24,795 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

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daninthedirt(Cent TX; HZ10, Sunset z30, USDA z8a)

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.

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Humsi(USDA 9b/10a Sunset 23 SoCal)

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.

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thecityman, Zone 7a/6b near Nashville

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

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shagqueen51

I live about 10 miles where these are grown, small town in Georgia

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laura_al (zone 10; sunset 24) Santa Barb

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.

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laceyvail(6A, WV)

I freeze them whole and cut them up as needed. They defrost very rapidly.

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nancyjane_gardener(Zone 8ish North of San Francisco in the "real" wine country)

zeedman, have you looked into local seed exchanges or libraries? They are very popular here. One of the percs of the one I attend is that all the seed is organic and from plants grown in my county! Nancy

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NHBabs(4b-5aNH)

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.

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floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK

Rhizo - many thanks for drawing this to our attention. In the end we set the alarm for 3 am and went out and watched twenty minutes around totality from the garden. It was completely silent, despite our living in city, and surprisingly warm - a great experience.

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theforgottenone1013(MI zone 5b/6a)

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

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theforgottenone1013(MI zone 5b/6a)

Agree that pics of both the plant and leaves will help with the ID. I've got no idea what it is.

Rodney

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glib(5.5)

mongrel tomato is my guess. The plant should prove such hypothesis 100%.

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toxcrusadr(Zone 6a - MO)

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.

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LoneJack Zn 6a, KC

Tox

Please keep the Japanese Beetles on the east side of the state :). I guess it won't be long before I will be dealing with them.

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delbar75(7)

I planted a water melon plant by the name of yellow doll. The rest of my garden was destroyed by a falling tree. Any way, I got three melons that weighed about 10 pounds each. Will try to get some star brite seeds for next year.

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Edward Thompson

Where can I get the best seed

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emily52138(6b)

Laceyvail Yes it appears I have scurf. I didn't grow a lot of sweet potatoes and most off them will end up frozen and or given away to family and friends so I'm not worried about long term storage. Does scurf cause problems beyond cosmetic and storage problems?

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emily52138(6b)
jnjfarm_gw, That's exactly what I'm planning to do next year with my peppers and eggplant. The sweet potatoes will get a nice 4'x8'x1' bed all too themselves.
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daninthedirt(Cent TX; HZ10, Sunset z30, USDA z8a)

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.

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ZachS. z5 Littleton, CO

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.

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floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK

OP seems a little coy about the product. Here it is Seed mat. Still no info as to how roots penetrate while weeds do not. Maybe it is simply that the mat excludes light?

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daninthedirt(Cent TX; HZ10, Sunset z30, USDA z8a)

I suspect that we're not going to get a lot of details about this stuff because they're probably proprietary, and what's going on here is really a marketing survey. This is an example of what I was skeptical about in the previous seed tape thread that I started. Everyone says it works, but I can't really understand why it should. All I get back is "take my/our word for it!"

As a design engineer at heart, I'd really like to understand how to optimize this concept which, as I said before, might be pretty advantageous for small seeds that you want to distribute uniformly, especially after presoaking.

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Ohiofem(6a Ohio)

I really like Giant Marconis. The plants are small -- 2-3 feet -- but very prolific, and I start harvesting them in early July. I grow them in 10-gallon containers. I use them raw and grilled in place of bells. They have a lot more flavor. They are up to eight inches long and 2-3 inches wide.

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Peter (6b SE NY)

My Ace are still aceing it up. There are 7 medium sized bells just on this one branch.

Biscayne also still producing exceptionally well.

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ZachS. z5 Littleton, CO

It is definitely a fungus, a mushroom. It is a bracket, or "shelf" fungus, but there's a brazillion kinds of those, so I don;t know which one.

In general, mushrooms are not dangerous to your garden, the "mushroom" or "fruit" that we see are actually only just the reproductive parts of the fungus, with the rest of the organism, the part that eats and digests and everything else is "below ground." The umbrella shaped ones in particular are actually the reproductive parts of the soil mycorrhizae, so having them around is a good sign (unless it's a symptom of overwatering, that's a bad sign lol).

That type of fungus is usually typical of wood, old tree stumps and trunks, piles of firewood, untreated lumber etc., though it looks attached to some concrete right there. I would safely say it poses no threat to your garden plants and if you want to keep it around, it looks kind of neat, but if not, just like you did, knock it off with the shovel.

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Scott Williams 9B

I will also say I sprayed all the tomato plants with a hose to wash off as much salt as possible and then for about an hour today we got monsoon like rain. The tumbling toms from the picture look better now although I had to peel off some dead branches. Of course, this is the third time the plant has nearly died and even though I have gotten hundreds of flowers I have only gotten 1 tomato. It may be the heat since I am in central florida.

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A J(9A)

"Gardening is so frustrating in florida i swear."

No offense, but you sprayed salt on a plant without understanding what may occur. Take some responsibility for your actions/ignorance. A controlled release fertilizer with calcium + water is all you need to have success. If you don't want to worry at all, only plant the most disease/drought/etc tolerant varieties. I wish you luck next year.

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Jillian Glew

Garden is about 20' x 20'. I'll have plenty of mulched leaves soon enough... What about all the straw? I went a little heavy with it. My thoughts was to just spread it around to prevent weeds, then pile leaves on top of that.

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MaryMcP Zone 8b - Phx AZ

Straw is a good mulch, I use it a lot but I like to use the vacuum attachment on the leaf blower to shred them up first (running over with the lawn mower works too. Make sure to attach the bag to catch the pieces.) Straw is difficult to break down in the soil so I recommend you pull it back in spring, not turn it in. Keep reusing it until it begins to [finally] fall apart.

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