What Are Some Tips for Successful Gardening?

[baywax]

That's hillarious and scary! If Evo's posts start turning purple we all know she tried her crazy coworker's mushroooms...

Like these...

 

[physics girl phd]

I'm picturing Evo as Alice in Wonderland:
http://passion.edu/elearn/file.php/361/Butterfly_Pics/Caterpillar-2.jpg

On a happy front... the garden I'm subsidizing (via a farm share) is starting to produce. I get to share snow peas with my stepson Patrick (he loves them) and try out Mustard Spinach this week (it's always hard for anyone to pull away real spinach from me... so I'm using the pregnancy to lay claim to the whole bunch)! My gardener said a lot of things with be coming in 1-2 weeks... including zukes! huzzah!

Living in a tiny city apartment, at least I can live vicariously and join in some eating!

 

[Astronuc]

The further adventures of my herb growing co-workwer.

Today she brought in little baggies of what she called "flowering cilantro".

I picked up a bag, and here is what was in it.

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/355/herb2.jpg

This is what I expected in it.

http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/424/herb1p.jpg

I asked her where she learned about herbs. She told me she took a class from someone in her neighborhood that has a class on "natural organic herbs" and gave her the herbs she grows.

The top picture is the flowering portion of cilantro (although it does look like fennel). It's bolted, i.e. it flowered. The bottom picture is what one would see before the plant bolts. It the bottom part of the plant.

See this picture.
http://www.forestryimages.org/images/384x256/5361732.jpg

Some background
http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/growing-cilantro.html

 

[Andre]

So after the move from the 14th floor to ground level, I have a few feet of dirt again to my disposal. Too far in the season for green miracles, but I got this rose bush for my birthday:

 

[Evo]

The top picture is the flowering portion of cilantro (although it does look like fennel). It's bolted, i.e. it flowered.

Actually, the top picture is dill.

 

[turbo]

I spite of the torrential rains and cold weather (daily highs are running 10 deg F below normal for the last couple of months), the garlic is doing well. The scapes are ready for picking and processing. Scapes are the central stalk of hard-neck garlics, and if you leave them on the plant, they produce seed and flowers, both of which sap the resources of the bulbs, so they should be removed at about this stage to prevent that. The good part about it is that the lower portion of the scape (below the bulge) is tender and has a flavor very similar to onion-tops, only with a strong element of garlic. If you saute scapes for a stir-fry, it tastes like you have added both garlic and green onions - quite a nice combo, to my tastes. The portion of the scape above the swelling is edible, but the texture is generally tough and stringy, so we don't use them in foods.

For gardeners who might want to grow hard-neck garlic, scapes emerge from the center of the whorl of leaves, and the time to pick them is when they have curled (as you see here) and the swelling in the scape has emerged a distance out of the plant. If you snap off the scapes, the bases of them often continue to grow, and they are usually tender and tasty, so you can walk out through the garlic-beds a week or two later and gather more fresh scapes for salads or stir-fries. The important part is to get the swelling and the top off the garlic before they start setting on flowers and seed.

 

[Ouabache]

I spite of the torrential rains and cold weather

I don't believe I'm planting well adapted vegetables for our monsoon summers.
I'm contemplating tilling up the whole kit & kaboodle and plant http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Working_in_the_rice_paddy.jpg" and maybe
alternate with blocks of http://www.stetson.edu/~pmay/habitats/FW%20marsh%20cattails.jpg" is not too far down my list.

 

[Evo]

These are all over my eggplants, and not on any other plant. they don't appear to be doing any damage. The white feathery *tails* seem to be excretions. They are like rounded pyramids in shape, and they fly. I can't find a description of these anywhere. These aren't good pictures, but it's all I've got.

Ten GOOBF cards for the first accurate identification.

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/1513/bugsunidentified4.jpg

 

[Pythagorean]

we've got radishes, carrots, two lettuces, basil, snap peas, and russian finger potatos going.

the interior of Alaska has been incredibly sunny with intermittent showers and everything's growing well. The potatos are exploding!

 

[turbo]

Evo, we have some flying fuzzy-butt pests called adelgids that attack hemlock trees. You may have something similar.

 

[Evo]

Evo, we have some flying fuzzy-butt pests called adelgids that attack hemlock trees. You may have something similar.

Interesting. I can't believe none of the pictures posted on the internet are any good, you'd think someone would have posted a decent picture of the bug.

 

[dlgoff]

Evo. Kill them. Kill them now. They may be http://extension.entm.purdue.edu/veg/commercial/p&e.html" .

Edit: Well. Maybe not.

 

[Evo]

Are there no pictures of this bug?

They're like little walking pyramids with fuzzy white tails.

 

[Ouabache]

Are there no pictures of this bug?

They're like little walking pyramids with fuzzy white tails.

Cute bugs, I've never encountered those before.
I think they must have come though the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_(device)" .

 

[sir_manning]

Those bugs are probably some sort of scale insect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_insect). Plant sap is low in nitrogen, so the insect has to consume a lot of it before it can be used to make proteins. The excess is the sugary white fuzz you see, also known as honeydew.

