23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Looks like celery. Smell it?

Second Mugwort. Does it smell like a mum?

Thread revival.

There is a new product coming to market in February 2015. They are being called 'mulch mats', and are made from industrial hemp. They compete with petroleum-based weed block. They're an all-natural, biodegradable solution, combining the benefits of natural mulch with the convenience of mats.

There isn't much info on their website except for the product announcement. http://www.woven-earth.com

Full disclosure: I work for Woven Earth, the sellers of the mats. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Here is a link that might be useful: Woven Earth homepage

Thread bump

Any updates on how it went through the season with gardenmats? Yields, weed time, etc?

Flora, I imagine part of the issue for you is that you never get the hot summer weather that brings on super-fast growth. I'm in a cool spring climate as well, maybe not as cool as yours, but once the soil is good and warm the legumes grow at a whopping rate. Very often all kinds of direct-seeded crops catch up with or pass transplanted, IME.

So yes, totally different climates round north america and the UK.

If you have good soil, a nearby water source if needed, the free time so it doesn't become a "job" , I say go for it. What you learn this year , will guide you next year. A few years back I built 8 raised beds 5 feet wide by 50 feet long peaking at 3 feet in the center, with the help of a frontend loader. No borders , when mulched and everything growing I knew my time hadn't been wasted. Then the cicada killers moved in and dug hundreds of holes in the sides of each bed. Every time I watered , the paths between the beds would flood. I now have 1 raised bed , 1 foot tall, but a very big bed. Seems as though irregardless of best laid plans , life will find a way to test your will. I wish you the best of luck. Oh, and with those deer , I found that the fence should go up before they find that garden.

Agree. The odds are 9 to 1 that what you have is one of the hybrid varieties simply because they are far more common. Plus asparagus seeds have a very low germination rate and the greens will be the dominate gene so what you get, if anything, will most likely be green.

You will have much better results, faster production, and better quality if you just invest in some additional crowns and plant them instead.

Dave

Understood. I will start by checking my invoice to see what variety I paid for.

The seeds will still get planted because, well, it's fun. I will note germination rates as well as colour results.

Thank you for the responses.

I planted out my leeks on April 9 last year, April 5 the year before. Actually did the artichokes at about the same time, maybe a week later. Both did fine, no need to wait until last frost. Cheers!

If leeks get too much cold weather when they're young, they think they've been through a Mediterranean winter and they bolt.

Seen it several years when we have one of our spring freezes here in WV.

This is what pin rot looks like....The tissue becomes soft and gives off a very bad odor.

Here is a link that might be useful: SalinasValleyAgriculture

This post was edited by mrdoitall on Sat, Jan 10, 15 at 5:39

Thank you - I didn't see anything like this, so don't think that's my issue. Not sure what in the world, but hopefully won't have it again.

to follow up on compost for the garden results:
I might change my answer that compost is enough because we had different results last year when we moved the garden & built new raised beds in a recently cleared area. Our 1st garden in the new location with a lot more sunlight had amazing growth as compared to a few hundred feet away. We joked that with sunlight you can grow anything & there must be some truth to that though some of the stunted growth in the old garden was from the tall conifer roots soaking up the moisture & nutrients.

I moved our rhubarb one day in late March to the new spot outside of the raised beds & observed incredible growth all season. Granted the plants were larger last year than 5 years ago when first planted, but still it was an amazing difference from 2013 to last year 2014 in the new spot. You'd think the plants would have been stunted by digging them up, but because my soil was so loose from the compost amendments it was easy to keep the clumps intact & cart them over to the new spot with the clump of soil attached then I just mulched around after planting. Where before I would wonder what was wrong with my rhubarb that wasn't huge yet like my dad's now I know it was lacking sunlight not nutrients.

Mulch & occasional watering was all we did for the rhubarb back in the old garden & the new spot. I won't spread my compost on it because applying manure when dormant in fall and early winter is easily composted by spring with the rain washing the nutrients down into the soil. I save the compost for mulching in early summer when the soil has warmed.

You may use 10 to 1 diluted urine for fertilizer too, it works pretty good for me, no more chemical fertilizer.

This post was edited by JCTsai on Sat, Jan 10, 15 at 15:39

Thanks for all of the ideas! I like the cornmeal, egg shells and coffee ground ideas the best. The tooth picks sound good too.

Thanks for all of the ideas! I like the cornmeal, egg shells and coffee ground ideas the best. The tooth picks sound good too.

I'm probably not going to be very popular, BUT.... I had a bed that had great soil, but had hardware cloth( wire very strong and spaced very close together) already in place from crops before we planted our gus.
We ended up planting it just about 6" deep and topping it with tons of compost (as we do each year!).
This is not the optimal way of planting asparagus, but for our situation, it has worked very well!
The gus is ever expanding, and we almost have too much! (NoNo! Never mind! Gus soup is in the freezer!) Nancy

I won't be planting until March. I was just taking advantage of a warm December to prepare a new garden space.

I have a large supply of good garden soil from my previous vegetable garden which will no longer be used. It is a raised lasagna-style bed loaded with rich, wormy, black soil. One way or another, that soil will end up in this new garden.

I don't have rodent problems because of the feral cats living in my back yard.

Thanks

Harry

My (limited) experience is that I winter sow brassica seeds in January. They will sprout when mother nature nudges them to. Last year I planted in raised beds 3 weeks prior to average last frost. They (cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower) all did well. I sowed seeds for the fall crop ~ the 7th of July. I had nice fall crops of cauliflower and broccoli, but the cabbage didn't have enough time to form. I may sow seeds this year 1.5 - 3 weeks earlier for cabbage and probably 1 week sooner for the other 2.

For you, you will want to know your average last freeze (spring) and average first freeze (fall) and sow & plant accordingly.

Also see link below to winter sowing.

regards,
tom

Here is a link that might be useful: wintersowing FAQ

The planting dates are really confusing and hard to believe. As others have said, cabbage and broccoli can be double-cropped in 6B, with spring crops seeded indoors in late Feb, and fall crops seeded in early July. Cauliflower seeds need to be started in early July, too.

I have never gotten decent B sprouts or cauliflower from spring plantings. I now start B sprout seeds the first week of June; the plants bear in November.