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Is it possible to distinguish zucchini varieties by looking at the plant? I lost the tag for mine and I can't remember what it is, so I don't know how to tell when my fruits are ripe.  On an unrelated note, have you all ever heard of a red hot chili pepper? I have been trying to google it for a bit because mine is looking pretty sad, but all I can find is infinite information about that stupid band. 
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Jun 6, 2011 00:43
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Corla Plankun posted:Is it possible to distinguish zucchini varieties by looking at the plant? I lost the tag for mine and I can't remember what it is, so I don't know how to tell when my fruits are ripe. Some have distinguishing leaf characteristics like white blotches but most don't. Fruit is the main way to tell Zucchini (and summer squash in general) are usually harvested when unripe. You can pick them anytime you like. A ripe summer squash will turn color and be hard and probably require cooking
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Jun 6, 2011 01:53
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I can always tell when I'm handling a zucchini plant by the smell compared to other summer squashes. It has a really sharp, distinctive and pleasant smell. Also, with zucchinis , I err on the smaller side because the flavor is better. Leave it a few extra days if you want the comedy big kind, or have your nephew housesit and ignore instructions to pick the zucchinis for the massive, thigh-sized kind that is bland and flavorless (but good for stuffing). I've got the saddest green bean vine right now. It's supposed to finally get sunny here next week.
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Jun 6, 2011 05:05
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All my plants made it surprisingly. But all the rain pretty much negates the tilling we did.
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Jun 6, 2011 13:28
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Gurneys is having a final spring shipping day sale. I ended up buying 2 semi-dwarf blueberry bushes for ~$20 shipped. I'm going to have to water them like hell considering how hot it has gotten here and cover a corner of my garden in surfer but I think it'll work out.
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Jun 6, 2011 20:08
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That sounds like a good deal Whats your acid soil mix recipe?
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Jun 7, 2011 00:27
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I've never done acid soil before but since this is a sudden thing where I only have a week or so lead time, I'm just going to dig up a 3'x3' area 2' deep out of my garden for each plant and do a 50/50 mix of peat and compost/soil. Then I'll add some sulfur on top and mulch it. Hopefully that gives me the boost I need to where I can maintain it with pine needles and other soil amendments in the future.
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Jun 7, 2011 00:50
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Anubis posted:I've never done acid soil before but since this is a sudden thing where I only have a week or so lead time, I'm just going to dig up a 3'x3' area 2' deep out of my garden for each plant and do a 50/50 mix of peat and compost/soil. Then I'll add some sulfur on top and mulch it. Sulfur will give you a long term reduction in soil acidity, but if you're on a short time table ammonium sulfate will knock it down right quick. Get that pH to about a 5.0; Also, blueberries love Miracid.
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Jun 7, 2011 04:46
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Restarted some corn indoors in cells so I can pop it straight into the garden when it's big enough. poo poo germinated in 5 days just in the window, so it was definitely a temperature issue/my impatience. The two solid weeks of rain in the forecast should prevent me from putting these out before they get big enough.
