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I have no idea then, maybe someone else will weigh in. Speaking of aphids though, I just found that the ones I thought I eliminated from my little pepper plant have returned in force.  I can't find my spray bottle so I'm going to pick one up at Wal-Mart, then the little bastards are going to take a bath in dishsoap.
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Jun 7, 2009 21:52
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I had a minor case of aphids, so i boiled some water and threw in citrus zest (lime and lemon) and also squeezed in lemon, lime, and orange juice. Put it in a sprayer and killed some aphids that were on my Cajamarca. A few days later I see that the aphid predators have won the battle for the plant so I did not need but two applications. So happy it is under control. My eggplant never had an aphid problem but has become home to a handful of lady bugs. My cherry tomatoes are finally coming in, as well as a lot more peppers. I took some pictures of the progress (not as many as usual). The Tumbling Tom (cherry tomato) and Kosovo (oxheart) are developing nice tomatoes. Here is a shot of the group of peppers, eggplant, and the cherry tomato. Here is another group photo that I liked the way it looks. The peppers are producing a lot of fruit, except for the bell pepper and cajamarca. The Cajamarca plant looks so incredibly robust and healthy. Now if only I could get some multicolored Habaneros... The bright green jalapeno that will change different colors, NuMex Pinata, looks really neat. The two plants with the most peppers are the NuMex Sunset and Piment d Espelette.
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Jun 8, 2009 01:42
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It's been a little over two weeks now since I planted in my raised beds that I posted earlier. I planted it as a square foot garden and so far everything seems to be growing very well. This is my first bed which from left to right has 8 squares of corn, 4 squares of okra, 4 squares of black soy beans, 4 squares of green soy beans, 4 squares of green beans, two squares of spinach, two squares of red carrots, and four outer squares of celery which just started to sprout. In the lower left corner you can also see the container of strawberries which almost has some ripe ones in it now.  My second bed looks a lot more sparse. I have a 3x3 section for the zucchini and another 3x3 section for the purple heirloom tomato. The rest of the squares are filled with shallots, four kinds of lettuce, and four kinds of basil which are all still pretty small.  My third bed is a mix of transplants and seeds. From left to right I have 2 slicing cucumbers, 2 pickling cucumbers, 4 squares of broccoli, 3 squares of gai choy, 1 red bell pepper, 1 purple bell pepper, 2 tomatillos, 1 ancho pepper, 2 squares of arugula, 1 square of green onions, 2 squares of walla walla onions, 2 squares or radishes, 4 squares of napa cabbage, 2 squares of regular cabbage, and one square each of parsley, oregano, and thyme.  My fourth bed is the melon bed. From left to right I have 2 Japanese honeydew melons, 4 moon and stars watermelons, and 2 mini cantaloupes.  The really cool thing is that the moon and stars watermelon leaves also have the yellow spots like the fruit is supposed to have.  And this is my original garden space. You can see all the slug trails of death I've caused on the weed fabric. In this space I have a cherry tomato, jalapeno, and roma tomato in the front row. Behind that are two butternut squashes. Behind that are 2 broccoli plants, parsley, and a green bell pepper. And finally 2 different artichokes, 2 yellow zucchini plants, and 2 heads of butter crunch lettuce. And the blueberry bush in there on the right was from the previous owners.  The two lettuce look pretty small because I took my first harvest of the year from them.  My two year old asparagus patch is doing pretty well. Hopefully next year I'll get a lot of edible sized spears.  I bought a dwarf satsuma mandarin tree this year too. You can see some of the fruit in this pic.  I finally bit the bullet and put some hops in this year. The first pic is my cascade vines and the second is my saaz vine. I probably won't get much hops off of them this year.   And finally is the grape vine that was here from the previous owners. I have no idea what kind of grapes they are, but they are small and taste very good. 
toenut fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Jun 8, 2009 |
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Jun 8, 2009 07:24
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My stupid 90lb Chocolate Lab ate the 4 heads off my beautiful Broccoli  Jumped a 3 foot fence to get at them, apparently they smelled really good.
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Jun 8, 2009 14:16
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HeatherChandler posted:My lettuce is bolting, but oh well when there are tomatoes. Be careful when you lovingly fondle your little baby tomatoes. I broke off one of my romas yesterday while I was admiring it and I felt so bad. I buried it for worm food.
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Jun 8, 2009 17:50
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It's been raining entirely too much since Memorial Day down here in Florida and it's starting to piss me off. I've got seedlings that are busting out of their peat pots but the weather has been anything but cooperative; if I plant them now they will drown. I can't even plant these two Italian Cypresses I got over the weekend because the top of the water table is at the bottom of the hole I dug out for them.
