23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
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.
Yep. Total sunscald. Rest of the pepper should be fine if not left on the plant TOO long. Quite common with large fruited varieties such as bells and usually caused by excessively bright days(summer). SHade cloth or old bed sheets work wonders during the midday hours.
Kevin
Triple post. Please see links of previous posts.
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/cornucop/msg0121150828049.html?1
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/cornucop/msg0117073027909.html?2
More description would help, but it sounds like blight, which is a bacterial disease. Take a look at the pictures on the following site:
http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/vegetables/edible-bean-disease-and-disorder-identification/
A venturi needs velocity to work as an ingestion system. To effciently turn whatever pressure you have into velocity, you need a gradual decrease in the cross-sectional area of your supply line; otherwise, the energy of your flow will be turned into heat rather than kinetic energy (velocity.) Try to use a large supply line with several steps of decreasing diameter to get the most suction from your venturi.
Neem Oil is a commonly used garden product, organically approved for use on food crops. Type 'Neem' in the forum search here for all sorts of discussions about it.
It is primarily a pesticide but to work it has to come into direct contact with the pest. It also has some limited fungicide benefits as it coats the leaves. It has some negative side effects if over-used so follow the label directions for time and frequency of application as well as dilution.
Whether it will work on your beans or not all depends on what the cause of the problem is. If it is one of the common bean pests you have to spray the pests directly, if one of the common fungus diseases of beans it may slow the disease but won't cure it and to prevent it you have to apply it from the very beginning, if it is Bacterial Spot of Speck Neem won't help.
So your first step is to research the actual cause - lots of pics of 'common bean pest' and 'common bean diseases' available on the web for comparison.
Dave
speaking of common thread...
if you have been in CA lately...or for that matter, much of the American west...
and someone posted a question re: poor performance of garden plants across the board...
what's the first thing that comes to mind? I mean, after you have covered a colander in tin foil and adjusted it to wear as a hat.
Does the word "parched" possibly come into play? or more extreme lack of water?
Hi, Vanisle_BC
My experience is same as planatus'. Rutabaga and turnip are different species. Turnip "bulbs" - roots - grow in the ground. They are smaller and milder in flavour than rutabagas, which grow their fat root above ground. I think the confusion (at least in my household) arises from 2 facts: 1) Where I grew up rutabaga were more common and were usually loosely called turnip; and 2) My wife is mistaken in her recollection (i.e. wrong :))
We eat quite a lot of Rutabaga, although I don't grow them. They are so cheap and need the ground for so long that they are not worth it on a small plot. They are called Swedes here, short for Swedish Turnips. They look very different from Turnips being much larger and orange fleshed. The skin is purpley, yellowy, brown. They also taste quite different. Less peppery than Turnips imo. I love Swede but am not fussed by Turnip.
I save my seed..so I pretty much have my varieties whittled down to what grows well and tastes good here...so I just jab a broken stick into the ground at the start and stop of every row..when it comes up I know what it is. I also have a garden journal to remind me where I planted what so I can rotate my crops, I just make a simple map with the varietal name listed..then notes on how each thing did..amount of harvest, etc..
I am in the same camp as Peter1142, I use paint stirrers from the big box stores as they will let you have 5 or so per trip. I stock up through the winter! Sharpee lasts a full season for me and they weather very nicely as you can see in the picture.
Cut a notch along the edge of the raised bed where the roots are getting in. Drop a piece of corrugated polycarbonate or metal roofing in, so it is separating the outside soil from the raised bed. You don't need to backfill. Roots will not be able to grow horizontally into the bed. But if the roots are growing below the level of the notch, they will go under the corrugated panel.
Or you can cut a notch every year without installing a panel. That will keep the roots from getting established in the raised bed. The roots that are cut will eventually rot. If you have a tree that develops stems from the roots, this won't work.
Sorry I haven't checked back into this thread sooner Erica.
About cardboard. I don't know how it performs under beds. I've used heavy duty cardboard, like the stuff appliances or heavy shipping comes in, as walkway between beds, and that's lasted in a single layer for several months- I just laid it last summer. I've laid lighter weight, like moving box weight, under some pavers to help kill off the spot where those pavers are going to finally go in, and that's lasted about a year so far. That's been sitting so long because I haven't finished making all the pavers yet.
All this cardboard has been corrugated cardboard, so it in itself is a couple "layers" thick between facing, backing, and the corrugated layer. But I still used the stuff double layer, by essentially just having the box flattened in half. I have no idea how well thin cardboard would work, like the cardboard cases of soda cans come in is thin cardboard.
For under my raised beds, I've used several layers of newspaper. I think around 7-10 sheets thick, and overlapping by a couple inches along with going up the sides of the box by a couple inches. I also pre-killed the area with plastic for several months prior to putting in the raised beds.
For my lasagne beds, those just got built right on the grass. I used a double layer of brown paper shopping bags, again overlapping by a couple inches and extending beyond the bed by a few inches. I've done the double layers in two ways- one bed was created by cutting the bags open and laying them out, the other was created by just leaving the bags whole in their folded state and laying them out. Leaving them whole uses up a more bags, but the layering is thicker so I think it works more effectively as a weed barrier.
With both these methods, I've started from scratch, and built up the bed on top. If I were to try it with an already existing bed, I would remove the contents of the raised bed, and start from scratch refilling the bed with fresh material on top of my paper barrier for best results. I don't know if that would be possible for you or not.
Almost all of your vining plants only suffer and end up getting stunted if you plant them indoors...read your seed packet or look them up..if the packet says you can direct sow outdoors, then you are better off doing that.
I know that as a new gardener you are anxious to get something green going! We all have made the same mistake..don't give up!
If you want to grow something in your aero garden...try broccoli seed and eat them as sprouts..they are delicious, and much more nutritious than full grown broccoli! You can grow just about any sprout in the aero garden and it will be fine, too.
Most seeds benefit from warmer soil temperatures. So even onions family, parsley, cilantro .. will germinate much faster when soil temps are 60F++. They have developed charts ( Temps vs. days to germinate), showing the effect of soil/air temperatures. There is an optimum temperature range for different seeds.
See chart below.
For example, ONIONS seeds eventually will germinate in soil temps higher than 35F but best range is 50 - 75F. So 65F room temperature is just fine.
Seysonn
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The table above is excellent because it gives a MINIMUM temp. I don't use heating pads at all and, in my experience, 65-70F house temps (for toms and eggplants) just makes germination take a little longer. Add a few days, maybe a week, onto what it would take with heating pads. I do cover my seedling trays with a plastic sheet, in order to ensure that the soil remains moist without having to apply water.
I have to assume that the minimum temperature is largely because below that, the seed will just rot before it sprouts.
I once tried a heating pad, and had a lot of trouble getting the temperature reasonably uniform across the tray (which was about 50% larger than the pad).
Is germination rate really the only reason to use heating pads? In my mind, germination time is a negotiable.
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.