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Jun 7, 2011 08:24
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Corla Plankun posted:On an unrelated note, have you all ever heard of a red hot chili pepper? I have been trying to google it for a bit because mine is looking pretty sad, but all I can find is infinite information about that stupid band. I got four plants this year on a whim marked "red chile". Go to "R" and scroll down to red chile: http://www.g6csy.net/chile/database.html I don't know anything about them or how to care for them (I couldn't find tobasco plants) - I'm just treating them like I did with my cayennes last year. I put them in a planter using miracle-gro potting soil - make sure they get plenty of sun and water. They're doing well but I'm in the south and it's been very hot and humid lately. - edited a bit
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Jun 7, 2011 14:42
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MolierePumpsMyNads posted:Restarted some corn indoors in cells so I can pop it straight into the garden when it's big enough. poo poo germinated in 5 days just in the window, so it was definitely a temperature issue/my impatience. The two solid weeks of rain in the forecast should prevent me from putting these out before they get big enough. Corn doesn’t benefit from transplanting. You would be better off direct seeding it where it’s intended. Also, you don’t say this, but if you started transplants, I am guessing that you don’t intend to have that many plants. With corn, this is a concern. Unlike virtually every other vegetable, corn is wind pollinated and it benefits from being planted in blocks. If you have just a few plants you will need to break off the tassels and hand pollinate the ears. OK, now my personal time to rant. Why is it that no matter what I do, I have to fight the weather every step of the way? It does exactly opposite of what I want. I had awful cutworm issues last year so I decided to take care of it once and for all (hopefully). I planted a trap crop of radishes that I hit really hard with BT. After they came up, for a week they were the only green things in the garden and any cutworm that ate them would be a goner. I put down bait between the rows just to be sure. But the plan got really delayed because it wouldn’t stop raining. I took a week off mid May to get everything in, and I couldn’t even walk in the garden it was so wet. It wasn’t until last weekend that I finally transplanted my plants and direct seeded everything else, and it hasn’t rained a drop since then. It is about 15% humidity, windy every day and I just heard that its going to be in the mid 90’s and bone dry all week. 
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Jun 7, 2011 15:04
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Enigmatic Troll posted:I got four plants this year on a whim marked "red chile". I treat my chile peppers just like my marriage. I neglect the hell out of them and eventually they make me cry. Seriously, I plant them so that they get full direct sun for about 14 hours a day and I water them MAYBE once a week. Last year I ended up getting around 100 peppers per plant and they kept producing until our second frost. It's been in the upper 90's lower 100s here and won't get back down to a reasonable temp until september. This year I started off watering them every other day and they weren't growing. As soon as I backed off to once a week, they started shooting up. This has the added benefit of producing peppers that are on the hotter end of thier scoville spectrum. Of course that was just my experience. I don't know if there is scientific data to back that up.
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Jun 7, 2011 16:00
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Yeah, that's pretty much what I do. I keep them watered more frequently, but that's because they're in planters and tend to start wilting after a few days.
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Jun 7, 2011 17:22
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Corn doesn’t benefit from transplanting. You would be better off direct seeding it where it’s intended. Also, you don’t say this, but if you started transplants, I am guessing that you don’t intend to have that many plants. With corn, this is a concern. Unlike virtually every other vegetable, corn is wind pollinated and it benefits from being planted in blocks. If you have just a few plants you will need to break off the tassels and hand pollinate the ears. I transplanted corn this year but was very careful not to damage any roots (I've heard this is an issue with corn, they hate having their roots disturbed). I've also made sure I have at least 16 plants in a block in a fairly windswept area of my garden, so hopefully I'll be okay. I need to get round to planting out my butternut squash this week. There is a big disadvantage to living 30km away from your garden
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Jun 7, 2011 20:22
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Corn doesn’t benefit from transplanting. You would be better off direct seeding it where it’s intended. Also, you don’t say this, but if you started transplants, I am guessing that you don’t intend to have that many plants. With corn, this is a concern. Unlike virtually every other vegetable, corn is wind pollinated and it benefits from being planted in blocks. If you have just a few plants you will need to break off the tassels and hand pollinate the ears. It's cool, I did start from seed again after giving up on the non-starters I direct sowed earlier in the season. I made little pots by cutting toilet roll tubes to half size and filling them with the same soil they're going into, so I can pop them wholly into the ground without disturbing the roots. I've got about 16 seedlings that will be split into two groups in the garden so they can benefit from a little bit of wind distance, but I'll probably give them hand-jobs as well. That is, if they make it that far. Madlilnerd, IIRC you have an allotment. How did you get it?
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Jun 7, 2011 22:29
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MolierePumpsMyNads posted:I'll probably give them hand-jobs  Ironically you are performing corn sex!
