23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

To know the zone and state or province tells me very much. I can infer most of the rest.

By all means lets keep this dead horse alive!

wayne with frost date I can tell you a lot whole more. then USDA zone could tell you

'Sungold' Tomatoes have been the one variety of vegetable that have made it into every vegetable garden since we first tried them. Best tasting tomato I've grown and rarely make it to the table, because of snacking in the garden.

'Gonzales' Cabbage - a miniature that takes up only 10" so I can fit 4 across in our 4ft wide raised bed. Easy to grow, the size of a softball and just enough for one large bowl of cole slaw. Just right for us. Very happy with this variety and growing it for the 2nd time this year.

'Ministro' Cucumber - out of the FEDCO catalog last year, wow. Cucumber after cucumber for a long time. No trouble at all. Last year was 1st year for this variety too, so hoping to repeat this success this season.

'Sugar Snap' Peas, a winner. Very sweet, healthy and productive. I like that they grow tall and I can use all the height of my trellis.

Another vote for "Sugar Snap" peas. I have also tried various short and tall snap pea versions, including "Super Sugar Snap". Sugar Snap" for the win.

I would add Sungold but we ate them until we were sick. Think cherries in "Witches of Eastwick". But I still grow them.

Wow that's a lot to fit into that small space. The notch entry faces west, right? I'd put the tomatoes along the back wall trellis so they don't shade everything else, the squash on the north side trellis, all the peppers in the south end, and find somewhere else out of the garden for the melons. It all depends on how many plants of each you want.

You could space 4 (maybe 5) tomato plants on that back wall, maybe 4 pepper plants in the south block, and 2 squash plants in the north end block.

Hope that helps.

Dave

definitely helps. perhaps I should have been more clear, I do not plan to plant all of the same things in here again this year. I definitely want to do tomatoes and bell peppers again. the rest I will likely plant somewhere else, especially the melons. open to suggestions on anything else, was thinking maybe some carrots in front of some of the others where I don't have trellises.

Sounds very fancy Jorgen! You must be quite experienced with different cultures then. I have lived for a few years in Mississippi, US but have moved back home for college. And always good to have access to free organics! Seaweed is also very good for our local soils; a few years ago I used that along with the horse manure for the bananas. I never washed it (with our rainy season and porous soils I saw no need) and the plants did fine. And yes I know the soil here is very poor; it is a continuous struggle but I have seen people have good success here with raised beds.

You are quite welcome; please keep us updated of your progress. Here is my first banana flower in 2012 from a plant that was put in native soil and fed nothing except deep mulching with horse manure and seaweed.

Forgot to mention that I have not tried out the raised beds yet but have had some success with containers which also do very well here, and you can move them around to get the amount of sun best for the plants (eg. southern side of house if needing full sun, easter or western side if our full sun is too strong for the plant).

Tomatillo:

Adenium:

Soursop/Guanabana seedlings:

Pineapple:

Jalapenos:

Kale:

You get the idea; I would post more but I think I have reached the limit for photos per post ;)

Berfy--As one very familiar with growing herbs, with that little direct sun you are limited on the most well known culinary ones. Basil, while it may not like full Texas midsummer sun, does require more than dappled shade for less than 4 hours per day. You may get some small plants if there's enough reflective light, but they'll probably not thrive. On the other hand, it's easy and cheap to seed so may be worth trying spring or fall when the tree isn't fully shading. Otherwise, cilantro or mints (inc lemon balm), chives, parsley may be worth a try. The arid Mediterranean types like rosemary, thyme, oregano, etc need more sun. Lots of trial and error in your future--don't give up! Try the leafy greens and peas for starters (this year I'll be trying a dwarf container pea called half pint).

On the secondary topic of zones, they do have usefulness for basic info. Yes, there is a lot of variation in climate between different locations zoned the same, but they do provide some good basic starting point info. The more of that type we have, the more useful our answers can be--that's why we ask, and those who seem to know the most will continue to ask and have found the way to include that in their name.

Wow. Sunset Climate Zones. I was not aware of these, and they seem quite nice. As they say on their website ...

"A plant's performance is governed by the total climate: length of growing season, timing and amount of rainfall, winter lows, summer highs, wind, and humidity.
Sunset's climate zone maps take all these factors into account, unlike the familiar hardiness zone maps devised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which divides most of North America into zones based strictly on winter lows.

The U.S.D.A. maps tell you only where a plant may survive the winter; our climate zone maps let you see where that plant will thrive year-round."

That's precisely what I've been saying.

Also, I see that the Houzz folks are listening hard to us, and have included a text field for garden zones in their Advanced Settings. Thanks! I need to fill that in for myself. Now as I've been saying, inclusion of some identification of garden zone is a great idea. The question is what text provides the best identification.

prariemoon-

Do I use dill in the kitchen? Yes and yes! It's one of my top three herbs that I use the most of. For pickling, sure. But dill has a great way of perking up most herb things the way lemon has a way of perking up with a touch of acid. We eat a lot of fish, so dill often is a seasoning there- and I make tartar sauce, and that always has dill. And stew and soups can benefit from a pinch or few dried to a small handful fresh- not enough to give a dill flavor, but to enhance the other herbs. Dill is part of my homemade ranch mix, and is in a lot of my cold pasta salads. Handfuls of it in homemade dill dip to go with raw veggies. It's yummy in scrambled eggs- and great with cooked spinach. Tuna salad and egg salad for sandwiches too. It pairs well with a lot of mild white cheeses as a topper and garnish. In the summer, we always have a tub of cottage cheese seasoned with dill, pepper, salt, and parsley in the fridge for a quick and cool nourishing snack. It's great with a lot of cucumber dishes and salads too.

