23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
your answer can be found on following thread.
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/2833511/sincere-question-why-participate
In order to identify the female plants I think you'd have to grow them to seed bearing age (3 years?) - and you might want to make sure they don't get a chance to drop potentially-female seed before weeding them out. Some writers suggest you don't want any seed to drop anyway, to avoid overcrowding the bed with new volunteer plants.
As for shipping across borders, many US companies do ship seed to Canada but I haven''t found any willing to ship asparagus root. Whether that's because they're prohibited, and whether it also applies to other plants, I don't know.
The front of my house faces east, and none of the plants that require full sun do very well in the front. Those that can stand partial shade do better.
My guess is that you would get some harvest, and that might make you happy, but if you have other options, might be better to invest the money for the raised bed somewhere that gets more sun.
One other point to note - the front beds take much longer to dry out after a rain - again, this might be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on what you plant, and your drainage.
The location of the sun sounds good to me. My garden sits in a similar position. I just wanted to add that raised beds need more water because the soil dries out faster in hot temperatures. Also, if the yard slopes away from the house, your water will presumably run off as well (I assume the landscaping is designed for this). So be sure to water with some frequency.
We love Clemson Spineless - out here in IL, we plant straight from seed, after last frost. The spacing seems right, we plant ~20 plants in two rows of 10. Last year we were trying to harvest weekly at our community garden plot, and we were having to toss quite a few as they were too small one weekend and overdone the next. Harvesting about once every 2-3 days would probably be best as donnabaskets suggests.
We put in an elevated raised bed for a salad garden last summer -- it's 2x8 and 30" tall, with a false floor 10" down from the top (cedar slats & landscape fabric on steel brackets). (The two boxes at the ends are 2x2 and 15" tall, no false bottom.) It looks good and it's easy for people with bad knees (i.e., me!).
I guess the only thing that I can realistically do is nothing. I already grow them on trellises and I've tried rotating them amongst my raised beds. Last year I even try grown some from seed mid-season in a fabric container with 5-1-1 mix. It started out great then went the same route as the cukes I had started earlier in the season.
Realistically you can plant an ALS resistant variety. Not foolproof , but usually gives you sufficient edge to harvest cukes. For slicers varieties include Speedway, Dasher II,Thunder, Talledega etc. Ther are sevral pickler varieties Arabian, Calypso, Carolina etc. Don't kow of any burpless types with ALS resistance but they are probably out there. Belay that, Sweet Slice has ALS resistance.
nancyjane, I got an e-mail recently. I did not click the button [if it had one] to confirm my GW account. Maybe I thought it could be spam like I have gotten...just wanting you to click their link. I finally made it here, but am still trying to figure out where everybody and everything is.
There are lots of cheap/free things you can put under the melons however there are cradles designed just for the occasion, I bought a couple sets just because I thought they looked nice. Gardener's Melon and Squash Cradle
As I said in my previous comment, I do have other beds elsewhere that I haven't shown. :) And while I do enjoy drawing up the plans and try to stick to them as best I can, there is almost always a some kind of problem.
Rodney
I must admit I did most of it just to get through winter. The biggest thing it did was let me know how many different plants I should get. Before I made the diagram, I had about 5 more different pepper seeds, and about 3 more tomato seeds. After making the diagram, I knew I had to eliminate some choices, which wasn't easy :).