 

[Dadface]

we've got radishes, carrots, two lettuces, basil, snap peas, and russian finger potatos going.

the interior of Alaska has been incredibly sunny with intermittent showers and everything's growing well. The potatos are exploding!

Little beasties have been having feasts on my veg.The radishes have been eaten,the carrots and parsnips have disappeared and now the slugs and snails seem to have discovered my lettuces which are in raised pots.Its not all bad,the courgettes, leaf beet,chard,tomatoes, potatoes, runner beans, broad beans and soft fruit are coming on a treat.

 

[Astronuc]

Are there no pictures of this bug?

They're like little walking pyramids with fuzzy white tails.

That maybe an adult version of this leafhopper.
http://www.pbase.com/jamato8/image/61078703

I'm also surprised that there are no other pictures of your bugs.


Meanwhile, we just had the wettest June on record - with over a foot (30 cm) of rain, and we've had two days of thunderstorms. July looks like it might be a continuation.

Many farms in the area are waterlogged, and some have lost crops, while others are getting a late start on planting.


Alert: Plant disease hits eastern US veggies early, hard
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090703/ap_on_bi_ge/us_farm_scene_late_blight

CONCORD, N.H. – Tomato plants have been removed from stores in half a dozen states as a destructive and infectious plant disease makes its earliest and most widespread appearance ever in the eastern United States.

Late blight — the same disease that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s — occurs sporadically in the Northeast, but this year's outbreak is more severe for two reasons: infected plants have been widely distributed by big-box retail stores and rainy weather has hastened the spores' airborne spread.

The disease, which is not harmful to humans, is extremely contagious and experts say it most likely spread on garden center shelves to plants not involved in the initial infection. It also can spread once plants reach their final destination, putting tomato and potato plants in both home gardens and commercial fields at risk.

Meg McGrath, professor of plant pathology at Cornell University, calls late blight "worse than the Bubonic Plague for plants."

Those growing plants of the nightshade family: tomatoes, egg-plant, potatoes, . . . should take precaution. Once the ground is infected, it's difficult to clear. If any plants are infected, remove them immediately, and probably one should remove the soil and sterilize it. Otherwise, do not grow nightshade plants in the area.

 

[Moonbear]

My pepper plants are starting to grow peppers. The tomatoes never made it into the ground...I got more soil to give them a home, but have not had a rain-free day to do the actual planting yet. The one evening it wasn't raining when I got home from work, I spent mowing the lawn. Grr. It's supposed to stop raining this weekend, but sure doesn't look like it right now. I should already be getting tomatoes, not just getting them into the ground. Oh well, if I ever get them planted, I'll have gardens ready for easier planting next year. It's going to take me a few years of digging through clay and rocks to get a garden of any size really conditioned for planting.

 

[Astronuc]

We had sun briefly earlier this afternoon - then another thunderstorm and downpour - and now the sun is out again. Third day of the month and three days with thunderstorms, which follows about two weeks of daily thunderstorms.

 

[turbo]

We had a couple of hours of (mostly filtered) Sun today - better than we have done in LONG stretch. I'm getting pretty depressed about the prospects of the garden. All the planning and the preparation doesn't count for much when mother Nature throws 2 months of cold and rain at you. I have replanted cucumbers and will replant squash later this week, if the rain holds off. Those are both staples, here, so not happy times. I have had to resort to spreading iron phosphate slug bait around my garden, since the slugs are chewing up everything in reach. I would prefer a plague of locusts at this point.

 

[Evo]

We had a couple of hours of (mostly filtered) Sun today - better than we have done in LONG stretch. I'm getting pretty depressed about the prospects of the garden. All the planning and the preparation doesn't count for much when mother Nature throws 2 months of cold and rain at you. I have replanted cucumbers and will replant squash later this week, if the rain holds off. Those are both staples, here, so not happy times. I have had to resort to spreading iron phosphate slug bait around my garden, since the slugs are chewing up everything in reach. I would prefer a plague of locusts at this point.

Really sad to hear that turbo, it's been a cold rainy season here too. Too cold for fruit to set, and so rainy. This is the second year of way too much cold. Tomatoes, eggplant and peppers need warmth, and we don't have it.

 

[turbo]

Here is our new mini-greenhouse. My organic-gardening neighbor and I share a lot of stuff, and I gave his granddaughters my older PC. He built this greenhouse for himself, and then decided to build a large greenhouse on the south wall of his barn, so we got this one. I hauled it up here in the bucket of my tractor, leveled it, insulated the north wall with foil-faced rigid foam and put black slate in the bottom for heat retention. Notice that the roof windows are louvered, and I have them cracked to vent excess heat. My wife has already planted dill, parsley, lettuce mixes, etc in there, and next spring we'll start all our own vegetables from seed - no more $$$ seedlings to buy.

