ladybugs show up and no more aphids. I actually end up trying to attract aphids to feed the ladybugs. lol

Last year, I had a lot of Brassica crops and I hadn't grown them in awhile, so I was concerned I was going to get cabbage worms, and I did, but no sooner did the cabbage worms show up, then I suddenly started seeing wasps patrolling my vegetable beds and I stopped seeing cabbage worm damage.

WHMaven - Thanks for your list - it's a good one. I'm growing sunflowers this year and I'm adding Scarlet Runner Bean for hummers. I never get hummers for some reason, but I keep adding plants to try to attract them. Last year, I noticed, a small little hummer buzzing around my pole string beans, which was a surprise to me. So, I asked about it here and found out they like Scarlet Runner Beans. I'm going to try to put out a feeder for them again. I've given up in the past. And I have honeysuckle early in the season and now I will have the SRBeans and a great place to grow a lot of them too.

We don't get swallows where I am in suburban/urban area with small 1/4 acre lots, and when I opened a pumpkin for the yard last year, all I got was squirrels. [g] They certainly enjoyed that for about a week. They would crawl inside the pumpkin and poke their head out. It was entertaining.

I'm also going to put a shallow saucer of water, but also a saucer of mud.

Had a lot of dill and other herbs last year and will again this year. I love to let Parsley winter over and flower for beneficials and reseed the next year.

Including a link to the video you are talking about in your post would be nice. Easy to do and it would save us having to dig through YouTube - much less have to watch them all - to try to find out what you are asking about.

The only garden girl videos I can find with any white row covers in it is the one using plastic to make low tunnels and old skylights to make domes over the beds. Then there is the one using white tissue paper to make seed tapes.

Assuming you aren't talking about either of those then Mike and zeedman provided the best guesses.

Dave

died I found it finally remember she was using a pH tester...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHRPU5Ghr_Y

Yeah, I tried finding tha video for several hours.. no luck... Exasperating thought I had bookmarked it.... so who has the best price for it? thanks yall

Dang, I even passed up some platic skylights at the Habitat restore plsce couple months ago... Dang I knew when I touched them they were good for something.. Yeah, I did the tulle thing. een sent twice for the 90 inch wide roll..... It doent last long...I even made gathered up "pillowcases for my blueberries one year. That was a mistake cause I had to carefully remove them tediously and they were easy to knock off unripened berries.. So now I just drape my tulle(Oh, old sheers(curtains) works even nicer.) over the hardware "cages" with clothespins.....down to the ground... I keep the hdwe cloth "circles on all the time. so I dont have to store them...keep them (cages")in place with a ground rod or tobacco sticks

Charlie, it's only been a few winters that I've had the room to try with the chokes, and none of them have been "normal". But yes, they seem to be fine with the normal course of things and revive after long hard freezes just fine. But we've had 80ð days in February and 26ð nights in late April, and it seems like they only have enough oopmf to get through one or two freeze-thaws like that. They will start growing again in March, then freeze out in a sudden late freeze in April. I've had them unprotected and lightly protected. I didn't want to encourage my voles with a heavy mulch. Maybe it makes sense they don't have too much in reserve, they are only yearling perrenials at their first winter.

If mine make it through to the spring, I will try harder to protect them from late freezes. And maybe I'll go out now and dig one of the small ones to try in a pot over winter.

I have a real challenge in growing artichokes being in Zone 5a. Have had seed sprouting success but thats about it. I wonder if you could do the following:

put some ground cloth over the plant before bedding it down for the winter then bury it with 12" or so of dirt

Then in the spring uncover them after the night temps are above 45 degrees or so then make a mini-greenhouse that you put over the plant, along with a bowl of water inside, until the day temps are in the mid-70s. I am doing this for tomatoes; in SE Wisconsin we have cool springs here with possible snow up to 1st week of May some years. I will be doing this this year for my peppers and tomatoes.

Another idea, which I have not tried personally, would be to bury some fresh cow dung near the plants which will provide extra heat and create a mini-climate near the plants all winter long (you'd have to remove it plus some surrounding dirt in early spring and throw it in your mulch pile though or I would think you might burn out your plants)

The mini greenhouse is just a square frame of 2x4s with holes drilled vertically and 2 loops of wire at right angles to each other; then clear plastic stapled on the bottom where the frame touches the ground.