Anyone growing any veggies?

I've been seeing what I'm pretty sure is a lot of earwig damage with the damp weather we've been having.

oh I can't stand those darn earwigs, we seem to have alot. I tried diatomaceous earth, but it didn't seem to do much - what else can you do?

I really hate the idea of setting cut up hose down and them dumping them in a bucket, they crawl so freakishly fast!

lol at the catfood eating slugs. We had a stray we fed in Oregon. We were going on vacation, so I dumped a whole bag of crunchies out for him to eat, a few minutes later my daughter screamed "SLUGS" There were SOOO many, I mean hundreds of them, it was like a siren for them. ick - I went through tons of sluggo every year.

I remember reading something about olive oil and water and something....but then I'd have a container full of "pincher-bugs" as we used to call them when we were kids, and I guess I'd have to dump them into a plastic bag and seal it up. YUCK. Sigh....guess I'll have to do a search for the recipe/technique, though, as they are destroying some of my plants. And I have to toss some more Sluggo out, too. I pretty much have the snails under control, but I'm seeing slugs again. My fish like them, so at least I can toss them in the pond if I find them.

I've heard that you can dampen a piece of newspaper and roll it up, then put it out near where the plants are that they're bothering and overnight they'll crawl into the newspaper and you can just dump it in the trash in the morning. Haven't tried it myself since I don't have too many problems with them, but other people have posted that they've had luck doing that.

Thanks ecrane, I don't look forward to it, but if my seedlings are getting chewed up, I'll do it.

I feel asleep and didn't do my recon.

This morning I saw that they had a heyday out there, so I dug out the Sevin Dust and put that on the plants. Not organic, but that's all I had to put on them right now.

Last year I tried garlic juice, hot pepper juice, rubbing alcohol and a ton of other "make in the kitchen" type things, but they just kept on eating and eating. That's when I just gave up and bought the Sevin.

At least the plants are not flowering and there are no bees out there yet. Hopefully they'll grow out of being eaten, if that's possible. Seems like they really like the nice, tender juicy new growth the most.

Well, finally got some veg in today, ahead of the (we hope) rain. I planted dandelion greens, 2 types of lettuce and corn in the raised bed (still more room there). Then I put purple bush beans, peas and golden beets in the straw bales. This is all an experiment - I'm new to this stuff, so wish me luck. DH still hasn't put the watering in, but I just had to get those seeds planted.

Congrats KaperC! They'll be growing now! Here's a couple of pics from the garden I took yesterday.
This is bok choy.

This is Devil's Ear lettuce.

Here's the first harvest. LOL! Radishes.

Ah - bok choy, that's something to try.

I need to try some Bok Choy, I love it! I have tried Radishes twice without success. :/

Oh beautiful Pugz ! I'll give the bok choy a try - how do you like to eat it? I've always just cooked it in stir fry.

Well, we got our rain today, so everything got watered in!

It's raining here, too and the wind almost damaged my tomato plants, I wasn't going to check on them today, but I went outside and it was blowing some over inside the growbags, the growbags are only half filled right now, I fill them as they grow. So I got an impromptu workout clipping branches and filling bags with mix and coconut coir in the rain. (so much for my mystery I was going to kick back and read today. LOL)

Thanks, Redtoosiepop. We use it as the last ingredient in clear soups, just cook your soup and lay the leaves in the top, put on a lid and let them steam.

You can stir fry it and steam it, too. My husband uses it in soups all the time, though.

Here's how he does it:

He'll take some beef ribs, boil them until tender, then add some taro or chunked up potatoes and green beans (we prefer the Asian long beans), let those finish cooking and then toss your bok choy into the pot last and steam until tender. He only uses salt and pepper for seasoning. It's really good that way. Sometimes he puts radishes in there, too. I'd never seen anyone cook a radish before. I only ate them in salads, I think?

The potatoes or taro will cook into the soup and make it just a little bit creamy in texture if you cook them long enough and maybe smush a few of the chunk up with a fork inside the pot while cooking.

He's making that right now, but we had to buy all the stuff that went in that soup. Can't wait until I have my own!

mmm, that sounds good ... kids and I would eat it but my husband doesn't eat meat, so I'm going to have to start with a decent veggie stock - lots of browned mushrooms help for flavor (even tho it's not quite the same)

I will defintiely give the bok choy a go..... I've never had cooked radishes either, does he cook alot?

The bok choy is the easiest thing I have grown yet and I think the plants are very pretty, they grow really fast, too. You'll want to stagger your plantings just like with lettuce to keep a constant supply.

DH does cook quite a lot. Thank goodness because when I'm not in the mood to do it, I just won't do it. I'll grab anything just to shut up my tummy and forego planned meals if I can get away with that.

He makes a mean squash soup, too.