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Jun 9, 2009 02:03
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If I haven't already convinced anyone that I am a total spaz yet--today I convinced myself that my tomatoes had early blight. I went about removing any 'affected' leaves, sterilized all my equipment, and was about to go out and get spray when I looked at the leaves again and remembered we had a hail storm. Ugh I need someone to slap me sometimes. Here, have a mutant tomato blossom:  I can't wait to see what horrible abomination this grows if it sets.
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Jun 11, 2009 05:54
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HeatherChandler posted:Here, have a mutant tomato blossom: 
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Jun 11, 2009 06:32
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I'm renting at a place and I want to put a raised bed garden on my patio. I'm planning to grow lots of herbs and some beans and peppers and things. I've bought some cinder blocks (8 x 8 x 16 and 8 x 2 x 16) that I want to use to construct it, making it about 10 inches deep. Are there any other precautions I need to take or things I can do now that will make it easier to clean up later? Should I just put dirt directly to the patio or should I put some kind of shield against heat below the soil? This is in Houston.
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Jun 12, 2009 19:41
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kylejack posted:I'm renting at a place and I want to put a raised bed garden on my patio. I'm planning to grow lots of herbs and some beans and peppers and things. I don't think you'll be able to put a waterproof liner under that to prevent soil leakage under the cinder blocks. When you water your plants, the water that makes it to the bottom would just stay there. Combine that with the heat and you are just waiting to get a fungal explosion in the soil. On the other hand, if you just place the cinder blocks to edge the garden, soil will definitely leak out, as the patio bricks look fairly uneven. I wouldn't attempt it unless you had access to a hose out there to wash the soil away that leaks out, and to wash away the remnants left over when you shovel the soil away when you leave the apartment, and just to make watering easier in general. If there is no faucet out there and your kitchen is close to the patio, you could see if the faucet has the proper threading to accept a connector to allow a hose to be attached. Sometimes pet stores have this setup in the aquarium section for filling fish tanks. All in all though, I don't think it's a great idea and I think you'd be happier buying a lot of over-sized cheap plastic pots instead. Plenty of people garden only using pots.
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Jun 12, 2009 21:45
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Costello Jello posted:I don't think you'll be able to put a waterproof liner under that to prevent soil leakage under the cinder blocks. When you water your plants, the water that makes it to the bottom would just stay there. Combine that with the heat and you are just waiting to get a fungal explosion in the soil. On the other hand, if you just place the cinder blocks to edge the garden, soil will definitely leak out, as the patio bricks look fairly uneven. I wouldn't attempt it unless you had access to a hose out there to wash the soil away that leaks out, and to wash away the remnants left over when you shovel the soil away when you leave the apartment, and just to make watering easier in general. If there is no faucet out there and your kitchen is close to the patio, you could see if the faucet has the proper threading to accept a connector to allow a hose to be attached. Sometimes pet stores have this setup in the aquarium section for filling fish tanks. Pots are an excellent way to grow plants. Before even spending any money on pots, though, go to a garden centre and see if they have a plastic recycle area. Generally this is where landscapers ditch their old pots - and you can sometimes take them away for free! I upgraded all of my vegetables into bigger pots for free this way.
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Jun 13, 2009 03:07
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Well, poo poo just got real in the garden. There are several squash and zucchini plants producing now, and probably that many again that will start to kick in soon. All the squash and zuch in the picture is from the course of 4 days. Yes, really. Going to need some squash and zucchini recipes it seems. Half the lettuce was ready today so I cut it's heads off. Thats 6 heads of cabbage you see, the one on top is a loving monstrosity of cole genetics. You can't tell well from the picture, but it's approaching 3/4's of a basketball size. And this is all before my tomato, corn, peas or cucumber plants have produced a single ripe fruit. Should be interesting in a couple more weeks. 
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Jun 13, 2009 18:03
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Well, my strawberries seem to be dying down as far as production goes. Then again, it's mid June and to be expected. All but 2 of my bell pepper plants died but it was a worthwhile experiment that I can try again next year. Lost a tomato plant to a rabbit, but it was a thin spiny thing that we kept going from last year so no big loss. Still, the rabbits have taken more then their fair share of the strawberries as well and something is going to have to be done. My bush beans are blossoming so another 15-20 days and I'll have about a bussle of them to get sick of.  ChaoticSeven, that's a real nice output. I wish I had more time to dedicate to the garden so I manage as much stuff as you.
