23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
I have about 6,500 square feet of vegetables, and I've been spending about $60/year on seeds. I can cut that down a lot just by saving seeds from my mostly heirloom tomatoes, peppers, and summer and winter squash. For me it's not about saving 40 bucks; It's just another aspect to enjoy. This year I am saving seeds from everything, and proving them out the following year, and then I am good to go.
One of my big goals this year is to save seeds from my edamame; last year birds ate all of what I was letting mature for seed. I had netting over them all season to keep the deer out. Wasn't anticipating birds getting involved.
Getting critical mass where you no longer have to buy seeds is such a cool feeling. In one season I am about already there with garlic. I planted 31 cloves last year. Last fall I was able to plant 60 cloves from my harvest, and I have enough to last me through until harvest. Absent a catastrophic year, I am never buying garlic again.
I have mostly used starts from a local organic farm/nursery.
Now that I'm retired, I'm hoping to get the seeds going.
We have a seed exchange monthly with free seed from locally grown produce, so it's a good bet that it will grow fine in our area.
I'm hoping I'll spend 0$, but I'm sure I'll end up buying something! Nancy
I never had any problem with late shipments from Territorial. But I don't use them anymore because they've lost their focus on regional varieties and are simply trying to sell everything they possibly can. Their catalog now offers a vast warehouse of useless nonsense. They'll sell whatever they think they can sell, and that's fine. But they are of no particular value anymore.
The small order I placed a few weeks ago just now showed up. I received an email saying the order would be delayed as they were preparing for their 2015 shipments. I was ordering some extra cabbage seeds and raishes, so I kind of wish they would have shown up back in December... but I'm not too upset by it. If I had missed a planting date however, that would have been annoying. I told them they should have a prompt prior to purchasing.
I was going to try growing artichokes in Zone 6b NY.... I knew it was not a sure thing at all for success, but it sounds extremely difficult... am I wasting my time?
If I don't have success getting blooms this year could I get them to survive the winter with mulch?
Peter- I think they are much easier anywhere they can be true perrenials, like Zones 8+. The reason those of us in colder zones go to the trouble of vernalizing them is because they need to have had a winter to trigger blooming, and since they might die in a truly cold winter, vernalizing the new plants gives the best chance of success.
They might make it through a mild winter up your way with a lot of mulch, might not. Are you wasting your time? Depends on how much you find you enjoy the process or the plants. They are quite beautiful even if you never get a choke.
A followup to my previous comments. Mo. is a big state you didn't say where you were in the state. I am 50 miles east of NE corner of state. The early crops such as peas, radishes. lettuce, spinach turnips beets etc. I plant real early and will plant a small area of each so if the early crop fails, I still have a crop. I plant in wide rows except for peas. I will plant an area of 30 inches wide by 12- 16 inches. that will give you several meals of each crop. and if the weather turns bad, you may lose a few seeds. but so what. The old timers will say around here " if you don't get snow on your first planting, you planted it late"
I don't do any special prep Kevin. I just buy some good size sweet potatoes, cut them in half length-wise and set them cut side down in a shallow container of potting mix, perlite, vermiculite, sand whatever is handy and keep it damp. I set the containers under the shelves in the shade in the GH. Snip them off at skin level when 4-6" tall and soil is ready to plant. I don't bother with rooting the slips themselves first but some do.
Dave
Hmm. I tried that a couple years ago and the damn thing just rotted from the inside out. But I put them out in the sun... Might've that been the problem? I thinK I used a mix of compost and potting mix.
Kevin
This post was edited by woohooman on Thu, Jan 22, 15 at 11:58
Width/Length of the containers? 25 gallon containers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
Gallon size isn't all that important since they only need about 12" of depth. But you should be able to evenly space several plants 8-10" apart or around the container somehow.
For example, 10 gallon grow bags made for potatoes call for 3-4 plants. They are 12-14" deep and 22" wide side to side. That assumes careful watering and extra feedings.
Dave
I think my totes last year were 18 gallons. I put 3 seed potatoes in each of them. I ran out of potting soil and one was full about 8" the other....let me think...12-18" maybe? Anyways....
I got bored of watering them and dumped them all out in early July (I still had my main, in-ground potatoes anyways). I was surprised to get a meal or two's worth of new potatoes. If they had stayed in those buckets for the rest of the summer, I would have gotten a pretty good harvest out of them I think.
One study I had heard about but have not really gone back to look over noted that drip irrigation did not really reduce (conserve) the amount of water used, but it did produce healthier plants with a greater harvest, I always thought it was something interesting to contemplate.
Well, what I was TRYING to get across, was that many rules and regulations were being changed so that it's OK to get rid of that water soaking lawn and go against all those HOA rules for front yards. Including growing veges in containers.
I wasn't trying to bring up arguments on Ca agriculture! Nancy
I start tomato and pepper seedlings in an unheated greenhouse with heat mats. I'm not sure exactly what temperature it is right around the plants, but with the warm soil and a plastic dome cover over them, they do very well. The ambient air in the greenhouse gets into the 40s at night, but never below freezing. If I'm worried about things getting too cold, I put a frost blanket over the plastic dome.
During the day, things warm up fast. Leaving the plastic cover on is an efficient way to kill all the seedlings. Also the heat mats are on a thermostat so they turn themselves off.
Hope that helps!
Tomato and pepper seedlings are more flexible than more mature plants. I routinely let my greenhouse go down to 35 degrees at night, BUT the next day, I make sure they go back up over 100 degrees in bright sunshine. Low night temp slows growth significantly. High temps the next day reverses this effect. The way to look at this is number of hours at temperature below 65 must be countered by the same number of hours at a comparable temperature above 65. So if my plants go down to 35, that is 30 degrees below 65, then the next day, I make sure they get the same number of hours at 95 degrees. This is really easy to do, just watch the weather daily and adjust the ventilation to set the temperature in the greenhouse as needed. Bright sunshine can bring my greenhouse to 120 degrees when the outside temperature is only 40 degrees. So the range of temperatures you can work with is from 35F to 120F. Don't go above or below this range for healthy seedlings.
There is one warning however for capsicum chinense peppers. They are more sensitive to low temperatures than most of the other pepper species. I make a point to ensure C. Chinense don't go below 45 degrees. This is because the seedlings will stop growing and won't start again until they have about 2 weeks of temps above 75 degrees. Bell peppers and most cayenne/jalapeno types are not sensitive to cold in this way.
As mentioned above, letting tomato plants get below 45 degrees for short periods of time can increase production. Dig around on the net and you can find some articles from the 1930's that document this effect.
Thanks for all the good information. I think I'll try the Sarah's Choice again. It seemed to be fairly compact and never got powdery mildew or any other disease. It seems like a good choice for a container, and that's the only way I can grow something in my yard. I've had great luck with sugar baby watermelons in another whisky barrel. I will just need to be much more careful about watering and watching for signs of cracking.
Any of the Jersey varieties is the most common recommendation every time this question comes up - Jersey Knight, Jersey Supreme, Jersey Giant, etc. 2-3x the production over most other varieties. I grow all 3 and the only difference is the maturity dates. Jersey Giant is likely more tolerant of your cooler weather.
Purple Passion is also popular.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Asparagus discussions
In general, low plants should be on the south side, and tall plants on the north, if you're trying to maximize absorption of sunlight. Afternoon sun is just as important to plants (from the point of view of photosynthesis) as morning sun. If your plants do tend to get highly stressed from afternoon sun, then I suppose it makes sense to bias the shading to then. But if not, then don't worry about it.
In many places one tends to get sun preferentially in the morning or afternoon. Might want to give that some thought as well.
What I mean, if you use trellis for cucumbers, but not on melons(as melons better grow flat, that up) then cucumbers will be higher and melons will be lower. If you use trellis for melons as well, and height will be the same for cucumbers and melons , then plant the way you have easier access to cucumbers - you will access cucumbers much more often then melons.