24,795 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

My reaction is umm umm good! It does have a laxative effect that reduces with boiling and draining a few times, I do it 3 times and I hardly ever notice any affect. I have more affect from fresh onions than poke.
You said "i didn't feel anything different right away". Did you get sick later?
It is kind of late to pick it. You should only use young tender leaves and stop picking any when the stems start to turn purple. Usually around mid May here.
If you used leaves only and no stems there should be no problems. I have ate fried young tender stems and they are good too.
I have been eating it every spring for 60 years with no problem, my Mama fed it to me as soon as I was old enough for solid food! My family including all of my aunts uncles cousins, ETC. have been eating it also. No one has ever gotten sick!
I remember a lot of people with arthritis would dry the berries and take one a day for it.
There are a lot of nutritious great tasting wild foods out there that many people are afraid of.
If you remember tomatoes were thought to be poison at one time and parts of tomato plants are poisonous. Same with potatoes which are poisonous if exposed to sun.
If anyone decides to eat anything wild they should be sure to identify it properly and how it should be handled, cooking and harvesting. Never, ever, even touch or eat anything that you are not 100% sure of! There are a lot of "look a likes" out there!


I love fava beans--I have successfully overwintered them in my zone 7 garden. The timing of my spring planting was not good this year, or the weather heated up too fast, so no bean--but I will be harvesting the green tips to eat this weekend. Any bean that you can eat fresh or dried is a winner with me.

yes, blanching and light frosts remove the bitterness (just like light frosts sweeten a number of other veggies). Those I eat in January, the last ones, have zero bitterness. For storage, the best way is to bury them under lots of straw outside. They need to be right at the freezing point, but there has to be air circulation. I do not have straw anymore, so I store them in a tote. The outer stalks do tend to rot under these circumstances, but again, they are so abundant. My wife makes a pretty good soup with the coarser, outer stalks that survive, involving good stock, crumbled sausage, garlic and celery (the latter two, we have lots of). croutons also. but for me they are best raw, with a cup of olive oil, vinegar and salt to dip into.

Planting too close can reduce size/yields. I know potatoes don't like too much water or fert. In fact they prefer a low Ph poor soil with room to grow. But potatoes don't have to be large to be tasty. Early harvest can be a cause also.
I think with onions planting too deep can be a problem.
There are many varieties of white potatoes.

The weather was great here yesterday and I spent the whole day in the garden. The cucumbers I transplanted are awful, don't think they'll bounce back. I'll have to get more seeds started just incase. It sounds like most of us are in the same boat with the cool season crops AND weeds flourishing and warmer weather crops getting a little sick.

In my experience, corn doesn't like to be transplanted. Just plant seeds next year, transplanting is a shock which it's not evolved to expect. You mention that you planted 12? Hardly enough to get good pollination, be interesting to see if the cobs are full or partially full of kernels come harvest. I'd suggest at least a 6X6 grid of seeds spaced one foot each way at a minimum. If space is the issue, buy corn locally and use that space for bush beans, etc. Much more return for your effort.
Ev

Wow. Also, old tires are notorious mosquito breeders, as are any other chachkas with any indentations. I was at a beach house last week on the outer banks of NC (bad mosquito territory) and they had a collection of shells out front, many of which had turned over and were catching rain! It doesn't have to be big standing water :) (assuming that field will eventually absorb . . . )

I live in Winnipeg, Canada, and used to live in coastal Alaska. Both areas infamous for mosquito problems. Here, in the burbs they fog for them and release dragon flies to eat them. But for you, since you're next to this water hole that you can't do much about and the bugs are past their larvae stage and in the air now, the only things you can do are repel or catch/kill. Here are my suggestions:
1. put up a trap as others have suggested. I don't have a suggestion on which to use, because I don't live near a water hole and bug spray is good enough to at least harvest veggies.
2. I know most people don't have clothes specifically for gardening... but if you were to take say the top 3 shirts and pants you would most likely wear in the garden and soak them in a permethrin solution, that will not only repel, but kill any mosquito that lands on you. Satisfying, isn't it? lol You can get high strength for horse application online and dilute it, or pay a pretty penny for the stuff in a spray can for human use. Permethrin is meant for clothing, not skin application although it does not absorb in the skin (my husband is a chemist and told me this), and will last through something like 20 washes according to the label. No odor, no colour, will not ruin clothing.
3. Wear a bug hat with one of those nifty mesh cages that come down over your face. Sure, you'll look like a bee keeper, but it's satisfying to know they can't get to you through the mesh, try and try as they may.
4. Put out mosquito coils... you know those green incense things.... they always seemed gimmicky to me, until I moved north and found they worked great. Skeeters hate them.
If you can, find a way to increase your dragonfly population. They're beautiful, they don't bother people and they eat the skeeters. Last summer, the city of Winnipeg decided to try a green approach to the mosquito control and had tens of thousands of dragonflies released in the city and the parks. I would walk through open fields of grass with my 4 year old daughter, and clouds of blue/green dragonflies would rise in our wake, and hover above us. It was quite fantastical, but even better, not a mosquito in sight!
Even if you do find a solution, never deny yourself the occasional swat! in the air... it's immensely gratifying to squash one, mid-flight! Lol

Only the lowest 2-3 leaves are yellow/brown. I think it's ready because I dug one and it was well filled-out-- I read on a website that is how you tell. The same site is the one that said not to water for a period before harvest, to help them cure. I will dig today or tomorrow regardless! Thank you!


Agree with farmerdill. Didn't the indians tell the early settlers to put a dead fish in each hill of corn? Gives you an idea of what an aggressive feeder it is. I'd also put some 10-10-10 in the row and then also sidedress with same.
The indians also advocated "the three sisters," which were corn, beans and squash in the same hill. Squash may be as aggressive feeding as corn, explains why the indians changed garden areas often. :-)
Ev

Next question would be, are they going to be a problem since they are on just about every single leaf? And as far as mineral def. not surprising, Missouri clay is the soil, slowly working organic matter in but it's a slow process unless I spend quite a bit of cash on a dump truck load or two.

I've been gardening for 50+ years and have suckered tomatoes and not suckered them, ditto with your issue. I've learned to let things go and usually get a good yield. I do believe that the corn suckers are caused by too much nitrogen, maybe cut back on that?
Got into "natural" beekeeping a couple years ago, natural beekeeping is not using chemicals, food supplements, etc. That has taught me alot about the environment and just letting things happen. It seems that most of our crops and things (ignoring agribuisness!!) work well in spite of our intervention. :-)
Ev


If you have limited space, forget squash, remove the plants-period. What you'll come to learn is that when your squash are ripe they'll be very cheap at the farmer's market, etc. You could put something like cukes in that space and train them up the wall-if you like cukes.
My suggestion to begining gardeners is have a serious talk with yourself about what your family actually eats, then look at your available space, then read the seed catalogs, then go from there. Also, if space is limited, get some large pots and do container gardening, put them on your porch, deck, etc. have to water often, but you'll be surprised at the yield.
You might also Google Square Foot Gardening, it's a bit extreme for me, but has some very good info and has a ton of followers.
Ev


You could do double duty...pop a couple seeds right next to it in case this one doesn't recover. If it does recover, just pull the new seedlings.
Regarding your porch idea until the storms subside...not a problem at all.
Kevin
It survived! Been getting cukes everyday now