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Does anyone know why my tomato plant are looking so dour? It's rained a lot and I'm fighting what I think is aphids, but the damage looks pretty bad for just too much water and bugs. Album
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Jun 21, 2013 01:28
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Tomato leaves are pretty poisonous. They do contain things like atropine/scopolamine/etc, but if you collect the worms when they are small you can raise them up on non-poisonous leaves for an instar or two and they won't have enough leaf poisons in their gut or retained in the flesh to harm anything. I'd also wager that the tomato varieties that are prone to aphid problems have pretty low toxin levels in their leaves and stems. For anybody worried about Bt and damaging other beneficial bugs, Bt is a protein that depends on ingestion to work. Insects' stomachs are alkaline rather than acidic, and the protein only denatures into the toxic form that pokes holes into their GI tracts when exposed to an appropriately high(alkaline) pH. Bees and the like won't ingest the Bt when feeding, and mammals could literally eat pellets of the stuff with no real effect.
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Jun 21, 2013 03:30
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Allaniis posted:Does anyone know why my tomato plant are looking so dour? It's rained a lot and I'm fighting what I think is aphids, but the damage looks pretty bad for just too much water and bugs. I think your plants look normal. As tomatoes grow, the bottom branches start to die off. I don't know if it's lack of sun, too much exposure to water splashing up from the soil and not drying off quickly enough or what, but you should just trim off those bottom branches.
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Jun 21, 2013 12:02
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Om nom
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Jun 22, 2013 19:05
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ChaoticSeven posted:Om nom Holy crap, so jealous Slugs are the loving BANE of my existence. They have completely destroyed my beans, the cauliflowers are down to two or thee incredibly scraggly seedlings and the lettuce seedlings seem to keep vanishing as soon as they appear. Beer kills plenty but there are THOUSANDS on the site, for every one I kill I think ten just take a different route. Coffee doesn't seem effective yet, each new batch I get I'm just thickening the application until I find the level that actually works (if anything ever will). Also, the carrots haven't sprouted, onions are coming up but SLOWLY (the biggest sprout is maybe 3 inches high) and the parsnips are nowhere to be seen. The Potatoes seem to be doing alright though even those are being nibbled by something, thankfully they don't seem to be sufficiently palatable to get completely destroyed. Feeling kinda downhearted TBH, at this rate all I'll get out of the allotment this year is a few potatoes, some very small onions and about 5 strawberries from the new plants that went in this year. Also hopefully a load of blackberries from the wild brambles in the uncleared areas. I don't know if the problem is pests, bad watering or lack of fertility (they're brand new beds and I haven't added anything yet), it's not the climate because plenty of adjacent plots are doing fine, it's just me apparently. I think I need to grow things that slugs just don't want to eat, I can't eliminate them from the whole plot because at least 75% is still overgrown and I'm not clearing it because of the wildflowers. I know that means brassicas and beans are out, potatoes seem to be OK as do onions, anything else the little fucks will just ignore?
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Jun 22, 2013 23:15
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I was doing a ton of yard work today at my new place and I made a glorious discovery. There was an odd area which I hoped to make a garden but it was overgrown with bermudagrass, which was odd because the yard of my house is St. Augustine. While going to war with the very overgrown grass using a string trimmer I found out that my guess/hope was correct: the planned garden area is actually an already amended bed that had just been allowed to grow up, seeded from neighboring lawns. I think that actually it may have, in the past, been a vegetable garden. I'm planning to send off soil samples, nuke it with two cycles of glyphosate to kill off the bermudagrass, and top it off with a good tilling. Do I have any chance of putting in a fall or winter garden? Are leafy greens the only choice? The spot gets morning and early afternoon sun, but is shaded from the worst of the late afternoon heat. This is in Austin TX so the fall/winter growing season runs long (first frost average at the beginning of December) but it is hot hot hot so drip-irrigation seems to be the way to go. Any suggestions?
