23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Just for conversation, I have some fellow church members who are transplants from the northeast. They grow rhubarb every year from seed. They say it won't survive our heat and won't return the next year, but they get enough for their needs by starting fresh each year.

"A heavy soil kept damp and lots of mulch will help". That's just what it gets naturally on the allotment. I don't 'keep' it damp. The climate does that for me ;-)

soflaj -- great to read the results of your mini experiment! I've been using Azomite for a couple of years, but don't know what it's done since I just throw in on every bed.

Jonhughes -- thanks for posting all that great info. Who knew about capillary action???

"Within a week there was an impressive difference."

It is a biological impossibility that 'rock dust' caused any difference in growth over that time frame. The End. Some guy on the internet hypes rock dust, and suddenly it's magic fairy dust for gardening. It's a huge waste of money. Get a soil test that includes micronutrients. If you do find that something is below proper levels, buy some and add it to your soil. Otherwise, add organic matter and see REAL differences in growth.

This person needs organic matter, not inorganic. Peat moss, compost - that's the ticket.

That is one of the nicer raised beds ive seen. I might have to go that route.

That is a lovely garden. I used the fan shaped concrete blocks that you can stack without using any mortar for my raised beds. They form oval shapes because of the front curve on the blocks. I love them. They will never need replacing.

If you watch Lowe's and Home Depot ads they usually have specials on these kinds of materials in the spring. I actually bought enough for the first row or two of blocks in my beds the first year, and then got the rest the next year. It worked just fine.

Serenade is not copper based - it is bacterial. Serenade Garden Disease Control contains a unique, patented strain (QST 713) of Bacillus subtilis(bacterias) which controls diseases such as Fire Blight, Botrytis, Sour Rot, Rust, Sclerotinia, Powdery Mildew, Bacterial Spot and White Mold. Apply Serenade Garden Disease Control to roses, vegetables, fruits, flowering plants, trees and shrubs at 2-4 oz/gal water.

I read that there's nothing you can do to reduce copper levels in the soil once you use copper fungicide, and I'm worried about too-high levels. I'll admit, it's more my ignorance keeping me from using it, since I don't know how much copper fungicide would need to be used to actually show a noticeable difference of copper levels in the soil. I'm part of a community garden, so I don't want to do anything to the plot that will prevent future gardeners from growing things.

If it would take an astronomical amount of copper to make enough of a difference that it would start harming the soil, then I certainly don't mind using it (like you said Dave, anything I can do to prevent disease). However, I just don't know what that amount would be.

**shudder**

You've got to have some pretty big ones yourself to harvest those!

I just wanted to update how my season has been going. Since we got our growing season off to a late start, whatever plans I would have liked to put in place had to be adjusted. So now getting a fall crop in, became problematic because we ended up buying organic soil for three large beds and that soil has not done well. All the beds that had this soil in it have not done well.

Peppers were a big fail in comparison to previous seasons when they've been our best crop. Watermelon and Butternut Squash never grew and were pulled out after a month. The tomato plants have done just okay. There will be a small crop but they didn't put on as much growth as I thought they should. So we already started sowing cover crop in two of the beds, two weeks ago. Waiting for the tomatoes to be finished and hope I will have time to do the same in that bed. Hopefully, next season should be better.

On the other hand the two long beds that had our old vegetable garden soil added, have done really well. I am particularly happy that I restrained myself from pulling plants out that were slow to develop. The transplants I had for broccoli, kale, bok choy, brussels sprouts and cabbage, despite getting such a late start have all done well. And are still growing well. Just harvested Broccoli yesterday.

So, for anyone that might have been following along and wondered how all those late planted spring crops did, they did great! Maybe it was just a different season, but it all worked out. It's actually been great growing weather this year. Hope everyone else is having a great growing season too and thanks for all the help. :-)

Arcadia Broccoli from seed that was supposed to do pretty well in the heat and I guess it did. Could have been larger, but happy to get a crop.

It’s that time again. I’m starting to figure out what I’m planting this spring and I was glad to have this thread to go back to. I also thought I would update on what happened with my planting plans last year in case someone else is considering planting late, etc.

Dave, you were concerned about how late I was planting some of what should have been spring crops and especially if it was too late for peas. I did not end up planting peas at all last year. I went right into cucumbers and string beans and they did very well. Had the best year ever with cucumbers.

I did plant lettuces, all my herbs, cabbage, broccoli, bok choy. I think I got lucky with the weather. We harvested Romaine lettuce for a long time before they bolted. I grew ‘Jerricho’ which was known to tolerate heat and it sure did. We harvested Bok Choy for a long time and Kale all season.

I tried a new cabbage last year, ‘Gonzales’ which produces individual cabbages and they were a big hit. Each cabbage made a large bowl of cole slaw with no leftover cabbage. Very convenient and they took up about 10 inches of growing space each.

The broccoli, did have a difficult time forming a head. It wasn’t until we had a cool spell at some point during the later part of the summer before they did. I had left them in place all season and finally harvested some in August and minimum side shoots into the fall. So, I’m trying to decide whether to grow broccoli this year. To get one head of broccoli from each large plant, doesn’t make sense in my small space if I have to leave them in place all season.