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Jun 13, 2009 21:53
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ChaoticSeven posted:Well, poo poo just got real in the garden. There are several squash and zucchini plants producing now, and probably that many again that will start to kick in soon. All the squash and zuch in the picture is from the course of 4 days. Yes, really. Going to need some squash and zucchini recipes it seems. Half the lettuce was ready today so I cut it's heads off. Thats 6 heads of cabbage you see, the one on top is a loving monstrosity of cole genetics. You can't tell well from the picture, but it's approaching 3/4's of a basketball size. Beautiful! A good way to get rid of a lot of zucchini is to slice it thin and use it like you would lasagna noodles. I don't know if that appeals to people who aren't on a diet and eat pasta, but it uses up like 6 zucchini for a small pan and is quite satisfying. We all warned you about them, one plant gives me more than I can use, and I use a lot. Re: Recycling plastic pots--something to watch out for when resusing thin nursery pots is if you live somewhere that gets hot the roots can get too hot in them. Wrapping them in white trash bags or strips of that refective insulation or even those space blankets is supposed to work really well.
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Jun 14, 2009 00:56
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My chili pepper plant is suddenly all wilty and dropping leaves. I don't know if it's because the aphids are getting the best of it or that it doesn't like the soap I've been spraying it with. Either way, I may have to go get another one.
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Jun 14, 2009 05:00
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Chajara posted:My chili pepper plant is suddenly all wilty and dropping leaves. I don't know if it's because the aphids are getting the best of it or that it doesn't like the soap I've been spraying it with. Either way, I may have to go get another one. drat, I just found aphids on my chili plant yesterday, I ran out and bought some soap and thought all was well.
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Jun 14, 2009 16:14
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If you guys are having aphid problems, I'd recommend going out and finding somewhere that they sell ladybugs. You should typicly be able to buy between 1000 and 1500 for under $10. Considering they eat something like 7x their own body weight in aphids a day I can't imagine you having much of a problem after releasing that many.
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Jun 14, 2009 17:02
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Anubis posted:If you guys are having aphid problems, I'd recommend going out and finding somewhere that they sell ladybugs. You should typicly be able to buy between 1000 and 1500 for under $10. Considering they eat something like 7x their own body weight in aphids a day I can't imagine you having much of a problem after releasing that many. OK, but I only have one pepper plant. Oh NOOOO..... ! ChuckHead fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jun 14, 2009 |
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Jun 14, 2009 18:43
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ChuckHead posted:OK, but I only have one pepper plant. Oh NOOOO..... Hahaha, I've considered doing this but since I've the only thing that stands between my balcony and the neighbor's is a wooden fence I'm wondering if it'll be a good idea. I don't think she'll take too kindly to being swarmed by ladybugs when she goes outside to smoke. Then again, perhaps it'll keep her from filling my own apartment with her nasty rear end cigarette smell 10 times a day. I wish I could just go catch some but I haven't seen a ladybug in the wild for years. Just those stupid smelly asian beetles. In other news, I have some little tomatoes ripening. My pole beans are growing too, though I'm not sure why some of them have wrinkly leaves and others have normal looking flat ones. Hopefully I'll get some good beans off them.
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Jun 14, 2009 20:03
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Chajara posted:Hahaha, I've considered doing this but since I've the only thing that stands between my balcony and the neighbor's is a wooden fence I'm wondering if it'll be a good idea. I don't think she'll take too kindly to being swarmed by ladybugs when she goes outside to smoke. Then again, perhaps it'll keep her from filling my own apartment with her nasty rear end cigarette smell 10 times a day. I wish I could just go catch some but I haven't seen a ladybug in the wild for years. Just those stupid smelly asian beetles. I've heard they will only stick around for upwards of 2 weeks before dying/moving on. Luckily by time that happens every aphid will have been utterly destroyed by your swarm. If your seriously having a problem and your only concern is the potential swarm I'd say it's well worth it. Also, thanks for the laugh ChuckHead.