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Jun 23, 2013 05:01
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ChaoticSeven posted:Om nom Jesus Christ 
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Jun 23, 2013 05:55
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FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF Something ate all my sweet potato vines last night. Looks like they went down the row with a hedge trimmer, cutting the vines to the base. Internet seems to say it is either deer or little varmits like voles. We have deer behind our house, but a 6 foot privacy fence all the way around...could a deer jump that? Either way,  . Fingers crossed that they'll come back
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Jun 23, 2013 16:57
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polyfractal posted:FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF 6 foot SHOULD keep deer out, in Scotland the 3 foot stock fences only work on sheep but a 6 foot fence is very effective at keeping them out from areas with young trees and other tasty goodies. That's for European red deer, don't know about other species. If it's voles or other ground based critters (rabbits maybe?), you could try making vole guards out of plastic or fine wire mesh https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=v...fjVGMqh0QW__IAQ that's what they use on tree saplings in vole-dense areas EDIT this would probably work on climbing vines, not sure about a ground creeping vine, maybe fence off the entire bed with vole/rabbit proof fencing
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Jun 23, 2013 17:09
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Fatkraken posted:6 foot SHOULD keep deer out, in Scotland the 3 foot stock fences only work on sheep but a 6 foot fence is very effective at keeping them out from areas with young trees and other tasty goodies. That's for European red deer, don't know about other species. Hmm, how fine of wire mesh would be needed? I literally just put up chicken wire (2 inch diameter holes) around our beds yesterday, mainly to keep our dogs out of the bed (they love the bone/blood meal). Is that too large for voles? I think it would be sufficient to keep the rabbits out...but clearly something either went through the mesh or reached over it 
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Jun 23, 2013 17:51
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polyfractal posted:Hmm, how fine of wire mesh would be needed? I literally just put up chicken wire (2 inch diameter holes) around our beds yesterday, mainly to keep our dogs out of the bed (they love the bone/blood meal). Is that too large for voles? I think it would be sufficient to keep the rabbits out...but clearly something either went through the mesh or reached over it 2 inch is definitely too big, voles are wee little things  I mean, that's assuming a) it's voles and b) they're not just gonna climb it or something. I don't have personal experience keeping rodents off plants, I just know voles like to eat young trees and they use plastic guards to keep them off.
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Jun 23, 2013 18:34
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What do you do with last year's pot-plant soil? For me the only real answers are 'compost it' or 'put it in the garden waste for pickup' because I don't have actual soil in my back yard, it's rocky. Should I just throw it away then? I assume it'd possibly gently caress up my compost.
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Jun 23, 2013 20:30
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redreader posted:What do you do with last year's pot-plant soil? For me the only real answers are 'compost it' or 'put it in the garden waste for pickup' because I don't have actual soil in my back yard, it's rocky. Should I just throw it away then? I assume it'd possibly gently caress up my compost. Add fertilizer, compost, and some coir or peat moss and just keep it going? If it's in good shape and hasn't developed any mold or disease I'd see no reason to toss it. So... I know I've said this before but, who's going to set up my intervention? Last year we had 2 young semi-dwarf apple trees planted and 1 died in the drought. This year I bought 3 early on in the spring from home depot and planted those. Then about 2-3 weeks ago I got a mailer that a nursery was clearanceing their semi-dwarf apple trees and it was very cheap if multiples were bought.... so I bought 10. So now, I have 2 Yellow Delicious, 8 Fuji, 3 Macintosh, and 1 Honeycrisp. I'm assuming because it's so late in the year I'm going to lose 2 or 3 of the 2 year old whips, but even then if I get 10 to live till they are 4-5 years old and start producing I'm looking at something in excess of 2,000 lbs of apples a year. Now I just have to make sure that I can finally finish off killing the apple rust that was trouble 2-3 years ago (it's still around a little but is much much much more managed this season) and hope that drought doesn't come back. Anyone got good tips on keeping late in the season tree transplants from dying? Anubis fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Jun 23, 2013 |
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Jun 23, 2013 21:29
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Anubis posted:So... I know I've said this before but, who's going to set up my intervention? Last year we had 2 young semi-dwarf apple trees planted and 1 died in the drought. This year I bought 3 early on in the spring from home depot and planted those. Then about 2-3 weeks ago I got a mailer that a nursery was clearanceing their semi-dwarf apple trees and it was very cheap if multiples were bought.... so I bought 10. So now, I have 2 Yellow Delicious, 8 Fuji, 3 Macintosh, and 1 Honeycrisp. I'm assuming because it's so late in the year I'm going to lose 2 or 3 of the 2 year old whips, but even then if I get 10 to live till they are 4-5 years old and start producing I'm looking at something in excess of 2,000 lbs of apples a year. Get into home brewing and make Cider! Cider is the best!