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Jun 8, 2011 01:18
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Anyone here ever grow garlic? I need some harvesting advice. I'd have thought it would be another month before harvest, but the leaves have turning brown and falling over for a week or two and now they've only got 2-3 leaves still green, max! I pulled a couple of the most dried out-leaf ones, and they are definitely fully formed, but they're pretty small (I'm kinda thinking maybe I didn't feed them enough in early spring). I'm about to go out of town for a week, should I finish harvesting them now? I don't want to risk losing them, especially since I'll be halfway across the country till Monday and won't be able to keep an eye on them. The garlic is right down the middle of the bed in these pics.    The taste is awesome, though (it's Ajo Rojo softneck garlic, one of the creole types), I chopped up that bulb I peeled in the last pic to check on the cloves and put it on a pizza I made tonight. Yum!!
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Jun 8, 2011 01:36
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This might be a longshot, but I'm looking for the name of this plant - I see it a lot in San Francisco and I think a while ago I saw a recipe for using these leaves for a salad, but I may be mixing it up with something else. Is it edible? 
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Jun 8, 2011 02:48
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k0konutz posted:This might be a longshot, but I'm looking for the name of this plant - I see it a lot in San Francisco and I think a while ago I saw a recipe for using these leaves for a salad, but I may be mixing it up with something else. Is it edible? Pretty common plant you can find at a nursury! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropaeolum Its usually called Nasturtium. You usually eat the flowers, but I guess the whole plant is edible.
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Jun 8, 2011 03:46
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k0konutz posted:This might be a longshot, but I'm looking for the name of this plant - I see it a lot in San Francisco and I think a while ago I saw a recipe for using these leaves for a salad, but I may be mixing it up with something else. Is it edible? Its a bit too spicy for my taste to have an entire salad of Nasturtium leaves, but they are very nutritious.
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Jun 8, 2011 04:01
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MolierePumpsMyNads posted:Madlilnerd, IIRC you have an allotment. How did you get it? No, I have my parent's garden back in my home town because I live in student accommodation in London. I'd like an allotment here but there's no chance, the waiting lists are huge and I haven't got permanent accommodation here yet. Every time I walk past a neglected garden I get pissed off (especially council houses). Need to hook up with some guerilla gardeners. You know by law the government have to give you land to grow food on? If you're on a waiting list for longer than a certain period of time (I think it's like two years?) you can actually demand land from the council and they have to find some for you. It's like some Magna Carta clause or something.
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Jun 8, 2011 17:41
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That's awesome, once I'm not still in limbo vis a vis my immigration status I'm getting on that list.
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Jun 8, 2011 22:39
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Why are birds such assholes? They come along and just gently caress up your perfectly good tomatoes for no reason. Birds are dicks. Edit: It wasn't even a fully ripe tomato, it was just beginning to blush pink. Double Edit: Catching up on this thread, reading old pages. Someone mentioned on pepper plants bunched leaves is a calcium deficiency. They mentioned eggshells or epsom salts, with eggshells do you just toss crunched up eggshells on the ground near the base of the plant and water it in, or do you have to work it in? Can the shells have membrane on them? I almost put some on one plant, but they were shells from boiled eggs and since the membrane around the egg had been cooked it was more elastic-y and when you crushed it, it still stayed together, so I didn't use those. Devoyniche fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Jun 9, 2011 |
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Jun 9, 2011 02:22
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Devoyniche posted:Why are birds such assholes? They come along and just gently caress up your perfectly good tomatoes for no reason. Birds are dicks. lol.. netting actually helps.. it can be purchased rather cheaply at nursuries
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Jun 9, 2011 04:54
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Eggshells are a good soil amendment, but it takes too long for the calcium to get to a plant that's already deficient. I've heard that Tums are good at giving a shot of calcium real fast, though I've never tried it myself because I always lime my soil in the spring. Epsom salts don't have calcium at all, as that's just the common name for magnesium sulfate. They're real good for promoting fruiting in magnesium-hungry Solanaceae plants (i.e. peppers and tomatoes) but they wouldn't do much for a calcium deficiency.
