What's going on with your Vegie Garden Today, part 2

The boy flowers have shown up on my cantaloupe plants!! The girls, bearing fruit, should be showing up soon. The lemon cucumbers are getting big and starting to form tendrils. Now that we've harvested some of the dill, the Marketmore cukes are really taking off. I'm going to transplant some of the seedlings to a different place in the garden rather than toss them on the compost pile. The peas are doing well. They really like the chain link support.

David, Love the pictures. Everything looks so fresh and beautiful.

It's about time for my beets to all come out to make room for cantaloupes. My beets were planted mid January so they have been in the ground long enough.

I planted several varieties of sweet potatoes three years ago in different spots around the garden. Last year volunteers produced three 5 gal buckets of potatoes. Same thing this year, sweet potatoes coming up all over the garden. I started with probably 20 slips.

I am guessing that with 50 slips you will get 3-5 bushels of potatoes and have vines coming up in your field the rest of your life....happy eating. :)

Jerry



This message was edited Apr 27, 2012 11:30 AM

LOL Jerry!! I don't know where all these volunteer cantaloupes are coming from, but the good thing is that I planted an heirloom variety, so at least I know I'll get true plants.

Y'alls Texas gardens are making my mouth water!

I'm not growing cucumbers this year. Had a really bad infestation of cucumber beetles two years ago, so I thought I would give enough time between crops for them to die off!

Our sweet potato slips are due here today or tomorrow. Unlike gardeners further south, our vines die with the first fall frost - which is usually between October 1st and 15th.

All tomatoes, except OSU Blue have been transplanted. The OSU's will go out next week - they are hardening off under the porch. They have purple stems and really dark greenish/purple leaves. I'm looking foward to blue tomatoes this summer.

I found another tray of sweet peppers on the light stand this morning. Scratching my head as to where to set them. One even has buds!

All the squash has been transplanted. If they all produce fruit, we'll have enough to supply the whole neighborhood!

As usual, I have more tomato seedlings than I have room for, so I'm doing another experiment. I've set some into the thick bed of leaves around the sunny side of our oak tree. I pulled aside the leaves, sprinkled in some fertilizer and buried the tomatoes up to their first leaves.

Earlier in the season I bought a load of horse manure based compost from Garden-Ville in San Marcos. I was so happy with expectations of having the best garden ever. I filled the furrows in my dirt garden and applied ample amounts around some of my potted tomatoes, peppers, peas, eggplants, okra and corn.

See the results below. At first I thought virus until I noticed the plants that had no compost were perfectly healthy and robust. Day by day it looked more like the compost was the culprit. The only plants that don't seem to be bothered are the okra and corn.

Check this out and keep in mind the magnitude of 1 PPB. Be sure to check out their photos. http://www.the-compost-gardener.com/picloram.html#axzz1tH4mA7MO

Oh, and guess what? Year before last I bought a load of compost that was not horse manure based from the same supplier and while not nearly as bad as this year It did the same thing to a few plants I had used it on. At the time I had no idea the compost was the culprit. I thought I had some kind of virus.

I had plants to do that one year. I had used bagged commercial compost. But the extentions office couldnt figure out why my plants had this problem and guessed it was fumes from my heating system......even though they continued to grow like that after they were set out in the garden for a month. The extention office ran many test and was clueless. I even posted pictures here on daves.

so sorry about your plants. simply heartbreaking.

trock, that is EXACTLY what I had 2 years ago, and it was from contaminated compost- it can be commercially packaged or not- there are many posts about it, but if you just Google contaminated compost you will see many many links about it. Some of my plants outgrew it but I lost a lot.

Oh I hate to see that. But that's why I've asked so many times on DG if people are concerned about using anything that could have Herbicide or residual herbicide on it. I've never seen what the actual damage looks like.

I know that Legumes are a good test veggie as they are highly sensitive and germinate quickly.

I wont even use my own livestock's manure. Except some in a stall that has had the gate shut for 3 yrs. If I do I always test it. Now that there has been the introduction of systemic herbicides there has been a lot of in for about it. The Natural Gardner, a local radio show, has warned about this. It can take up to 5 yrs., I think to leach out of your soil.