Thanks, Beesneeds, Those are a lot of great ideas for some way to use more dill. I'm sure I can try at least a couple of them. :-) It seems like such a waste to have a steady supply and not use it.

." Why wouldn't you just plant them in potting mix "

it would be a tad bit harder to find and recover all the seeds, germinated or not...

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"Also curious as to why you didn't also plant some seeds directly in a seed starting or potting mix."

I wanted to plant some melons.

i had read that fulvic acid increases the ability to uptake minerals.

most people start their seeds in either paper towels, or in a soil-less media. in that respect, a paper towel shouldn't be much different, but, that would be a different experiment anyway.

My intent was to see if fulvic acid really made a difference. i had some worm castings, so, i was curious how they would stack up against the water and fulvic.

i also didnt start any in pure sand. i wanst trying to test every media.

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As fas as why i said i would use fulvic acid when it has a lower germ rate...

i want a healthy , strong seedling.

i dont need to maximize the number of seedlings that germinate.

if i really want more than one plant, then, i can plant 20 seeds.

my end goal is healthy strong plants

I sow canteloupe seeds, and the majority of my other veggie seeds directly into the garden and expect (and get) a germination rate so close to 100% that I never notice the duds.

For those that I start early for transplanting, the seeds are sown densely into heated seed flats until germinated, then transplanted directly into cell packs to grow under lights. 100% of my cells packs are filled with robust little seedlings.

My garden soil is mostly dense red clay amended occasionally with free wood chips. My germination medium is coarser than most, probably, and my preferred mix for the cell packs comes from Fafard....quite porous and fast draining.

I have to say that I have never understood why people germinate in paper towels, etc. That's not at all a criticism in any way. It's obvious that there are many ways to get the job done and we each will employ what we believe to be most efficient and successful and satisfying.

12" spacing is pretty standard so in 4x8 bed I'd plant 20 as you can't plant right next to the frame edges and you want to leave some room for replacing any that don't survive.

I started with a dozen, got antsy, planted another dozen and all are doing well. Just saw my first baby come up the other day! Nancy

I knew the soil temp would be cooler than air temp outside. However, I made the assumption (maybe a poor one) that the soil in a 3oz starter cup would be about the same temp as the air temp in a house. How much different could the soil temp be?

Thanks again for all the responses :)

How much different? The thermal conductivity of soil is very different from that of air. How much difference and the duration of that difference depends on the type of soil, the degree of compaction, the volume of soil, and the type of heat used. In a container outside the average is 5-10 degrees cooler than surrounding air temps, indoors can be as much as 15 degrees cooler. If watered with cool water then it will be even colder.

Dave

I don't care to get retinue e-mails either. Still, I liked the Dave's Garden D mail which were person to person mail that stayed with the site.

If you post in a discussion, you will be automatically "following" a post, such that notification of comments will be e-mailed to you, as per the frequency directives that Humsi was talking about. Those directives are for ALL e-mails, from ALL discussions. But at the bottom of the discussion that you have posted in, there is, in little green letters, a clickable link "Click to switch off notification about new comments >". If you simply want to turn off notifications for that discussion. Click that. This seems to work fine. As noted above, I just wish that the default was that you DON'T follow a discussion you contributed to, and select if you wanted to. That's the way it was in the old GW.

Agree with sunnibel7 and find that the main causes of problems with hardening off is either (a) plants that were started far too early and so are less tolerant of hardening and transplanting, and (b) starting the hardening off process far too early. It isn't the size or age of the plants that should determine when to harden-off, it is when is the planting time?

Planting dates are determined before seeds are even started and other than weather at that time which we can't control, you start hardening off a few days to a week before planting time. If you can't plant until May 15th (for example) why would you start hardening off May 1 ? Rather wait till May 12th when the weather will likely allow the plants to go in the shade and just stay there until planting time. Bringing them in and out and in and out only stresses the plants and defeats the point of hardening.

Check out the FAQ here that describes how to use various containers like a laundry basket under a shade tree to harden off. Even a cardboard box works. The goal isn't direct sun exposure, it is air temp, UV, and wind acclimation.

Dave

PS: Hardening off Discussions and FAQs

Here's what I do and it generally works pretty good.

I don't babysit the plants. I simply refuse to do it. When it's time to start moving them outdoors, they go outdoors all day starting day number 1. I put them in a real shady spot for the first couple days then a spot that gets dappled shade, then partial sun, etc etc. I don't play the "hours" game I don't have time for that lol. All day, everyday (unless the weather turns sour).