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Jun 23, 2013 22:03
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GWS has a homebrewing thread where people are happy to talk about making hard cider. Just keep in mind you'll need to build, buy or borrow a cider press (which usually but not always includes a grinder). I'll be making way too much of it this year with the way things are looking at my rehab orchard. A number of the trees have gone to biennial bearing due to lack of care and I probably broke plenty of fruiting spurs trying to get branches out when pruning for the first time in probably 10 years. Last year I got at least 1200 pounds off just 4 of the trees that still had fruit by the end of the season. This year there are more than a few trees totally loaded with fruit and at least 16 out of the ~30 apple trees should produce at least some fruit. Then there's the cherry, pear and plum trees for a total of about 50 trees. The cherries and pears got hit by a late, light frost so the fruit set isn't nearly as much as it could have been. Veggie gardening has been pretty disappointing for me so far this year. I was way too busy running the community garden to give my own stuff much attention. I manage to get a bunch of potatoes in early and my tomato, pepper and eggplants at home in the tunnel are doing fine. I gave up on my community garden plot and mixed together all of my opened seed packets together and broadcast them into the plot. Most of the packets were 2-3 years old and not stored well so probably not much will grow. Either way it will be a Darwinian veggie garden this year. My newer hop rhizomes aren't doing very well either, probably since I got them in the ground pretty late and kept them in the fridge too long before planting. 3 out of 6 sprouted up but 1 of them was eaten by something, the other one seems to have stopped growing after putting out two pairs of leaves. The last one is only a few inches tall and not growing all that fast. It's probably for the best since I never figured out a trellis system for most of them. I'll leave them in the ground for now and order replacements next year if they don't sprout.
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Jun 24, 2013 03:31
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Our pot-plants of corn are now about 6ish foot high and there are now bits of fluff growing out of them. I didn't know you could do corn in pots but apparently you can. Might be time to add some more fertilizer though! I can take pics if anyone cares.
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Jun 24, 2013 20:04
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ChaoticSeven posted:Om nom Pickles? Shifty Pony posted:I'm planning to send off soil samples, nuke it with two cycles of glyphosate to kill off the bermudagrass, and top it off with a good tilling. Do I have any chance of putting in a fall or winter garden? Are leafy greens the only choice? Great find! You should have plenty of time for leafy greens and root vegetables. In Texas, those should grow year round. I don't know about summer crops, but I would suspect that you would have enough heat and light to squeeze one in. If you wanted to get going faster, you could try using a sod lifter rather than the glyphosate to get rid of the grass. Apparently you can rent motorised versions if it seems like too much work to do this by hand.
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Jun 24, 2013 20:05
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Now I'm no expert on zucchini, but this doesn't look right to me: Is this what happens when pollination failed? I haven't had male and female flowers open at the same time, frustratingly. Or is it some disease? Should I cut them off?
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Jun 24, 2013 21:06
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Yeah, it will probably fall off on it's own but you can just pinch it off and toss it. It's a fungus or something causing it to rot. It can happen even on a big healthy plant, but usually just a few while you still get plenty of healthy zucchini from the plant (from what I've seen). Here's the haul from my folk's community garden plot while they're out of town. It's kinda neat being able to guess who lives further north or south based on what all is coming in at the time. It's getting dang hot in Texas and the squash and cucumbers are starting to die back. 