It doesn't matter what animal it comes from it matters what herbicide was used on the hay or grain they were feed. It can come in chicken feed. Horse quality hay is usually cleaner (less weeds) because us horse people won't pay for "dirty" hay.

Trock-I would say something to garden ville,they need to know this. It makes me think of less experienced gardeners that can't figure out what's wrong. So much for " organic gardening". This has become a well known issue but your pictures and experience make you the perfect example of the damage that can be done. Was this the compost that was in the back of your pick up, that you posted a picture of?

Yes, It was the compost in the back of my PU in an earlier post.

Applying lots of water to the plants and the ground beneath seems to help. Tomatoes are starting to ripen on the lower good part of the vines that were not affected by the compost so watering has to be cut back on them because of splitting the fruit. The compost seems to affect only new growth.

What a heartbreaker. So much time, energy and work work work to be blind-sided by contamination in the compost. I'm so sorry this happened to you.

Thanks for the pickled cukes recipe. I may try that.

In my veggie gardens, I'm finding the tomatoes and peppers in the raised beds are doing exceptionally better than the same plants in ground. I did not amend the in-ground bed much at all this season. I just add some granular ferts, compost tea and fish emulsion from time to time. I added a yard of 'sandy loam mix' from the landscaping supply company, plus compost that is ground trees, leaves and such. This compost farm does not use animal manure, it's all landscape materials. Anyway, I see a huge difference. The keyhole garden will get a good dose of that sandy loam mix and more compost before the next season. It's all about the soil isn't it? Anyone read "Teaming with Microbes"? Great book on just what good soil really means.

The good news is there are about 45 tomato plants out of 70 that had no compost put around them. They are doing great.

I picked my first really good 9 oz Indian Stripe this morning from the wheat straw bale bed.

my half ripe brandywine was devine. (impatient)

anyone growing okra? I never knew that aphids and whiteflies loved okra until I grew it in the greenhouse. wow. I put 3 yellow oily cards amongst the okra this afternoon. Dread the fact that eventually the pest will spread to the tomato plants.

I was so anxious and ready to till in my vermiculite, peat moss, and compost into a few garden raised boxes this evening so I could sow okra and squash seed and transplant corn but had company this evening. I wanted to plant a few more tomato plants and tomatilloes too. sigh. There is always tomorrow. Here lately there has been a lot of ..........always tomorrow.

CricketsGarden, I put my okra transplants out April 15. So far out of the 12 plants the deer or rabbits have topped out 5 of them. I started another flat today. Maybe when it gets nice and hot they will grow faster than they can be eaten.


-Vaughn

Peas!

Among other things, I'm harvesting peppers from overwintered plants. One variety called El Incendio, described as hot and looking like a cross between a cayenne and a tabasco, has turned out to have only a hint of heat and a LOT of sugar when they're ripe. I enjoy eating these right off the plant. Easy to tell when they're ready - they come off with a little tug like a tabasco, leaving all the green calyx behind. My green onion box (self-watering container) continues to produce more non-bulbing onions than I can eat. The bulbing onions in the garden are really starting to enlarge - look like little earthquakes where the bulbs break through the soil. I was WAY behind planting my tomatoes, but have some green fruit already sizing up. Trying to find a place to add some summer legumes to my postage-stamp garden, but nothing else is ready to come out yet...

the ground is hard clay. It would take a week to chisel out a large hole sufficient enough to grow a large watermelon and even then I would be afraid that it would end up being a saturated bowl due to the white clay that starts about a foot deep so I am attempting to grow it in a 25 gallon pot. The seed has germinated. :) And to keep the pot from heating up too much, I plan to prop hay against the pot. (square sections)

I was wondering if watermelon vines take root to the ground at the leaf nodes like the vining squash family does?

you can buy the insect yellow cards but I make my own.
I take yellow card stock and laminate it . Then I rub veggie cooking oil on both sides and use a clothes pin and a paint stick to place it in the garden. The white flies and aphids are attracted to the yellow and when they land on it they are stuck there in the oil.