I didn’t plant spinach until the fall and then it did nothing. They germinated and grew a few leaves and then just sat there, so I covered them and left them to overwinter and I’m hoping they may regrow this spring. I’m pretty sure the different angle of the sun in the fall is a problem for me and I’m thinking that a Fall crop is not going to work for me at all. It was okay though because I had tomatoes still ripening up to frost and cukes still coming in, squashes still ripening. I've decided that spring crops followed by successions of summer crops are my best bet. Which allows me to cover crop for the spring if I want and do a good job of putting the garden to bed.

After thinking and thinking about the Asparagus, we decided we didn’t even want to grow it. lol So, we gave them to our neighbor to grow and that solved that problem.

I sometimes have a lot of enthusiasm for trying to grow something over the winter, but this winter has convinced me, that is just not the best fit for me. Especially with the ton of snow we are having this year. And I enjoy the break from the garden in the winter.

So, you were correct that plans change from year to year and my plans made last spring are definitely being adjusted.

Rodney, I also took your advice and took the chives out of my vegetable beds due to the fact they are perennial. I moved them into a perennial border that skirts the vegetable garden and very happy with that arrangement so far. I also managed to divide them and had a number of them to add to the border.

We did manage to plant some garlic last fall too.

Since we had so much trouble with the soil in the new beds, which I believe was due to being sifted before delivery, we did a lot of work on the beds in the fall. Compost ingredients worked into the beds. The tomato bed had a cover crop turned in and a heavy layer of mulch. I’m hoping this season will be an improvement.

Ajsmama, Our Cilantro did some reseeding but sprouted in the fall, so not so sure that will overwinter. I really enjoyed the Cilantro last year and it was so pretty in the garden. We did manage to do one succession planting of Cilantro and that really worked out and extended our harvest. I was able to leave the first planting in the ground until fall and harvested a good amount of seed.

So, that’s the update and I’ll probably be posting this year’s plan with more questions soon.

Thank you all again for all the great help!

I've never found that row covers prevent snails from accessing plants. That would only work if each plant was in a 'bag' of its own with the fabric tightly wrapped around the stem. In fact I find they like to congregate in clumps where the cover touches the ground, especially if it is folded or rucked up. Plus there are sometimes tiny baby snails already on the plants and if you miss them they just sit under the cover enjoying their own personal protected buffet.

One good thing - IME snails are easier to deal with because they don't live in the soil like many species of slug. At least you can see them and pick them off easily.

I've been picking the snails off every morning and the numbers have gone way down. I'll carry on and see what happens, thanks. Also can any one tell me what this beetle is and if it's just as responsible?

Does anyone know about how long the window is to pick corn and how long it stays fresh?

Corn needs to field dry to 13-14% moisture unless you dry it more with drying equipment. If dry and protected from vermin, it will keep a good while. If you can't use or sell it the first year, you have over planted.

Why do you think a food bank would want ears of field corn? Even sweet corn has a very short window.

Have you considered offering local food banks access to the 5 acres for a community garden? That way the land gets used but they incur the costs, do all the work, and reap the benefits.

Dave

There is a lot of misleading information. Several research articles have definitively shown that larger pieces of potato planted resulted in larger potatoes harvested. For this reason, I often plant a 1 pound potato with all eyes but 2 removed. This gives the maximum yield of large tubers. On the other hand, I have also planted potatoes 1/2 inch diameter and harvested a very good crop of potatoes given that they were planted in high fertility soil and other agricultural needs were met.

What you say fusion_power is what it says on the website potato.nl (http://www.potato.nl/files/planting.pdf)

"If a reasonably high plant density is achieved, seed size
has, under normal growing conditions, no great influ-
ence on yield......

A large seed potato has the advantage of having extra
reserves in times of drought, cold, heat or in an inferior seed-bed. Under such growing conditions, the large seed potato will be more reliable than the small one. "

I found the Miracle Grow texture to vary a lot from batch to batch, and I quit it for that reason...not because of a vendetta against a company. I use some Miracle Grow liquid plant food for plants in containers.

Interesting, thanks for both the clarifications. In my area it is really just the most readily available. I probably wouldn't notice or mind if the product was variable so long as it gets the job done. I have found that any potting mix is a challenge to use in a plug flat because there can be larger pieces. I am just too cheap to buy a separate "seed starting mix" that doesn't have those larger pieces. I do run my mix through a screen before I use it for the small celled plug trays though.

I tried some asparagus seeds outside over the summer as an experiment. I didn't see anything for about 3 weeks, but after those 3 weeks, nearly all of them sprouted. I nearly gave up on them, but they did eventually all sprout.

I would add my voice to the "needs warm soil" folks. I've never tried to deliberately grow asparagus from seed, but I do get volunteers in the garden each year. They always sprout mid-later summer when the soil is good and warm.

Broccolini and Broccoli raab are two different plants, though they are harvested the same way. Cut a good portion of the stem, down to where it is getting tough. You'll be eating the entire thing, stem, leaves, and flowers. The plant will grow sideshoots that you'll harvest the same way.

BTW, I MUCH prefer Gailan to either. Also grow and harvest same way.

Thank you so much!

I had no idea they were different. Now I know, and I like Broccolini much better, already planted these, will plant Broccolini next, their seeds are not easy to find!