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Jun 24, 2013 21:36
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Tomatillos are busting out! I also have 3 tomatoes starting and quite a few peas. I have been fighting my peppers to keep from flowering for weeks and have just decided gently caress it, let them do what they want.
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Jun 24, 2013 21:55
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Flipperwaldt posted:Now I'm no expert on zucchini, but this doesn't look right to me:
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Jun 24, 2013 23:16
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Flipperwaldt posted:Now I'm no expert on zucchini, but this doesn't look right to me: This is what happened to every plant I had recently, they would all do this so I ripped all the squash out and added 2 types of peppers and some japanese eggplants.
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Jun 25, 2013 20:28
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zeroprime posted:It's a fungus or something causing it to rot. It can happen even on a big healthy plant, but usually just a few while you still get plenty of healthy zucchini from the plant (from what I've seen). cowofwar posted:Could be blossom end rot or just some sort of infection. Errant Gin Monks posted:This is what happened to every plant I had recently, they would all do this so I ripped all the squash out and added 2 types of peppers and some japanese eggplants. I've cut off all the rotting bits I saw and I guess I'll give it the time my backup tomato or pepper plants need to outgrow their pots. If poo poo doesn't progress favorably, more place for them. (Yes, I basically keep every starter that seems to go anywhere 'as backup', I just can't kill a viable plant. And hell, with the wind and the aggressive pigeons here, it turns out that sometimes that's the right thing to do.)
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Jun 25, 2013 21:11
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Pickles? I actually decided to solarize the bed to kill everything, seed or growing grass. We are on Stage 2 water restrictions anyway and I don't have the cash at the moment to swing a drip irrigation system so I am going to put the Texas sun to work for me. Let's see if bermudagrass can survive a solar oven powered by a month of 100+ degree days! 
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Jun 27, 2013 04:06
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Shifty Pony posted:Let's see if bermudagrass can survive a solar oven powered by a month of 100+ degree days! From experience. It can. 
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Jun 27, 2013 04:22
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Welp, guess who was replanting some corn stalks and managed to accidentally bend most of them in half. Was moving them from pots to ground and managed to tip the whole bunch over and watch in horror as the pots flipped upside down. I planted them anyway, maybe somehow they can recover. I wonder if it's too late to seed more
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Jun 27, 2013 04:30
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GrAviTy84 posted:From experience. It can. For its own sake it better not; my father is an agricultural herbicide rep. Glyphosate is just the beginning (cheapest) of the range of chemical plant doom at my disposal.
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Jun 27, 2013 15:07
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Flipperwaldt posted:Now I'm no expert on zucchini, but this doesn't look right to me: Not pollinated
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Jun 27, 2013 16:53
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dwoloz posted:Not pollinated Coincidentally I've just come back from grinding both the zucchini and the cucumber plants to mulch. I don't need no half rotting plants in my house while I'm running out of space on the balcony for plants I care about. And if they even can't manage to get their blooming timing right, maybe they should gently caress right off and stop hogging precious resources. 
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Jun 27, 2013 18:02
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Shifty Pony posted:For its own sake it better not; my father is an agricultural herbicide rep. Glyphosate is just the beginning (cheapest) of the range of chemical plant doom at my disposal. Im about to hit my entire front yard with roundup to make ready for sod in the fall
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Jun 27, 2013 18:14
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Fatkraken posted:6 foot SHOULD keep deer out, in Scotland the 3 foot stock fences only work on sheep but a 6 foot fence is very effective at keeping them out from areas with young trees and other tasty goodies. Are Scottish deer midgets? Because 6 feet isn't going to keep a deer out of anything that they can see is large enough for them to get a running start inside of around here. They seem to be smart enough to know not to jump into confined areas, but if they have 30 or 40 feet to run they can and will jump a 6 foot fence. I have 6 feet of 2x4 welded wire with a fence wire another 2 feet above (with some mylar tape tied on so they can see it....this also deters some birds) to keep the bastards out.
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Jun 28, 2013 01:21
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My father knows an extremely effective fencing solution for white tailed deer that involves two concentric "fences" consisting of single electrified wires a specific height and specific distance apart. Works great because it is just high enough they have to jump it to not get zapped but the second wire spacing from the first means they can't jump it (and they know it). I could get more information if people are interested. It is the only thing that he has found that will protect his peas and corn.
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Jun 28, 2013 02:37
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Motronic posted:Are Scottish deer midgets? Because 6 feet isn't going to keep a deer out of anything that they can see is large enough for them to get a running start inside of around here. They seem to be smart enough to know not to jump into confined areas, but if they have 30 or 40 feet to run they can and will jump a 6 foot fence. An 8 foot fence generally is the rule here in Wisconsin. 6 feet here is just a waste of effort.
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Jun 28, 2013 02:44
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Greetings gardening thread! Summary of our garden, then questions about our problems. We have 3 beds, raised two landscaping timbers high, 4x20ft each. Then a large area where there used to be an above ground pool and decking that we are dividing up into various beds (ornamental and productive) and paved sitting area (work in progress). It has an herb bed, two dwarf apple trees (Fuji and Honeycrisp), a strawberry bed (June bearers, pinched this year, runnin' like fools), a baby fig tree (growing like a weed!), and some sad blueberry bushes (first year). The vegetable beds have (with number of plants): --Amish paste tomatoes (x4) --Blueberry blend tomatoes (x2) --Black Cherry tomatoes (x2) --San Marzano tomatoes (x4) --Black Krim tomatoes (x4) --Brandywine tomatoes (x4) The second bed has purple Peruvian potatoes, loose leaf lettuce, rainbow and cosmic purple carrots. The third bed has broccoli and some assorted sweet and hot peppers. All the beds were worked in the fall/spring with manure, compost, and fresh garden soil. We soil tested and were found to be neutral, and generally deficient. When we planted, we supplemented with an all purpose time-release, tree spikes for the apple trees, some vermiculite for the carrots, and sulfur for the potatoes and blueberries to lower the pH. Tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, and peppers are all growing like crazy. Everyone is mulched with straw, save for the bushes and trees which have cypress. Now for the issues! --My apple trees have Cedar Apple Rust (took leaves to our local botanical garden for the "plant doctor" to look at.) I am treating with thiophanate-methyl granules in the soil every two weeks like they recommended. It's been 4 weeks and I think I see good, clean growth on the ends of all the branches. We won't see fruit for at least two more seasons, is there anything else I should/can do? --My potatoes have early blight, which doesn't concern me at this point because the plants in general are robust (and it's not a bad infection at this point), but I started treating with chlorothalonil spray after the blossoms dropped off. My main issue is that I got curious the other day and felt about a bit in the soil (by hand) to see if there were any potatoes started and I didn't find any. Now, I didn't go crazy all over the bed, just felt around one plant in the middle. But shouldn't there be potatoes? (My first year growing potatoes.)--The blueberries are a sad sack of crap. They all have mosaic. Ride it out and see if they improve next year, or scrap them and start over, or what? I have bluecrop and...poo poo I don't remember the other variety.  And my basil is growing like poo poo, for the first time in my entire life. WTF, basil? I live in MO. Have a super aerial overview from an upstairs window. Vegetables off to the left. 
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Jun 28, 2013 02:50
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Shifty Pony posted:My father knows an extremely effective fencing solution for white tailed deer that involves two concentric "fences" consisting of single electrified wires a specific height and specific distance apart. Works great because it is just high enough they have to jump it to not get zapped but the second wire spacing from the first means they can't jump it (and they know it). You can get away with 45 degree angles starting at the top of a 6' fence that are only 12 to 16 inches long with a single electrified wire on the end of them. It's another tried and true solution with plenty of variations, most of which work fine. It all depends on what you have, where you are, what you're trying to do, and what you want it to look like. For me, it was cleaner, easier, and more reliable to sink a bunch of scrap 4x4s I had laying around and make them up to 8' above ground by sistering more scrap 4x4 with some old 5/4 deck board I also had laying around. No overhangs and no power required. Depending on where you are and what you've got that may not be the easiest solution. You can also stop them by having things they don't think they can land on safely 3 feet inside of a 6' fence on all side. This happens during parts of my growing season, but leaves me open to getting wiped out when stuff is still small. Motronic fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Jun 28, 2013 |
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Jun 28, 2013 02:59
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Deer aren't a problem here since we're in the middle of the 'burbs, but I have heard that putting something on either side of the fence will help deter them. Planting hedges a couple feet wide is supposed to work, but again, I've never had to try. Right now I have blossoms showing up on my tomatoes, which is exciting because I started them from seeds that were 2-3 years old. Most of the seedlings died due to mishandling and a couple repottings, but the ones that lived are looking strong. Now to wait and see which variety is which, because I forgot to label the pots.  I also have cucumbers growing from seeds that are the same age as the tomatoes. They sprouted up really quick and put out true leaves and climby bits right away. I need to figure out how to trellis them now. I really wasn't expecting them to grow this quickly, or for most of them to sprout. 
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Jun 28, 2013 05:36
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Motronic posted:Are Scottish deer midgets? Because 6 feet isn't going to keep a deer out of anything that they can see is large enough for them to get a running start inside of around here. They seem to be smart enough to know not to jump into confined areas, but if they have 30 or 40 feet to run they can and will jump a 6 foot fence. Deer don't like jumping stuff that they can't see what they're jumping into. Make a solid privacy fence, and 6 feet will possibly work (until they get brave and jump it since all the other nearby yards are safe, although adding 2 feet of lattice above that will dissuade them usually) but if you have a 8-10 foot chainlink fence, they'll potentially be able to go right over. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Jun 28, 2013 |
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Jun 28, 2013 21:16
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coyo7e posted:if you have a 8-10 foot chainlink fence, they'll potentially be able to go right over. They can absolutely go over chain link or anything else of the right shape that they can climb. I've watched it happen. Dissuading deer is either brute force (height, electricity) or some deer psychology. If you know what they are likely to consider worthwhile/safe and make them feel uncomfortable enough they will stay away. Until things get bad enough that they won't - a perfect example of this is that if things dry out enough to kill everything else they normally eat in "safe" spots they'll start going for 6' fenced gardens and doing things like eating arborvitae or munching on things you've sprayed with liquid deer fence (in fact, that's the first thing that happens when things get tough in my experience). Like any other creature, they go for the path of least resistance but when things get tough will go for desperate measures. coyo7e posted:... 30 foot running start? A human might need that much. It's been my and many other's experience that deer won't enter an area they can identify as enclosed unless they have at least 30' in some direction, which may just mean they can't tell it's enclosed anymore (their depth perception sucks). I wasn't saying they needed that much of a running start to jump. In fact, there are documented cases of white tails jumping 8' fences with no running start at all according to my ag extension office, it just rarely happens if you provide the proper things that will make them uncomfortable to do so into your garden.
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Jun 28, 2013 21:36
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My backyard has a layer of very annoying medium sized rocks about 6 inches under the surface, which makes planting anything a huge pain. So I was inspired by growingyourgreens.com and I am going to build some raised beds. I have been searching google docs, but I haven't found any good templates on how to calculate the total cost of the project. It would be awesome to see how much my produce costs, and see the costs decrease over time since the fixed costs will be the biggest issue. Does anyone know of a good template to use?
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Jun 29, 2013 01:16
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Fozzy The Bear posted:My backyard has a layer of very annoying medium sized rocks about 6 inches under the surface, which makes planting anything a huge pain. So I was inspired by growingyourgreens.com and I am going to build some raised beds. If my rooftop box was any indication, double any costs. Unless you have all the materials laying around or you can scavenge, these projects tend to overrun their budgets pretty quickly. I had originally budgeted about $100 for mine. After buying the soil, wood, nails, etc, the costs were closer to $200.
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Jun 29, 2013 08:29
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