 

[Moonbear]

I finally got more rocks moved and was able to get my tomatoes planted in their place today. I have one green pepper growing and a whole bunch of jalapeno peppers...jalapenos seem to do well growing on rocks. A few of the tomato plants were starting to flower in spite of being horridly neglected, so maybe I still have some chance of tomatoes this year. Since I'm going to be gone most of the second half of July into the first week of August, this might work to my advantage that I will actually get some tomatoes rather than my housesitter getting them all this year. I still have a LOT of rocks to move though, and am running out of creative ways to use them. I'm mostly down to just the gravel that was under the river rocks, so now I think I just need to find a good place to pile them up out of my way until I'm ready to build retaining walls to terrace the big hill I nearly kill myself on every time I mow the lawn (it's pretty steep in a couple spots and the grass gets very slickery and I've lost my footing a few times).

 

[Proton Soup]

despite playing catchup in the spring on the last two years' drought, the last month or so here has been pretty dry. but the cucumbers have been coming along OK thanks to hand watering. the tomatoes on the other hand have been something of a mixed bag. i bought some heirloom varieties for something different, and the pink ones seem to be late bloomers. problem is, the blooms won't pollinate and set fruit in this heat. otherwise, they are growing like weeds and i had to spend a bit of time today tying up stalks so that they don't fall over and break.

 

[baywax]

Evo and Turbo, what happened to your weather guys? Did you move to the ᓄᓇᕗᑦ ᒐᕙᒪᖓ territory?

http://www.gov.nu.ca/

 

[turbo]

New England is very cold and wet this year. May and June were continuations of April, with no warming trend. My garden is a swamp, full of expensive stunted plants that are going nowhere. We have planted and re-planted cukes, squash, lettuce, etc, with no real success. We need a few consecutive sunny days to begin to warm and dry the soil - no such luck, so far. The carrots failed to germinate, and we had to re-plant them, too - a month too late.

 

[Pythagorean]

Little beasties have been having feasts on my veg.The radishes have been eaten,the carrots and parsnips have disappeared and now the slugs and snails seem to have discovered my lettuces which are in raised pots.Its not all bad,the courgettes, leaf beet,chard,tomatoes, potatoes, runner beans, broad beans and soft fruit are coming on a treat.

We had a squirrel that kept digging up our potatoes, but now that they're vegging they've left them alone. Or maybe the cat ended their curiosity...

 

[baywax]

We had a squirrel that kept digging up our potatoes, but now that they're vegging they've left them alone. Or maybe the cat ended their curiosity...

My cat gets torn up by the squirrels around here. We've got coyotes after him too. Not far from here we've had 5 cougar encounters with people. One woman fought a cougar off of her little 8 year old and won! The kids ok now. The bears are all out and looking cuddly but are not. They like to hang out around the elementary schools due to discarded lunches. I've heard about european tourists canceling their trips out here after looking at the CDN news about the bears, cougars and wolverines. Buc buc buc.!

Turbo, what system is keeping things cool in your neck of the woods?

 

[Ouabache]

That maybe an adult version of this leafhopper.
http://www.pbase.com/jamato8/image/61078703

I think you may be onto something Astro.. That bug look's suspiciously similar to the one
Evo showed us.

 

[Evo]

I think you may be onto something Astro.. That bug look's suspiciously similar to the one
Evo showed us.

Possible except I've been watching them grow from tiny things when they first appeared.

 

[Ouabache]

Possible except I've been watching them grow from tiny things when they first appeared.

There is an angular (pyramidal) shaped insect that affects *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanaceae" .
Do they look something like that? Did yours happen to have small black spines when they were smaller (nymph stage)?

*Solanacae, common name is the Nightshade family and includes: tomato, eggplant, potato, pepper, chili pepper, tobacco... Their flowers are all similar in shape

 

[Evo]

There is an angular (pyramidal) shaped insect that affects *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanaceae" .
Do they look something like that? Did yours happen to have small black spines when they were smaller (nymph stage)?

*Solanacae, common name is the Nightshade family and includes: tomato, eggplant, potato, pepper, chili pepper, tobacco... Their flowers are all similar in shape

Nope. These bugs are covered from head to toe in sectioned, overlapping "plates", like an armadillo.

 

[Evo]

Those bugs are probably some sort of scale insect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_insect). Plant sap is low in nitrogen, so the insect has to consume a lot of it before it can be used to make proteins. The excess is the sugary white fuzz you see, also known as honeydew.

No, I'm familiar with scales, they're not scales. They walk quickly on straight little legs, then take off flying, but have overlapping plates. It seems no one is able to identify this bug, which is odd. Unfortunatley, I think I have killed them all. :((

 

[Moonbear]

Turbo, what system is keeping things cool in your neck of the woods?

Apparently the same one keeping it cool where I am too. We just had a LOT of chill and rain this summer. It really doesn't even feel like summer yet. Earlier this week, I actually needed to wear a jacket in the morning because it was not just cool, but COLD...in the 50s! It's back to being a bit warmer again, and hopefully drier. It hasn't rained since the weekend. I will guarantee that we'll start having a drought in about two weeks, though, when I leave the country and have someone else responsible for watering my plants of course. Though, my newest house/cat sitter grew up on a farm, so hopefully she'll be able to judge better than the last one when to water or not water.

 

[Borek]

Pictures that probably best fit thread subject:

2002:

2009: