24,795 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening



If you don't mulch, you'll be fighting weeds till the plants grow enough to shade the soil, even then you'll be hand weeding between the plants as weeds are very pervasive!
"Ditto" on hoes mentioned above. I used a traditional hoe for years and then at the urging of a buddy got one and they're great. Here's a link to a "typical" one, they're widely available. Unlike a traditional hoe, if you're working close to the plants, you can go too deep and damage roots, these just kind of glide on or just below the soil surface.

Back in the 50's, a lot of tobacco was raised in this area. In the spring, part of the planting cycle was to "burn" the bed. A raised rectangular frame, usually just 8" logs, was built. Into this, brush, wood, straw, anything that would burn was packed solidly and ignited and burned down to ash. The ash/dirt mixture was gently stirred and tobacco seeds were sprinkled all over. A gauze or cheesecloth was unrolled and stretched tightly overall. I was about 8 when I saw this and asked what it was for? "To keep the weed seeds out." And it allowed gentle watering. What I learned from that was that even after burning for several hours which would kill weed seeds, etc. more would blow in. Whatever mulch, etc. you use, weeds will appear, be it seeds or rhizomes, we'll have to deal with them.

The other advantage of the hoe, used often, is that you prevent weeds from going to seed. It may take a few years for all the old seeds to sprout from under a good layer of mulch, but if you keep new seeds from being deposited you'll eliminate most of your problems.

Every time I have grown it - have a couple this year - it is an indeterminate but not a really tall one. Avg. 6' unlike the 8-10 foot ones. It has an indeterminate growth pattern for me in the internode lengths and the staggered spacing of the bloom clusters. But now they have the new Whopper Improved and I have seen yet so it may be different.
Can't help you with the "suckering" decision as I don't do it. I want the fruit they produce.
Dave


Nope! She totally forgot to water......anything! Almost everything survived and I found a BUNCH of overgrown zuks (stuffed zuk for dinner!) Several are down at the end of the driveway with a free sign on them! LOL
Most of my summer trips are only a couple of days, so we're good to go! Nancy


mpoland, click HERE for information about how to find your county Extension office.
You might want to post pictures of your Echinacea. The issues there will be different than for squash.

CMV can affect Enchinacea too, though I agree it seems odd and would like to see pictures. http://extension.psu.edu/pests/plant-diseases/all-fact-sheets/echinacea-diseases

Its been fun playing detective - finding those impacts. It was great back in May when the wheat created a warm and nearly windless microclimate for the tomato / pepper / etc transplants. Now I see the typical tomato diseases starting to yellow the lower leaves. I don't think its any worse than usual for the heirloom varieties I grow. I'll have to check pics from last year to make sure.
As far as pests, the jury is still out. The cabbage butterflies have found the cole crops but seem confused by the wheat. It took them longer to find the crops and their impact seems significantly smaller. I see no cucumber beetles on the cucs yet - very unusual for me, but also the zucchini flowers don't seem to be getting pollinated yet either.
I hope I can use the wheat straw as a mulch as we enter the typically hot/dry time of year.

Thank you for the photos and sharing the idea! I'm inspired as I like the idea of growing my future wheat straw mulch right along my rows of vegetables!
"harvest the wheat tops with a battery powered hedge trimmer" Exactly how does that work for you? Don't the cut wheat heads fall into the still standing lower parts of the wheat plants making the heads hard to find and pick up by hand?
Possibly you could put a wide (snowplow-like) ">" on the front of your tractor, and run it down the center of your wheat rows. The wide ">" would push the wheat plants sideways so the tractor wheels would press down the crop laying it into the tomato plant rows. Then you could walk down the tomato rows (with the pressed down wheat straw) moving the straw to both sides of the tomato plants.
With pressed down wheat straw also coming in from the opposite row overlapping - it would make a wonderful thick mulch. No need to cut with your sickle bar and then move the straw around into the tomato plants.
If you have a source for your future winter wheat seed (without saving seed from your strips of wheat) just lay over and press down the rows of wheat plants before the wheat heads mature.
On second thought, if you lay over the green growing wheat it would produce fermenting odors. Mature (dead) wheat would not produce fermenting odors.
Lola

That really isn't necessary as there are already tons of excellent videos and pics of aphids on line you can look at for comparison.
Dave

As Dave and others have said, daily watering shouldn't be necessary. It is common for squash leaves to lose their turgidity and 'wilt' in hot weather.
Usually, by the next morning they pick themselves back up and look healthy. Insect damage will make this condition worse. The Squash Vine Borer is the worst culprit, and even squash bugs can exacerbate squash's natural tendency to wilt.
If they are still wilted in the very early morning, after they have absorbed the dew (assuming there's dew in such a hot climate,) then they may indeed be thirsty. However, try not to let them go that long. Try to follow the 1" of water (plus a half an inch for every 10 degrees over 80) per week rule. Because of the large surface area of their leaves, squash can usually handle a bit more, but give them that extra by regular deep waterings.
Daily waterings can encourage the squash roots to stay at the hottest part of the soil... the surface. Deep waterings encourage the roots down following the water. Weekly (or slightly more often in very hot, very dry or sandy places), deep waterings train the roots to find the cooler, moist soils below.





Thanks - that is what I thought would be the best option....
Traps are the best you can do at this point...forget common 'wisdom'. Trap crops help and if you are not against Sevin sprayed on non food plants, you can kill a lot of them that way too.
Sure, you can hand pick too. That works well when you have a few.