PAGE 2!

since no one reads the 49th post,

Quote :

"One of the advantages of Beekeeping if you have a garden. My bees are loving the cucumber flowers this year. "

nice pic, djeternal! I wish there were more bees around here, my eggplants have been blooming for weeks but no fruits yet.


I've got the day off (unless someone calls me), so i'm heading out to take some pics of what i've been doing for the past few weeks. I only get to work on my garden in little one and two hour intervals for the most part, so it's been slow going for me this year. I enlarged and redid my flower beds to increase the curb appeal of the place a bit (it takes forever to fully reclaim a neglected yard, sad that selling is the motivation). My vegetables are looking pretty pathetic this year because it's been really wet and cool here, and some of my seedlings got rather chlorotic due to all the rain leaching the good stuff away. I just got home from a camping trip where it unexpectedly rained for 2 days and one of my rose begonias has powdery mildew, and various verticillium wilts have cropped up, and my cherry tree has fireblight. time to go buy some sulphur, i guess...








[Edited on June 27, 2013 at 11:38 AM. Reason : derp ]

6/27/2013 11:31:10 AM

yikes! sounds like you have some work ahead of you. I guess I'm "fortunate" to be unemployed at the moment, otherwise my shit would be awful.

6/27/2013 11:34:28 AM

yeah, my husband asked me the other day when i was going to just sit down and look at my garden. my reply was "in a couple of weeks"

6/27/2013 11:40:10 AM

Here are a few pics of the garden. I had thought my bees would be all over the garden, but I guess they are finding more tasty stuff in the woods (the hives are probably 1/4 mile away through the woods).

Here is a pic of the 3 fig trees, and the rows left to right are watermelons/sunflowers, tomatoes, first-year hops experiment, eggplant, green peppers, and then more tomatoes.



My mom in the middle of the garden.



Picture going the other way with the new chicken coop in the background.



The rest of the garden, further down the rows are cucumbers, green/yellow peppers, pablano, cayenne, different types of tomatoes, and more sunflowers.



Hens outside the chicken coop.



[Edited on June 30, 2013 at 9:06 PM. Reason : ]

6/30/2013 9:03:39 PM

wow Don, your place looks great! I'm really envious. Have you gotten any figs yet?

Think about hitting those tomatoes and peppers and zukes with some foliar fertilizer or a bit of 20-20-20, if you haven't already. they aren't all quite as green as they should be.

looks like you might have some powdery mildew on your zukes as well. So do I. I'm about to try treating with a dilute skim milk solution, 2 parts milk to 4 parts water. you can definitely use powdered milk if you have some, to save on money. I've also seen 1 part milk to 9 parts water, so you might want to start with that since you have a lot (I only have 2 plants). You put it in a sprayer, and you have to treat the undersides of the leaves as well, and remove any dying leaves or infected flowers, but apparently even commercial places are using this milk treatment now.


I actually looked up this solution as I have a tuberous begonia that has been hit pretty hard with it. somehow its neighbors (another tuberous begonia of a different color, and a dragonwing and a bonfire begonia) have escaped unscathed so far, but you can use the milk spray as a preventative treatment just in case.

[Edited on July 1, 2013 at 1:19 PM. Reason : ]

7/1/2013 1:17:38 PM

Thanks!

The fig trees were just planted this year (someone traded fig trees for iris), but the big one has a ton of figs already growing. I'm looking forward to trying them!

The garden is mostly other people's stuff. My mom has a row, the next door neighbor has a row, and my father in law has 3 rows. We all work it together. Everything just got a fresh dose of fertilizer last weekend, and we have been battling with the powdery mildew. I'll try out the milk wash, thanks for the tips! The cucumbers are the only thing my wife cares about since they get turned into pickles.

7/1/2013 1:53:31 PM

My tomatoes look like shit. My cilantro is struggling. My lavendar plant died. The rosemary is turning yellow. The other herbs are doing fine. Everything is my insectary is going nuts. Everything is blooming and the growing area is almost too crowded. Haven't been able to identify all the bugs the blooms are attracting yet.