You know, I think if you put more potatoes in the recipe I described above, you wouldn't even need any meat, there are a thousand and one variations for something like that and I am sure they would all taste great.

My husband is Asian from the Philippines, so I have gotten an education on different foods. I learned to make flan, can you believe it? One night I decided to make it because he likes it and I was up a 3 a.m. trying to figure out how to carmelize sugar in a pot. LOL!

I'm more of a southern fried gal myself, born and raised in Missouri and never measure much of anything that goes into a pot. My mom cooked that way and I learned from her. Most of it turns out pretty tasty, though.

I am planning to up the veggie intake, reduce the meat to condiment status once the garden gets going.

mmmmmm , me too - I can't wait!

Picked up a six pack of bok choy at the hardware store this morning. Cute little things!

I got some seeds yesterday. Supposedly they like hot weather, at least according to the seed pack.

imapigeon, I've seeded mine (the ones in the picture I posted earlier) on 2/13/09 and they didn't grow fast until it has warmed up, but they germinated quickly. They're growing like gangbusters now. We're in the same zone, so you should be fine with planting them now if you want.

I seeded some more in pots on 3/16/09 and they germinated in about 5 days, I think and more are coming up now, they've got two cute little first leaves on them. I'm sure these will grow faster than the ones planted in Feb.

HOLY GIANT BOK CHOY! hahaha! Look at this picture from another thread on DG. This was grown in Florida:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=6310015

And that onion is big enough to use as a billy club.

Oh, if only I could grow stuff like that.

lol!

Mother of pearl! You could feed a family of 6 with those two veggies and some broth!

You sure could! Now I'm afraid of my bok choy. LOL!

The bok choy that ate Cleveland!

And that's in the Box Garden forum. LOL Must have taken up the whole box!

got my tomato starts in yesterday - plus a trellis for cukes and beans ...

heres the trellis, I planted some climbing sweet peas on the back side, but that might be too much - I'll rip them out if they are competing too much with the veggies.

Well, look at you go! I just posted these new pics of my lettuces and bok choy in the vegetable garden forum, rather than post over here again, I'll just put the link:

Check out the De Morges Braun Lettuce, I think it's really pretty.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/965330/

Might get some food after all! If something else doesn't beat us to it. LOL!

ooh - it is pretty, and the bok choy is really cute.

Nice setup!
I have to wait a bit for 'maters outside. We're back down in the 30s and 40s at night right now (typical March weather here). I'm gonna try to get my greenhouse cleaned up and start them in there.

It was really cold here in the mornings for a couple of days, too. And don't you know I took all my plumeria out of the greenhouse?

ima - I was worried about the tomatoes in their smaller pots (It was 37 Sunday night I believe) .... so I thought they'd be better off in the warmer soil of the raised bed. We'll see if I rushed it too much, I might have.

Kaper, I just brought my plumerias into the house from the garage - do you sink yours in the ground? I was thinking I might give it a shot this year when it warms up considerably.

A few of my plumies are getting to the size where I might need to do something else with them. Right now I have them on cement blocks in a small border, but a couple of them are branching out and won't fit there long. I worry about the winter, though, because we can get down in the 30s at night and when we had that big freeze a couple of years ago, I lost all four that I had. Don't want that to happen again, but some of them will be too big for my little greenhouse door soon. No room in the garage!

oh mine are just sticks, this is only year #2.... but they do seem well rooted this year. Can you take a cutting just in case they don't make it?

They're really not big enough for that, yet, but soon for two of them. Most of mine are new, too.

We ate some of the bok choy 2 nite ago and it was so good! Figured we might as well eat it before the aphids had their way with it. Hubby made a nice soup and added them on top as the last ingredient. Don't know if it really tasted that good or if it was a placebo effect. LOL!

Wish I'd staggered my planting more efficiently, now I'm going to be without bok choy for awhile until some more get bigger, others sprout and grow. But the lettuce is almost ready so we can eat salads for awhile.

So far, I've found that the little gem romaines and the devil's ears lettuce are the least favorite of the ahpids, in case anyone is interested to know that. Nothing has bothered the Devil's ears at all and only light attraction of aphids on the Little Gems. The Black Seeded Simpson lettuce are under attack by the aphids.

The De Morges Braun is a favorite of every insect in the garden. Bummer because it is so pretty.
I'm going to have to pick it soon while there's anything left.

So, if nothing else, I'm figuring out which ones to stay away from re: bugs with the munchies.

The hover flies finally showed up and I think I saw some lacewings. I'm not using anymore pesticides and the Sevin I used once has washed away, guess I'll see how the Stylet Oil works. But if you use an insecticdal oil, I've learned you have to spray every single day while the hoardes are out there. Otherwise, they'll be right back at it by the next morning after a good evening drenching.



This message was edited Apr 1, 2009 10:07 AM