Farmer your talking cattle panel ?
Your best (favorite) cucumber
I am talking woven wire fencing with 4-6 inch mesh. I f I had to buy it I would use concrete reinforcing wire, but I have plenty of this from tearing down old fencing.
I see I'm late to this party but wanted to say that I like "pickling" types best for all uses, including fresh eating... they seem to have unbeatable crunch and sweetness!
Gurney's used to have a hybrid that did better than any other in my garden, but they discontinued it and substituted another without warning (only thing I ordered from them that year, too). I'll get my cucumber seeds elsewhere this year.
'Sugar Crunch' is a wonderful hybrid that others have raved about also... a friend shared some seeds with me last year. Are they a Burpee's exclusive?
'National Pickling' and 'Homemade Pickles' have both done well for me, and I'm pretty sure you can find them at WalMart or Home Depot or your local nursery or hardware store seed rack.
Farmer...Based on these thread comments. I am considering using wire fencing or concrete reinforcement wire for my cuke plantings this year. I like your cage idea, but since I'm using soaker hoses, figured I would go straight line with the fence and stake at either end. Question is your nine-inch spacing of the cucumber seeds...would you recommend this distance for straight line planting as well?
Also, I'm considering using both staking and cages for indeterminate tomoatoes,. The staking would be a combination of rebar and PVC, allowing the entire 10ft lenght of PVC to remain above ground. Both covering and cages would be removed after June 15th. Last season I did a lot of pruning to be able to get to the tomatoes inside the cages after removing the plastic covers. I have read in DG threads that (1) staking indeterminate tomatoes was not particularly a good idea, and (2) that thinning before the end of the season was not a good idea. Any thoughts or comments?
morgan
I like cuke vines to be pretty close so 6- 9 inches works whether in a circle or a curve.
Indeterminate tomatoes, I just cage and forget. As you will notice in the photo above, when the tomatoes start ripening you can barely see the cages. I do give the plants 3 -4 feet each way. I don't prune tomatoes period. Determinates and semi- determinates, I may use a half cage on the larger mainseason cultivars. By half I mean, 2 1/2 ft tall as opposed to the five foot cages. Helps hold them up off the ground. I get a lot of rot here when they rest on the ground, not to mention slug and box turtle damage.
I have concrete wire on the brain. LOL
Sugar Crunch, not "super" like Superman. Burpee has it, but I don't know who else might. I stopped ordering from Burpee's (they raised prices and lowered service IMO), but you might see if anybody still has good things to say about them on Garden Watchdog.
For those that like the thin skinned beit alpha types there a number of alternatives to Burpees Sugar Crunch. Socrates has been mentioned, Johnny's also carries Rocky, Diva, and Tyria. New England seed carries Eos. Stokes carries Top Green. As examples, there are quite a few of them out there.
Thanks, FarmerDill! I'll try one of those this year. :-)
Farmer...I presume your recommending to leave the tomato cage in place and just remove the cover as I have in the past. How large of a diameter are your indeterminate cages?
morgan
I make them from a 6 ft lenght of wire, which makes tham a shade under two ft in diameter. I drive a post beside them to keep them from falling over as the plant gets large.
Farmer...gotcha there on the cage size, but can I get you to comment on training the indeterminate vines to a stake, or just leaving the cage, or both.
I use cages, no pruning. I have pruned to both a single leader and double leader and tied to a stake. Too much work, but one can get better specimen tomatoes. Caged and unpruned gives more tomatoes and more weight per vine, but pruned tomatoes can be set at closer spacings. As the old folks would say " It all comes out in the wash". I cage because I am old and don't feel like doing all the work associated with staking and pruning.
Farmer....maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I get the impression that your saying staking requires pruining becuase of the added weight???
It is very difficult to tie multiple branches to a stake. For a straight stake, a single leader works best. For a double leader a crosspiece is usually use at the top so that two verical vines can up independently. This site has line drawings which may help. http://rps.uvi.edu/CES/gf7.PDF
This site dabbled with about every tecnique but the Florida weave ( used mostly for short stake determinates) http://www.mastergardeners.org/picks/tomato_staking.html
http://home.ivillage.com/gardening/veg/0,,6xk7-3,00.html
Farmer, thanks for the links…exactly what I needed.
I have pretty much decided on a staking/caging plan for indeterminate tomatoes which will meet the following ten requirements:
1. Ease of assemblage by one person.
2. Easy to work with once assembled.
3. Easy to dismantle and store.
4. Reusable materials.
5. Structurally strong enough to support vines without collapsing.
6. Structurally strong enough to withstand high winds without toppling.
7. Provide support for covering protection summer heat, or early and late frosts.
8. Easy access to fruit.
9. Reduce or eliminate the need to prune vines.
10. Easy to maintain, water, weed, and mulch as necessary.
In brief the cages will be constructed of 14 gage galvanized wire or “Utility Fabric”, with a removable plastic covering. The combination cage and vine support stakes will be a combination of PVC with ten foot vertical sections slipped over partially buried rebar sections. The tops of three stakes will be joined in a triangle also made of PVC for structural support as well as providing twine drops for attaching runners. For added support electrical conduit will be permanently slipped inside the three horizontal triangular connecting sections which will be welded together. The down facing portion of the three corner Side Outlet 90 degree ELL’s
(slip x slip x slip) slip joints used for connecting the three vertical PVC pipes will not be welded for ease of dismantling.
Note that the 14 gage utility fabric has holes of 2” x 4”. To meet the above #8 requirement, 'Easy access to fruit.'; Ozark recommends in posting #4287592, snipping several 4”x 6” holes.
Cage covers can be removed once all danger of late frost is past. Leaving cages in place is a strong possibility, but at this point I'm undecided. Cages are held together with plastic ties instead of bailing wire to facilitate easy removal, if desired, at the time the plastic covers are removed. For lack of a better description each ‘tripod’ arrangement can be covered with summer sun or bird protection, and fall frost protection as necessary.
I am considering a variation in this design for determinate tomatoes and cucumbers. Please note I take no personal credit for this design. The design is derived from various DG thread comments and internet links. So, if anything like this has been proposed before my apologies.
morgan
Taynors....were beetles the only reason your Japanese Climbing failed? Ordered seeds from Sandhill this week. Also picked up Delikatesse and Tokiwa. Have you or anyone else grown these?
Want to test at least three each of the older cultivars but as I'm doing some small market growing like to know if they are real dogs so I can put in more Straight Nines or hybrids as back-ups..
yes David i think that was it. All my squash and cuc realy got hit by the bug. :( This upcomming season i am doing row covers and there is a garlic spray another DGer recomemded.
It was pretty humid too in OH so i wonder if it just doesn't like humidity. I tried a milk spray on it for mold ?
I got one big cuc but it was pretty bitter. i m not the most experienced gardener, so my expertise is pretty limited lol:)
Let me know how yours does. I might try it again i have few seeds left over from two yrs ago.
Talking on this thread has given me hope :) for a good cuc yr.
I m hoping i get luck with some of the asian cuc that i m trying. Yamato long
Thanks for all the recommendations on cukes. I have had good results from Park's Bush Whopper.cuke--very productive and doesn't take a lot of space. Straight 8 is planted extensively in this area (north MO)--very productive. I use it for a large volume of kosher dills.
This message was edited Jan 20, 2008 11:28 PM