7/1/2013 6:04:28 PM

So, I fudged things up a little the other day, and had to go in for a fix if I wanted things to survive. During the bad storms we had a couple days ago in Raleigh, two of my large bush tomato plants fell over (they were staked, but not enough), bending two of the main stems. So, I sat them upright and wrestled a cage around them--not many other ways to support them at that point, they'd gotten too big. So of course in the course of getting this cage on them, a lot of stems were snapped. Sadly.

I noticed the next day that both of the stems that had bent were still alive, but had been damaged and weren't getting enough water to the upper shoots. So I went and clipped off all the dead shoots, non-fruiting shoots, and anything damaged from the cage, making sure to leave some shoots as foliage. Even today, one day later, the plants look much better and they're supporting their upper halves again.

Unrelated to tomatoes, I definitely found out it was a cabbageworm infestation that destroyed my brussels and cauliflower. On a hunch, I went and cut off all the damaged leaves (basically the whole plant was skeletal) and left the newest growth. Even overnight it's looking better.

Pepper plants still have some holes in the center of the leaves that look like slugs... but these pepper plants are so thin I don't see how a slug could be getting up there.

7/1/2013 7:01:11 PM

maybe it's baby slugs, Netstorm. I went camping a couple weekends ago and my tent got covered with the tiniest slugs i've ever seen. a beer trap is pretty cheap, just in case.

Another possibility is earwigs. They can cause a variety of damage patterns, from cutting off seedlings and tender plants at the ground to small holes like slugs, to what looks like large "chomps" on the leaves like a large animal took a bite out of it. here's a guy with a bad infestation showing how to make earwig traps out of buried containers of vegetable oil, similar to the slug trap. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2DtEIrrFDU

Something else to be aware of with earwigs is their habitat. They love nesting between folded pieces of cardboard, in between the boards of decks where there is a lot of debris, and other tight spaces that recall their natural habitat, which is between layers of shaggy tree bark. some may even be using their natural habitat for sleeping and coming out to attack your pepper at night, if there's trees nearby. Anyway, try to eliminate as many earwig hotels as you can, or you may easily have the numbers of insects that guy is dealing with in the video.


ncsuapex, I'm not totally certain what the weather's been like in the Raleigh area, but cilantro starts petering out when it gets hot, and lavender and rosemary don't abide by excess moisture. They like really sandy, generally poor soil, so keep that in mind for next time.

there's still time to work with your tomatoes and get a good crop before frost if you start looking for the problem. do they need fertilizing(if they are yellow or white, or streaky green and yellow, or tips of leaves turning brown, the answer is probably yes)? are there pests such as caterpillars eating the leaves? Getting about time for tobacco and tomato hornworm to start being nuisances.
Are there weeds choking the base of your plants? even when the leaves are well above the weeds, they're still competing for water and nutrients from the soil.

Remember to supplement your tomatoes and peppers with calcium, everybody! blossom end rot is a sad end to a fruit you've been watching for weeks. bone meal and sterilized chicken guano are good sources. I've tried saving eggshells all winter and incorporating them, but probably takes to long to help for this year. OR you can go with a foliar fertilizer that has some calcium in it. healthy tomatoes can have a greater demand for N and P than their roots can absorb, and foliar fertilization fills that gap. of course some drips off and gets absorbed by the roots, too. make sure you do that on a dry day.

If this crazy rain keeps up all summer, I bet some of us will have cracking in our tomatoes due to excess moisture and moisture fluctuations. fertilize well, then apply 3 or 4 inches of mulch to the base of the plant. you'll have to check the soil beneath and might have to water it (with a soaker hose or nozzle) more frequently, but some of the heaviest rain will run off without flooding the developing fruits and making them pop.

