23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
I don't know how, but I stumbled onto this thread:
It claims that ants were coming in after the aphids that were infesting the roots of her pepper plants, and I believe it. It makes me wonder if I had the same issue. I did not see any aphids but I could have missed them. If what I read was true, then the ants not only protect the aphids but actively move them from one host plant to another, spreading the problem. On the plus side though, the ants would also be a visible signal to the problem.
Going forward, I will keep this on my radar. Now, where did I put that magnifying glass?
<It seems that ants have such a halo of innocence that scarcely anyone could believe that they could do any harm. >
I can understand your frustration and heaven knows they aren't saints. But they aren't the evil denizens that the many "help! ants are destroying my plants so how do I kill them?" posts we often get here.
And in this case it's just that the odds so heavily favor the far more common causes and that the ants are just a side-effect of one of those other causes.
Sure ants can get out of control in some situations and in those instances you have to intervene. You do what you have to do. But the majority of the time ants are beneficial to the garden in so many other ways that in general they should be tolerated, even accommodated, whenever it's possible.
Dave
You can put them down anytime, but if you're waiting for seedlings, keep the layer thin. You don't want those seedlings to pop up under inches of mulch. Yes, wetting the mulch lightly would indeed protect it from wind, if you have a lot of wind, though the flakes will settle down into a more or less resilient but soft mat.
that is arugula and that has already started to bolt in cold Michigan too. So yes, it is normal. The leaves of that plant are perfectly edible, however. Want arugula for a longer time? Seed it in late august and eat it in the Fall. I plant it now because it gives me 2-3 salads, and it will reseed during summer, saving me the job of reseeding it myself.
What do I recommend? Well as I said above, I use compost, manured compost tea, and fish emulsion supplements. I grow organically as much as possible.
I never recommend Miracle Grow fertilizers for many reasons but many folks use them - lots of discussions here about the pros and cons of various fertilizers - so the choice of fertilizer is always yours. What are you using to feed all the other vegetables? The same thing would probably work for rabe.
But "high" in nitrogen is seldom necessary. Any well balanced fertilizer works fine whether it is organic or synthetic as long at it is used properly.
Dave
Wait. Don't start with the kiling agents. If the aphids prefer the dandilion roots, DON'T pull the dandilions, and espcially don't try to treat them with some kind of toxic herbicide or aphid killer. If the aphids are on the roots of the dandilions, that does NOT mean they are on the roots of your other plants. It is possible that keeping the dandelions, the roots of which would be the aphids favorite food, is helping to keep the aphids from looking for plants that they don't like as much. If there are aphids on your other plants, the best thing you can do it let the dandelions thrive, so the aphids don't have to move to less-preferred food sources. Watch this video - and pay attention specifically right after 4:00 minutes - and keep watching. He will talk about DANDELIONS!! Listen to the experience. https://vimeo.com/98940910
I think it gets to the uppermost roots. I don't think it necessarily gets to the taproot. Weeds with taproots are what we're talking about here. By the time the uppermost roots are dead, there is no circulatory system that's going to get it to the taproot. In fact, weeds that aren't actively growing are pretty tolerant of glyphosate.
To answer the question of the OP, Roundup degrades naturally in soil on time scales of weeks to months. I don't think I'd want to put it on my soil two weeks before planting seeds as I'd guess that after that time, there would still be some left. No, I believe that's incorrect that it is gone in a "matter of a day". Ain't so. So whether you're worried about the health effects of it, or the effects on your plants, I don't think it would be smart to put it on your soil for vegetable gardening.
I would cut a rectangular section out of the fabric about an inch, inch and a half wide and as long as the row needs to be. I thought about doing this with carrots but decided not to (and I probably should have considering all the weeds I just pulled) since I like to use organic mulches.
Rodney
I don't care for kale smoothies personally but I love cooking with kale in all sorts of recipes and making dried kale chips - any kind of kale. We dehydrate a lot of it and add it to soupls and stews and salads and even chili. We grow a lot of Toscana, Red Bore and Dwarf Blue as well as Lacinato.