Good idea - and clever too. Thanks for the tip.

Crickets, watermelon vines don't root on the ground, they just vine like crazy and send out tons of tendrils.

I got 'da beet! And here I am, dressed to the 9's, typical Sunday attire - squinting into the sun. I post this because I'm always curious whachall look like. Got any pics of yourself in your garden duds?

You don't look like you have bed head, which I would if I was outside working in the yard! LOL

You asked for it! The hat isn't typical, but blue jeans and a t-shirt are routine. The suspenders get added if I expect to do much bending. I do shave, but it has been a couple days in this picture. I'm working on expressing my Arkansas mountain roots!

Turns out the photo on my phone is sideways. Being upright doesn't improve my looks any... actually it looks best if you squint both eyes then look into a mirror. : )

Here's me!

Our "Vardeman" sweet potato slips arrived on Friday, so I spent Saturday morning setting all 50 of them.

Today I set out the "OSU Blue" Tomato transplants.

I'm going to have to check plants for leaf puckering as I've used some wheat straw as mulch that my neighbor gave me. You'll hear me scream from here to Texas if I find any! Thankfully most of the garden is mulched with fall leaves.

I wear glasses that hide my squitty eyes. now if I could hide the aging sun spots.

I LOVE seeing everyone.....come on you gardeners, show your stuff.

I should have had my sunglasses on but it was very early and the sun had just hit the yard.

I don't have a pic of me, but here are some pics of my garden today.

Harvested our first blackberry today. Hubby ate it right after I took this pic.

More blackberries are ripening!

Cantaloupe flowers (males) have started showing up, complete with pollenators.

More peas will be ready soon! I need for them to hurry up and do their thing because I need that space for maters! LOL

Whole garden view (minus the asparagus bed and the grape section that's in the works)

Oh stephanie, that looks grand. Nice job on the garden.

Thanks, Mary. My husband is largely responsible for it since he's done all the digging and stuff. I just research and he tends it for the most part. I'm really more into flowers.

Hi Everyone,

I'm getting my garden area prepared too. Maybe a late start. At least I got the irrigation installed and most of the area prepared. Only if I hadn't planted that pesky Persimmon tree in the center. Had to lop off quite a bit of it to be able to work under it. Hopefully it doesn't produce to much shade.

A 15 oz. JD's Special C-Tex that has been visited by a katydid forcing it to be picked early and a 1+ oz. Rambling Red Stripe that is marked similar to a Black Zebra another one of my favorites.

Rambling Red Stripe tomato, yesterdays and this mornings harvest of cukes and zucchini. When there enough cukes for 5 pints of sliced cukes there will be another batch of counter-top pickles.

The last photo is of my helper laying down on the job.

Dean_W - my persimmon fruited for the first time last year. I don't care how big it gets, I LOVE persimmons!

That's great HoneybeeNC! Last year was bad for us we had a drought so most fell off or the birds ate them.

Dean - We gave up growing strawberries because between the birds and the slugs we never got any. The birds get all the blueberries. One of our pear trees had three fruits on it last year, but they disappeared before they ripened - I think the culprits were squirrels.Tortoises eat some our tomatoes and melons. The fig tree set fruit early this year because the weather was so warm - along came a frost and all the fruit fell off!

Somehow we manage to get enough of every thing else for ourselves and to share with the neighbors.

That's great well that your able to share. It's not great the birds are eating everything. They sale that bird netting stuff, but it seems like it would be a pain to cover the whole tree with that stuff. My wife used to wrap the fruits as they mature with some newspaper and staple them. It seemed to work, but was time consuming.

Our tree is fruiting now though it did have some fruit drop. I've increased the watering and put a little fertilizer around the tree since the leaves were yellowing too.

Dean - I might try your wife's newspaper trick. The tree gave ten persimmons last year, so having to cover them will not be a problem. Ours has just about finished flowering, and I can see the tiny fruits beginning to form.

Good luck!