7/3/2013 10:39:35 AM

I'm going to have to start donating cucumbers to the food shelter. I've already made 6 jars of pickles and I just got another dozen cucs out of the garden. Same with the jalapeno peppers. I've got 2 really nice looking watermelons coming in, and about 6 cantaloupes as well. All the bell peppers are getting close. Okra is looking strong, but not producing anything but flowers yet. Finally have some tomatoes turning red.

I think I got screwed on my squash though. I planted 3 green and 3 yellow, but all 6 are green.

7/3/2013 11:25:26 AM

I only got zucchini as well. Wish I had some crook necks. Might have to smuggle a packet of seeds over the border next year.



Here's an album of pics from my garden, if anyone is interested. Time to take some more, I've got bee balm and daylilies starting now.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10101293497901749.1073741836.11801814&type=1&l=d46555d32c

7/3/2013 12:12:43 PM

What can I plant and start gardening in the fall? What kinda soil prep should I do?

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

7/3/2013 12:16:43 PM

damn, looks like my beefsteaks got late blight, at least they have some sort of stem lesions.


here's some info on fall gardening, Krallum.

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/hil/hil-8001.html


Container gardens are also a great choice for fall, since you can bring them in if it frosts early.

7/5/2013 1:29:59 PM

I have beetles ravaging my basil. I've tried using sevin, to no avail... Any other ideas?

7/5/2013 3:15:40 PM

yeah

buy it at the damn grocery store. it's cheaper than sevin dust.

7/5/2013 3:19:14 PM

try hanging a pheromone trap on the far edge of your property, puck_it.

7/5/2013 3:25:40 PM

I already had sevin, numb nuts.

^There's one across the street maybe 40-50 ft away... Should I put one closer?

[Edited on July 5, 2013 at 5:13 PM. Reason : .]

7/5/2013 5:11:33 PM

nah. you might have to start some new seed if they've chewed the stems, though you might be able to physically remove all bugs and use a cloche or some kind of netting/wire to keep them out.


or, go look for clearance seedlings at some of the big stores.

7/6/2013 2:02:30 AM

The plant is still healthy. They ate so much, I trimmed it back, they went away for a bit... And now have returned. And its only the basil. Wondering if I should let them have it and keep them off my other plants.

7/6/2013 1:12:10 PM

just keep pinching it out, it should come back once the bugs are gone in a couple weeks (hopefully)

7/6/2013 2:44:03 PM

Blight and/or septoria is invading my tomatos.

And i got a lot of squash this year so far, but the damn vine borer struck again and is killing off all my squash plants.

7/8/2013 11:40:00 AM

Squash Borers got 2 of my zucs and my spaghetti squash plant. (all on the same row). Everything was great when I went out of town on Friday, came back Sunday and they were dead. I have treated the others with garden lime and planted 3 more zucs. At least I got 1 spaghetti squash out of that plant before it died.

7/8/2013 11:50:30 AM

Has anyone planted blueberry bushes before?

7/8/2013 7:52:33 PM

I just bought a couple blue berry bushes this year. At first I bought one, but after talking to people apparently you need at least two bushes so they can pollinate each other or something.

7/8/2013 10:08:40 PM

I planted 3 blueberry bushes this year. First time I have ever grown them, so I'm not sure I can give any advice. But they seem to be doing really well so I can tell you what I did.

I planted all 3 of them about 4 feet apart along a section of my fence where they get the morning sun, and stay in the sun for a good majority of the day. My soil is pretty much all red clay, so after I dug the hole I added a couple scoops of Black Kow and gardening soil before planting. Once I had them planted I covered the whole area with a good thick layer of mulch. Then I watered the shit out of them. Fortunately with all the rain we have gotten I haven't had to water them since.

7/9/2013 10:18:21 AM

I planted one several years ago. It seems to be growing fine, but i haven't got any blueberries off it yet. I mixed a lot of sand in gardening soil b/c they like sandy soil.

Blight is KILLING my tomatoes and seems to have moved to my peppers and eggplants. I'm worried it's going to take out my garden.

7/9/2013 11:10:27 AM

^ Do your Blueberries get full sun? They can tolerate partial shade, but the more shade they get the less fruit they'll produce.

I've been lucky with my tomatoes this year. I haven't lost a single plant, and all of them have tomatoes on them. I only have 1 plant (Patio Tomatoes) that are turning red though. I'm sure they'll all turn at the same time and I'll have to give a ton of them away.

7/9/2013 11:48:24 AM

No, it doesn't get full sun, it's against a solid fence. It's plenty green, and i think tit's produced a few berries here and there that the birds quickly stole.

7/9/2013 12:38:34 PM

I strategically placed my blueberry bushes near my beehives with the hope that they will deter any critters from stealing my berries. I know the squirrels won't go anywhere near my beehives, and I have never seen any deer in that part of my yard either. Not sure about birds though. I've seen hummingbirds straight up go to war with a carpenter bee that dug a nest next to the hummingbird feeder, so I get the feeling that birds don't really give a fuck about bees.

7/10/2013 9:58:25 AM

I don't have a picture, but I think my tomatoes have a disease of some kind? They're dying, and it seems to relate to the fork in the stem for the plant. At the joint of the shootoffs, little spurs seem to be coming out of a dying part of the stem. I have no idea what it is.

7/10/2013 11:25:31 AM

my dad planted 8 or so blue berry bushes last year of various sorts.

he had a great yield this year. he didnt use any sand and built up the beds using just gardening soil. they get full sun all day and are doing great so far.

Bullet: http://www.stripersonline.com/t/675944/correct-mix-for-milk-and-baking-soda-blight-treatment

try that link for blight

[Edited on July 10, 2013 at 11:45 AM. Reason : sdf]

7/10/2013 11:43:08 AM

awesome, thanks!

7/10/2013 12:26:57 PM

whoohoo, one of my two cukes that survived has a blossom on it. guess there's a first time for everything. I suck at cucumbers.

7/12/2013 11:17:49 AM

can anyone identify this plant? it's growing in my compost pile, aka my pile of yard waste. It's exploded recently and looks really good... I just don't know what it is or what I've thrown in there that would be this plant... to me, it certainly seems like a vegetable as it reminds me of squash... but I haven't had squash here in a long time. Hell, it could just be a weed, but I swear it seems just stuff my dad use to have in his vegetable garden... (I'm not a grower, so I really have no idea).

7/13/2013 3:34:22 PM

Looks like a squash plant to me

7/14/2013 9:34:17 AM

Pulled a half dozen hornworms off my tomatoes. Any suggestions for pest control on them?

Wasps parasited two of them.

7/14/2013 5:37:50 PM

^^,^^^ my neighbor said he thought it was pumpkin... which would make sense as I threw our pumpkins/seeds in the pile last November... haven't had squash so I don't think that's it. I guess it's time to wait and see

7/14/2013 5:57:52 PM

^^ plant borage next year as a companion plant around your tomatoes.


Pumpkin. Squash. Same thing!

That's probably what it is. I had potatoes growing on my compost last year.

[Edited on July 14, 2013 at 5:59 PM. Reason : .]

7/14/2013 5:58:44 PM

Just donated 5 lbs. of cucumbers to Share the Harvest of Guilford County.

http://www.sharetheharvestguilfordcounty.org/

7/15/2013 10:33:12 AM

The big ass agastache bush I have must be laced with crack. Every time I go check on it there like 50 bees sucking on the flowers. Most are big fat bumble bees but I see a few Italian honey bees mixed in from time to time.

7/25/2013 9:36:54 PM

My splendid garden has gotten so fucking miserable in the last month. I don't know why. The zucchini went from large and green and sprawling to... shriveled. They no longer stand upright, leaves are dying, and only one of five plants has produced fruit past two inches long... and they were still miserable little things. Not sure if it's disease or the weather or my soil. I think it's the soil. Without having a picture, it looks like the root bundles are exposed (and making the plants lay on their side). I think the clay soil wasn't til deep enough, and the plant is actually pushing itself out of the ground.

