24,795 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

I am using a 5 gal styrofoam cooler purchased from walmart and a homemade string trellis. I am using a special blend of dirts and stuff that I cannot share the recipe for. I water when my water meter says its kinda dry. I only give it 2 quarts of water when I do and I check twice a day but so far it only requires water once every two days.
A cucumber is ripe when it has outgrown its bumps and is the size approximately shown on package of seeds. for me its hit or miss, the first one was slightly under ripe and the rest have been fantastic, 5 so far. It grows in full sun and you have to watch out for leaf mold! neem oil seems to control it best however I have some luck with copper stuff sprayed on leaves once a week before the mold appears.

cucumber is a sprawling vine that will grow like crazy!!! Similar to squashes in what it likes, give it nitrogen and water!

After more research, I found this overwhelming amount of data that indicates the different requirements between initial growth, and formation of fruit - true it is primarily for hydroponics, but it clearly indicates potassium is crucial for fruit formation. It's likely I haven't adequately amended for potassium, so as a stop-gap measure, I added some liquid macro & micro to its water supply so some potassium and other goodies are immediately available, so we'll see what happens.


All cukes will vine somewhat and all will sprout some tendrils like in your pic but the compact "bush" varieties like this one just have much shorter vines that when proper plant spacing is used do not need trellising. Salad Slicer planting instructions call for 3 sq. feet so if you didn't allow for that much then a short trellis might help. You'd have to tie it up to begin with now though and that risks doing damage so I'd just let it go as is. It won't hurt the beans. Next time give it more space of its own.
Dave

If you have room (minimum 4'x4' area) elsewhere in the garden you can sow some more Zuc now for harvest in August. I don't grow Zuc but I do yellow straight neck squash and usually sow a couple about once a month from early may until early August so I can harvest into October. Having multiple plants at different locations and stages helps thwart the SVB and my nemesis the squash bugs. Not more than 1-2 plants at a time though...don't want to get overrun with summer squash.

No don't dig down, you bring soil from another location if necessary to do it or you buy a bag of potting soil. One reason why squash is usually planted in "hills". If you plant next time in what is called a squash hill or a mound then you will always have soil to cover the base with for whatever reason - borers, broken stems, damage, etc.
Most summer squash varieties need 3 foot sq. minimum or best results.
Dave

You may find this link helpful: List of sweetcorn varieties

Peter, they're still kinda sitting there, but we're getting some high 80s and 90s this week. The other stuff in this bed is also not doing so great, even though I've treated all the beds mostly the same!
If the stuff in this bed doesn't start taking off with our warm weather this week I might cover this bed and give it a big dose of compost and whatever to use it as a winter bed this fall. I'm confused! LOL
Thank goodness for farmers markets 7 days a week around here! Nancy

Of all my vegetables, the eggplants are the ones that seem to take the brunt of insect attacks. I will say that planting peppermint between them helped well enough that I hope to have an established "zone" of it the next time I plant. I would choose the eggplant for a coat of armor though. I have never seen a plant that was so productive despite massive leaf damage from a variety of pests. After Neem and BT and Spinosad I did give in and use Sevin and it is a much happier plant but very very carefully-- on each leaf and covering up the flowers....Before that I still have between 5 and 1 fruit on 5 different eggplants. Of course I am in SC where my kale bolted in April and it is hot here. Even the peppers are not setting fruit at the moment. And the winter squash are aborting.

thanks, farmerdill and nancyjane -
I was confused as I'm more familiar with the Japanese variety that bear few small fruits at once. I thought this was equivalent of four large eggplants growing on one young plant at once. Thanks for the advise.
I'll have it for dinner tomorrow!

Instead of the clay soil from next door, you could try mixing in a bag of Garden Soil from your local home improvement store. I did this with one of my SFG beds that was draining a bit too well and I really liked the results. It added a lot of body to the soil, while still keeping the mix light and staying within the spirit of the SFG method. (Though it's technically no longer a "pure" SFG, if that matters to you. Of course, it won't be if you add fertilizer, either, but I agree with everyone's recommendations that you should use some this year, while you are still developing your soil. If you use pre-bagged Garden Soil, be sure to read the label to see if it has any fertilizer mixed into it; you don't want to over-fertilize by accident.)
As others have said, needing a few years for a SFG to build up enough nutrients and organic material seems to be pretty common. You definitely don't want that artificial weed barrier in there, though. Cardboard will break down, but that plasticy-clothy stuff won't. But it will prevent your plant roots from eventually finding their way into your native soil and helping it break down. Mulch well with your homemade compost - now, and again later as more finishes; it really gives the plants a boost. Then you can mix in that mulch layer at the end of the season and give the soil a head start on next spring.
Good luck!

Skip the clay soil. It's the reason why those of us who have raised beds aren't planting directly in the soil. Clay particles are the smallest soil particles, so there is less air space between them. Drainage is slow. O the other hand, clay soil is rich in minerals.
You don't have to till, either. Raised beds don't need to be tilled. If you mixed the ingredients before you started the garden, you just need to replenish the nutrients used, which can be done by adding compost each time you remove a plant to put in another. You should be fertilizing monthly by sprinkling some fertilizer on the soil. Check the bag of what you are using for the recommended amount. There is probably a whole discussion on the soil forum about tilling vs. not tilling.

I'm not familiar with Savor VARIETY melons but it make require tying if you want it to trellis and you will need to rig slings to support the fruit. From what I have read about it it is a very small melon so are you sure it can be grown on a trellis like the typical vining type melons can?
Honey Bean acorn squash is a very compact, bush variety. It cannot be trellised in any way.
Dave

see, the problem with compost is the following. My soil was P-free (7ppm). Three years of compost, and it is at 80 ppm, well above recommended maximum. When P is that high it can, for example, interfere with Fe absorption. The same for K, which started high, and Ca and Mg, which started very high.
So I prefer to use local leaves. They don't really have a lot of nutrients, as trees pull back whatever was valuable, but they generate a large amount of soil turning and earthworm castings. Plus they mulch, although shifting large leaves can and do smother small seedlings. They are free, too. I add urea as needed, always, as well as chunks of rotten wood to keep up the fungal population.

I agree. Throwing in piles of organic matter without knowing your soil's composition nor the composition of the inputs is a gamble. I have high levels of Potassium and Phosphorous in my soil already so I need to minimize compost and chicken manure. I try to only replace what is lost each year. A soil test every other year lets me know how I'm doing. My organic matter % hovers around 6.3 - 6.5% which is quite adequate.



Lol!! That just struck me as too funny , digdirt.
Will try dig thanks, guess got used to seeing pollen and making the transfer as in the squash, hopefully something grows on these cucs soon