Dave
I don't make or eat smoothies either. I like to eat my fruit and veggies whole, including all the fibre. I generally just steam it or sweat it in butter or olive oil and serve as greens. I also chop it into pasta sauces for extra goodness. I don't freeze or dehydrate it either as it is available afresh all winter and I don't like frozen vegetables. I tried kale chips a couple of times but wasn't impressed. Dirt do you have a recipe I could try to see if I can change my mind?
It;s more likely to be gray mold, Botrytis rot since the fruit look like they're just covered in grey/white velvety growth. Powdery mildew growth looks different on fruit than that and you would also see it on green fruit also. Of course snip off the rotting fruit and dispose of it.
Sorry but I can't really tell much from your pictures. In the first one the dark edges and the crisping/rolling is often caused by too much nitrogen fertilizer. In the second picture I see a dark streak running through the one stem and maybe a couple of dark blotches on the one in the middle of the pic but it is difficult to tell how accurate the color is because the soil in your pics also looks VERY black and that is weird.
The dark staining of stems can often be a symptom of any of several different fungus diseases. If that is the case then that plant should probably be pulled and replaced while it is still early enough in the season because the treatment - regular spraying with fungicides - only has marginal success.
But if the infection is from your soil just replacing the plant won't help. So why is your soil so black? What mix did you use to fill the bed with? Do all the rest of your plants look ok? What have you fed them and how often?
Dave
For my soil I used 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 vermiculite. The compost was a mix of mushroom compost and earthworm castings. A couple of days ago I accidently sprayed a concentrated amount of neem oil of some of my plants including the tomato plant so is it possible sun damage caused the blackening?? I also had some blossom end rot 4 days ago on one tomato. I discarded it and added some crushed egg shells to up the calcium. I'm not sure if the rot is connected to whatever is happening to the stem and leaves though. As for my other plants they look fine.
Home grown broccoli can last a lot longer than a week in the fridge, IMPE. As LoneJack says, the ones @ the stores can be older than that & they keep in my fridge for another week, sometimes more.
I always grab a couple extra produce bags when shopping & store my harvest in those, in the vegetable drawer. I don't usually rinse until ready to use, but I do sprinkle a bit of water over greens to keep them from wilting. Harvest early in the day, too, when plants are @ their perkiest.
Once I got more and more into gardening (while I was still working) I didn't always have the time to process and freeze everything right NOW! I discovered Debbie Meyer green bags! They truly keep fruits and veggies twice as long (I'm not selling anything, just love them!) . They are a bit pricey, about 9.00 for 20, but you can wash and re-use them over and over. Sometimes the dollar store has pink bags, but they don't last very long. DM also has brown bread bags that keep French bread good for a week or more! I will usually share a package of the brown bags with the neighbors, cause how many "good" loaves of bread are you going to have open at any one time?
I actually bring my green bags to the grocery store when I have to buy something I don't have in the garden, just to save a plastic tree. Nancy
I watched a youtube video and a guy did an experiment on spouting spinach seeds. The conclusion is if you put the seeds in refrigerator half day and take them out for the other half day and keeps doing this process for 4 days, the spinach seeds germinate better than other methods. I had problem germinating my spinach seeds so I followed this process. Now it's spouting after two days of doing so. You will need to put the seeds in wet towel and then put the towel in a zip bag before putting the seeds in your fridge. I hope this will work well with your spinach seeds. I don't know how old my seeds are. I also have seeded my spinach outdoors and there is only 2 or 3 seeds out of 30 looking like spouting after laying in the soil at least one week.
<light tan wart like things growing around the joints of leaves and stalks>
Could you post a pic please? The joints are normally tan and slightly swollen in appearance so it may be normal. "Exploding stems" is NOT normal but can't say what could be causing it without seeing them. Any sign of pests? Do these "warts" rub off?
Dave