23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening


I dug the soil closest to the stump, about 2' deep. Then I dug the trenches to plant the crowns. I'll leave the trench open for the winter and plant the crowns next spring.
I only found a couple of large roots, about 1/2" diameter. They grow at the top 1' of the soil.....


Could be what Jean mentioned and with the cold and low light, you likely won't get much the rest of the year. Even down here where the day temps are great, it's just too cold at night for much production. I've already started pulling some of my peppers because I know there's nothing left in them as it gets cooler.
But... the shriveling could be a sign that the compost is tainted with herbicide. You may want to test it with a link that Jean gave me once. And like she said, a pic speaks loudly.
Kevin
Here is a link that might be useful: WSU bioassay for herbicide in compost

Thank you thank you!! I will harden them first before transplanting, thanks for the suggestion. This is my first year planting, I'm very very new and need a lot of help! ;-)
I sowed a few broccolini and spinach seeds, not expecting much, and then all of a sudden, seedlings were emerging, just right before another freeze. I covered them up, and they continued to grow. Hope they will grow up.
I'll put some carrot seeds down after I till my raised bed. Thank you guys!!

Carrots will take a while to come up. It could take a month or more in cold soils. The spring planting date for Beaumont, Texas is Jan. 15 to Feb. 15. Your planting date would be about 2 weeks later I would think (Feb 1 to March1). If you plant earlier the seeds will probably just sit there. I have have planted in the fall and they came up but the plants did not produce until early spring.
You would want to plant spinach on 2 to 3 week intervals to give you a continuous supply. Spinach seeding dates are about 2 weeks earlier than carrots.
A good reference for Texas vegetable gardeners is The Vegetable Book by Dr. Sam Cotner. You can buy it new on the Texas Gardener website for $34 which includes postage and tax. Neil Sperry's Complete Guide to Texas Gardening is also good. You can get it used for about $4 from Abebooks.com. Make sure it is the second edition. It covers all aspects of Texas gardening, not just vegetables.



When a potato freezes and then thawed it will be quite mushy. Because the starch in it is decomposed due to enzyme activity. That is the reason for blanching vegetable prior to freezing to prevent getting mushy after it is thawed. It is easy to tell. Sometimes half of a potato near the surface might freeze but lower half is ok. Just cut off and discard the frozen/mushy part.
Seysonn



The one time I had issues with holes in my sweet potato leaves, it was due to the golden tortoise beetle, Charidotella bicolor. It is a beautiful bug and looks like it's really made of metal (like the second photo in the link below, not the first) but I was heartless and squished it anyway.
Here is a link that might be useful: golden tortoise beetle


Yep --we eat kale flowers and arugula flowers, mustard too -- really any brassica flowers, stems, buds, seed pods are all very tasty raw in salad or cooked. Nice to know you haven't let the brassicas go to "waste" just because you couldn't get to them before they bolted.
Radishes are also a brassica -- and if you let them bolt (they can get huge) and develop seed pods, the seed pods are quite a delicacy in salads.

I have 2 question for chinese kale (gailan)specifically.
(1) it's november fall season I planted chinese kale, they are 4 inches tall and flowers are appearing. Did they BOLT(meaning the end of the growing season for the plant?) or are they part of it as they grow. Anybody please give me an advise.
(2) How do you harvest them properly in order to last until late spring.?



The first picture is definitely a green striped cushaw, not a overly healthy one, but a cushaw all the same. Cushaw are Cucurbita agyrosperma, this species has relatively few varieties compared to the other pumpkins species and interspecific crosses are less common, if possible at all, depending on what species you have growing.

The second picture you posted looks like some form of an unknown cross. Looks like Cucurbita pepo to me though.



I am trying Honey Bear for the first time this year. I only have 1 plant. I currently have 4 fruits - I pulled one with worms in it, the other 3 look ok so far. My question is, how do I know when they are ready to be harvested?
Thanks
Kostar
Is this squash any good? We planted Table Queen Bush Acorns this year and we got early, small, not sweet but a delicious nutty flavor that we really enjoyed. We wanted to plant the same thing next year but Johnny's doesn't have it. I do see they have this bush squash. Does it have a similar nutty flavor? PM resistance is good as PM eventually killed all my acorns.
They have two other "semi-bush" varieties.... not sure what "semi-bush" is but we need these to be bush to fit into the space allocated.
What about Table Princess they have at Pinetree... what's the difference to Table Queen?
I think I am going to need to order from Pinetree.... Johnnys has some awesome varieties but too expensive to buy everything there.
This post was edited by Peter1142 on Sat, Dec 6, 14 at 11:24