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Jun 9, 2011 12:46
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So I'm growing some mint and basil in a pot on my balcony, all is going well. However, I have noticed some of the leaves are starting to show white spots top and bottom. Can't see any insects, anyone know what this is?:  
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Jun 9, 2011 17:20
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Its a bit too spicy for my taste to have an entire salad of Nasturtium leaves, but they are very nutritious. They're like arugula (rocket) in that the minute you cook them a little, the spicy taste gets really mild. I ate a ton of nasturtium leaf and flower omelettes last summer, because my nasturtiums went nuts and I was sort of eating them to prevent them from covering the house. But I think I prefer them to spinach, even! Also, you can put a big nasturtium leaf in your hand and bounce a drop of water and catch it repeatedly as if the droplet were a ball. SUCH an easy plant to grow and very beautiful. The only downside is how delicious aphids find it.
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Jun 9, 2011 18:49
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I've posted occasionally in Goons With Spoons, but for obvious reasons I thought this one belonged more in DIY  Having had great difficulty with gardening after moving several years ago (turn out an elevation of a mile and a half in the Rocky Mountains makes for poor gardening conditions), I figured I'd either have to give up or get serious. I decided to get serious, here's my new greenhouse:   It's double walled polycarbonate panels, which I hope will let me extend my growing seasons significantly (to give you an idea, my area is still in danger of night frosts at the time of this post). I don't think I'll be able to overwinter vegetables without a heater, though I'm planning on experimenting. Though a number of delays came up in construction (It was much harder than it probably looks) and I wasn't able to get an early start with plants this year, early signs are positive. For one, as can be spotted in some pictures, weeds are explosively erupting inside the greenhouse, where I suspect seeds have been lying dormant for decades waiting for a wet year. I've been doing my best to keep them under control and hopefully it'll only be a problem the first year.  (It may be hard to tell scale, but the benches are 3'x2' Up top I've got some nursery tomatoes and peppers (out of sight are some tomatoes I'm starting from seed, to hopefully get in a late fall harvest), as well as some strawberries and blueberries I'm temporarily keeping for my mother until they're planted. All seem to be doing quite well.  On the lower shelf, taking advantage of the partial shade, are lettuce and spinach seedlings coming up in tubs. While I wasn't able to find much information on growing lettuce in containers, I'm hopeful it will work without needing individual pots for each plant (I eat a lot of salad).  On the ground, in considerably ameliorated soil (the standard soil here is basically crushed rock), I have root vegetables and climbing plants. Seen here are snow peas, one of the few plants that seemed to do well even without the greenhouse. It's mostly an experiment so far, and definitely a work in progress; I'm using buckets of water (under a board, and visible in some of the pictures) as well as a full trash can as a barrel to try and act as a heat sink, hopefully keeping the temperature inside warm on cold nights. If anything it gets a little too warm in midday, so I've also purchased a silver tarp I plan on tying over the roof closest to the garage, so it should reduce the amount of sunlight at midday, when it comes straight down, without shading the plants.
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Jun 9, 2011 22:43
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Bremen posted:I don't think I'll be able to overwinter vegetables without a heater, though I'm planning on experimenting. you could fill 55 gallon drums with water and paint them black. They will soak up the sun and emit heat during the night. It could help you out a little. Edit: should have read you post better. You can paint them black if they aren't already.
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Jun 9, 2011 23:27
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Bigdee4933 posted:you could fill 55 gallon drums with water and paint them black. They will soak up the sun and emit heat during the night. It could help you out a little. Right now I've got a Brute 50 gallon trash can (only about 2/3rds full, since I'm not sure it's strong enough to completely fill) and a bunch of maybe 4 gallon buckets. Not painted, and the buckets are white. I don't have any easy source of old drums, and even if I did they might take up too much space (The greenhouse is only 6'x12'). It is something I'm interested in though; my area gets a lot of sun, even during the winter, and I'd much prefer to capture that heat rather than increase my electric bill. I've got a thermometer in the greenhouse, and it was generally recording minimum temperatures about 10-15 degrees above the nightly low. Considering I haven't caulked or installed the insulation strips yet (since it ended up delayed until spring, I figured it could wait till fall and have been planting instead), I found this quite impressive.