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Jun 15, 2009 14:36
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Costello Jello posted:Plenty of people garden only using pots. Like me, I'm on my second sowing of lettuce and will be pulling up my first-ever harvest of potatoes this week! I spotted some aphids on my nearly-gone-to-seed pak choi (or whatever they were) plants a few weeks ago but since I knew I'd be cutting them down soon anyway I wasn't too worried about them. I think I might move around my garlic & onion containers to spread them out a bit and hopefully shoo off some of the aphids, but who knows. Funny story, I went to a DIY store and paid £2 each for a couple of largish tomato plants because I'd ignored the seedlings I had, then later the same day went to a garden fete (charity market type thing) and found plants just as big for 50p each...still bought a couple, so now I can finally get going with getting all hopeful about my tomato crop and ultimately being disappointed with how quickly they all die :P (nah, seriously, I just need to watch over them a bit better and figure out how often to fertilize them, I only use organic stuff so no 'tomato food' or miracle grow)
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Jun 15, 2009 14:57
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Ladybugs will hang around longer if you give them flowers they like. I have a bit of a pickle. My cherry tomatoes are at the top of my 6 ft supports. I am kind of...surprised. I know it could be because of too much fertilizer or not enough sun, but my slicers are in identical conditions and a lot stouter, and all have lots of production and fruit set, so it must just be the variety. I am training to a single stem and staking, with my stakes set up in teepees for stability. My options are: A. Secure them going downwards on the opposite stake--it is a great enough angle that I can do this without breaking the stem. B. Top them off and let one of the lateral branches grow out and secure it upwards on the same stake, when that reaches the top repeat until I am ready to top for the season. Not sure what is better. B seems like it would work better, but there would be a gap in production while waiting for a lateral branch to develop. The pro would be that the stem would be closer to the roots (that's how it works, right?) Any ideas?
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Jun 15, 2009 15:37
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I have a question on some zucchini plants I'm growing. All my plants are on a 14th floor balcony, and I don't have a whole ton of flowering stuff, so I'm not really counting on bees to drag their rear end up there to pollinate my flowers. I'm going the self-pollinating route, but so far I have a TON of male flowers starting to bloom but not a single flower. There's one that MIGHT be but it's just starting out. Is this normal? Is there anything I can do to encourage female flower production?
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Jun 15, 2009 15:59
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enki42 posted:I have a question on some zucchini plants I'm growing. All my plants are on a 14th floor balcony, and I don't have a whole ton of flowering stuff, so I'm not really counting on bees to drag their rear end up there to pollinate my flowers. I'm going the self-pollinating route, but so far I have a TON of male flowers starting to bloom but not a single flower. There's one that MIGHT be but it's just starting out. It's normal. The plant produces lots of males first so when the females come there is a greater chance that pollen will be available, they will just drop off--or if there are no females to attend to or if you have already pollinated stuff and fry 'em.
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Jun 15, 2009 17:05
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A huge storm is destroying my garden as I type. I don't think there is a drat thing I can do about it, either. Wind gusts upwards of 55mph and torrential rains. Goodbye green beans, goodbye tomato plants... 
Anubis fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Jun 16, 2009 |
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Jun 16, 2009 04:49
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Anubis posted:A huge storm is destroying my garden as I type. I planted my garden this year with plants I started from seedlings. I loved my little seedlings. I was trying lettuce for the first time ever too and was feeling really hopeful about it all. Then we got a freak storm and a mini tornado came through the yard and sucked all my plants out of the ground. That was about a month ago. Now I have lettuce and onions growing in the middle of my yard. Those are the only things that survived too. Looks like it's back to buying plants for another year.
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Jun 16, 2009 14:22
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That sucks you guys! But you can plant a second crop of lettuce and leafy stuff, and get seedlings for some of the other things, can't you? I bought organic garlic bulbs a few weeks ago and planted out a whole bulb, now I have about a dozen plants coming up. It can't be that late already, can it?
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Jun 16, 2009 15:47
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krushgroove posted:That sucks you guys! But you can plant a second crop of lettuce and leafy stuff, and get seedlings for some of the other things, can't you? I bought organic garlic bulbs a few weeks ago and planted out a whole bulb, now I have about a dozen plants coming up. It can't be that late already, can it? Those were my spring plants. It is already way too hot here to plant lettuce. My garlic and onions that I replanted are doing well. My lavender that was already established is going crazy. None of the other seeds I bought did anything. Not even a twitch in the soil. I'll try again in the fall with seeds but for the summer plantings it is going to be bought plants.
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Jun 16, 2009 16:11
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What the hell is eating my tomato plant leaves? I have never seen this bug before, and family who has been gardening for a lot longer then me have no idea what it is either. I tried google and a few other things but yielded no results. I live in New Hampshire if that helps at all.  Click here for the full 1024x768 image.
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Jun 16, 2009 22:16
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Carta posted:What the hell is eating my tomato plant leaves? That is apparently a tortoise beetle. I only know this because I found a "What's that bug?" type site and started reading it top to bottom because bugs are cool. http://www.pestmanagement.ca/Questions/pest_photos_1001.htm It's bug number 1022 on that page. 
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Jun 16, 2009 23:20
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Anubis posted:A huge storm is destroying my garden as I type. How did this turn out? If you had your tomatoes caged up with concrete wire cages mine withstood some crazy rear end winds just recently with no ill effects. Most of my corn was ready for harvest today, so I did. I never had to spray this stuff with anything insecticidal or fungicidal which is something of a miracle I think in the south. Probably has something to do with how early I got it out. Quite a bit earlier than the real deal farmers. Peaches and Cream sweet corn. Booya. 
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Jun 16, 2009 23:57
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ChaoticSeven posted:How did this turn out? If you had your tomatoes caged up with concrete wire cages mine withstood some crazy rear end winds just recently with no ill effects. The tomatoes actually did survive! All of the bush green beans are still laying flat and had a bit of standing water that I didn't have time to trench away, yet, and some of them got snapped by the wind but generally it was better then I expected. My main concern right now is that if we get any more rain this week everything is going to be so over saturated that root rot would be very likely.
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Jun 17, 2009 13:28
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My cherry tomatoes went APE the last 3 days. Forced me to do some reading on pruning tomatoes and boy was I uneducated on the subject. With some newly acquired knowledge of tomato anatomy, I pruned back the six plants to just the main stem and one additional one (trying to get these to climb up a wall as much as possible). Much better
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Jun 19, 2009 04:03
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There are little buds on my tomatoes today! With the wind storm, hail storm, snow storm, drought and cool weather we've had.. I'm pretty impressed they've pulled through  The cucumber is putting up lots of leaves too, but the other cuke plant died for no reason. Gardening in Calgary suuuucks.
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Jun 19, 2009 15:30
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dwoloz posted:My cherry tomatoes went APE the last 3 days. Forced me to do some reading on pruning tomatoes and boy was I uneducated on the subject. Just making sure, you are aware that tomatoes don't 'climb' of their own accord? They will need to be somehow tied/attached to the wall. Tomatoes 'naturally' sprawl on the ground once fruit weighs the stems down, they don't have any mechanism to attach themselves upwards.
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Jun 19, 2009 15:59
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HeatherChandler posted:Just making sure, you are aware that tomatoes don't 'climb' of their own accord? They will need to be somehow tied/attached to the wall. Tomatoes 'naturally' sprawl on the ground once fruit weighs the stems down, they don't have any mechanism to attach themselves upwards. Haha yes, I am diligently tying it up as it grows
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Jun 19, 2009 20:05
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dwoloz posted:Forced me to do some reading on pruning tomatoes and boy was I uneducated on the subject. I had no idea, and my tomatoes have been crowding my peas anyway. I was looking forward to doing this this weekend, but now it is supposed to rain most of the time. Anubis posted:I've heard they will only stick around for upwards of 2 weeks before dying/moving on. Luckily by time that happens every aphid will have been utterly destroyed by your swarm. If your seriously having a problem and your only concern is the potential swarm I'd say it's well worth it. Also, thanks for the laugh ChuckHead. I did this, you are right no more aphids. I had no idea my 7 years old son would be so into it. I brought them home and told him what the ladybugs were for and he said "you bought henchmen?!?!, cool!". He has been checking up on them for several days now.
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Jun 19, 2009 22:51
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dwoloz posted:Haha yes, I am diligently tying it up as it grows Haha I didn't mean to sound so condescending about it--I had just explained it to like three of my friends--'why are your tomatoes so tall?'.
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Jun 19, 2009 23:51
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Oh god. I think I have some kind of wilt in my soil. My mortgage lifter tomato, covered in big beautiful green 'maters, is showing all the signs--yellow, wilting leaves, brownish wet looking spots. It may also be affecting the Cherokee Purple and Roma. Pray for me. And tell me what I can plant in that bed next year that isn't affected by F or V wilt, because I think that's what I got.
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Jun 20, 2009 18:17
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FuzzyDunlop posted:Oh god. Your best bet is to grow resistant varieties next year, of which there are many. Look for varieties that have V & F after them. That will probably mean planting a newer hybrid variety; no more heirlooms. Here is a partial list http://www.oznet.k-state.edu/path-ext/factSheets/Tomato/Fusarium%20and%20Verticillium%20Wilt%20of%20Tomato.asp You don't want to plant a Solanaceous crop there next year, so no peppers, other tomatoes, eggplant, or potato.
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Jun 21, 2009 00:42
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