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Jun 9, 2011 23:47
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Planted a few replacement peppers 3 nights ago. Last night there was a super mega storm (100 mph wind). Never fails. They are just bent over though. They might just make it.
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Jun 10, 2011 02:55
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Forgive me if this has already been addressed; I've googled it extensively and can't find anything about it: can anyone tell me why my mint never gets very big? I've grown catnip and lemon balm and they do fine so I don't know what to think -- I've tried several different brands of mint seeds and no matter what, they sprout and seem to be doing well, but the leaves remain tiny, and the plants never get big enough to use for anything I always hear how invasive and out-of-control mint gets so this is especially disappointing.
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Jun 10, 2011 16:28
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Hummingbirds posted:Forgive me if this has already been addressed; I've googled it extensively and can't find anything about it: can anyone tell me why my mint never gets very big? I've grown catnip and lemon balm and they do fine so I don't know what to think -- I've tried several different brands of mint seeds and no matter what, they sprout and seem to be doing well, but the leaves remain tiny, and the plants never get big enough to use for anything Lemon balm and Catnip are probably the least aggressive mints out there. Not that they are weak plants, but they do spread slower than other mints. I think that mint in general takes a while to get going from seed, but once it does, and if it is happy, it that’s when it goes crazy. Mints in general like rich soil and moist conditions.
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Jun 10, 2011 17:20
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Some of my potatoes are up, some didn't seem to survive. Or maybe they just need more time, who knows. My two year old pumpkin seeds have sprouted and have some serious leafage going on, but hardly any of my old beans or peas have popped out of the dirt yet
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Jun 10, 2011 17:54
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 My sunflowers seem to be doing a-okay. They're about 8 ft tall. It's hilarious seeing my husband dwarfed by a plant.
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Jun 10, 2011 18:22
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ToastFaceKillah posted:
That's a fine looking husband you've got there. It's finally gotten hot in the Fresno area, and my peppers, tomatoes, and... well, pretty much everything has absolutely taken off. My cold-crop veggies, however, (lettuce, in particular), are not having so much fun.
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Jun 10, 2011 18:53
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haha. I'll see if I can actually get a pic of him standing in front of them tomorrow. It's funny seeing my dog look tiny in front of em too, though, so there.
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Jun 10, 2011 19:50
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Several days of 90 degree weather, followed by a couple days of downpours? Veggie explosion! Unfortunately, this also leads to... weed explosion.  Guess I know what I'm doing for the next week, a few rows at a time... =/ I even have the weed-stopping fabric stuff, but I got lazy after I planted and didn't bother putting it down. Ah well. Bonus shot of chickens baffled by a two foot fence. They want to get in there and dig so bad! 
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Jun 10, 2011 23:29
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quote:Bonus shot of chickens baffled by a two foot fence. They want to get in there and dig so bad! Those chickens will figure out that fence pretty quickly. My birds could jump/flap up to a 5' height to perch on top of their coop. I learned this after I accidentally locked them out one night. That 2' fence won't stop them for very long.
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Jun 11, 2011 00:44
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jovial_cynic posted:Those chickens will figure out that fence pretty quickly. My birds could jump/flap up to a 5' height to perch on top of their coop. I learned this after I accidentally locked them out one night. That 2' fence won't stop them for very long. Oh there's no doubt they could fly over it. I think it's too hard for them to see and they can't accurately judge where the top is, so they think it's like 5000 feet high and don't bother. Their preferred method of getting over things is to fly up to the top and perch, then fly back down. When they're right next to it it's above their heads, and if they back off it probably disappears from view. So they just don't bother trying to get over it. So my fence keeps the bunnies from eating my peas and green beans, and my chickens from digging up all the seeds. It works good. =)
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Jun 11, 2011 01:12
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