Tomatoes are producing fruit... slowly. They have signs of blight so that's not good... overall my garden is just pathetic now. Peppers are FINALLY producing, even though the plants seem very small still. Have gotten maybe two handfuls of serrano peppers. Two anaheims are growing right now. Poblano plants still getting bigger, but not peppers yet. Green bell pepper plants are tiny and pathetic.

7/25/2013 11:40:49 PM

yeah, some stuff's starting to fizzle out at my place. I didn't till my vegetable patch this year, and some trees grew a bunch and shaded my tomatoes. they're pathetic compared to some i've seen around town. the best ones are always in raised beds, for obvious reasons.

you can go ahead and put some potting soil or compost around the base of the squashes if the roots are sticking out. Your zucchini's probably not getting pollinated. my two plants have only made 1 full size zucchini between them, though there are flowers every day. guess i better start picking the flowers and doing something with them, heh. i've got lots of bumble bees around, but they don't like going inside tubular flowers, from what i've observed. apparently we have fruit tree fungicides to blame for the lack of honeybees.

7/26/2013 5:08:36 PM

One of the 3 ginger roots that I started about 6 months ago FINALLY started to sprout. I basically gave up on them but left the small starter pots on the back deck. Going to transplant it into a bigger container.

[Edited on August 3, 2013 at 5:03 PM. Reason : .]

8/3/2013 5:02:37 PM

My figs are just starting to come in, but the bugs have gotten them all so far. My peaches aren't doing much. a lot of the unripe ones keep rotting on the tree. dunno why.

8/3/2013 9:31:16 PM

all my beautiful impatiens got that mildew. there's only 3 rose impatiens that haven't totally succumbed yet and a tiny little patch of red ones when is the class action lawsuit getting announced? I probably spent $40 on impatiens this year.



[Edited on August 7, 2013 at 10:05 AM. Reason : ]

8/7/2013 9:50:40 AM

because it's nice to know where your food comes from? because it's enjoyable? why do you do stuff?

I've been battling blight on my tomatoes all summer. It's the first year this has happened, and it's really taken a toll, but I'm still getting more tomatoes than I can handle and have to keep giving some away. Two of my squash plants are still producing squash. This is unusual, as usually my squash plants die-off a few weeks after they start producing, usually from that boring worm. Okra is doing really well. Jalapeno, chili, and italian sweet peppers are booming. For some reason, most of my bell pepper plants suddently died off, but i still have a few, although only one is really producing any peppers. And my egg plants are doing pretty well.

8/7/2013 10:01:06 AM

I personally feel like we don't do enough to keep everything off of them. The first couple months we're all over them with the insecticide/pesticide stuff. And during that time we get delicious tomatoes and peppers (and nothing tastes better than a fresh picked tomato). Then we just get lazy and/or complacent and say, "nice, looks like we made it this year!". Then a couple weeks later, the bugs and fungus are back.

So we get some good fruits and vegetables out of it for a little while...but the big thing that's worth it to me is the herbs. Those almost never get fucked with (at least in my garden). Not having to pick up a small pack of basil/thyme/oregano/parsley every time a recipe calls for it is priceless (and then only using half of that pack and watching the rest go bad...doesn't happen with a garden). Also being able to make your pesto is pretty awesome.

For us, every year is a learning experiment. We kept our tomatoes and peppers longer this year than both last couple years. Hopefully it will keep getting better. We're finally going to do a raised bed next year (just planted on the side of the yard in the past). Hopefully that will keep it safe from my mowing and weed-eating and allow us to better control the pest and insecticides.

8/7/2013 10:07:23 AM

This year my main problem has been blight, and i think it was because it rained so much at the beginning of the growing season. I really haven't had a problem with pest, and the only remedy I've used is beer traps, except that one time I sprayed pesticides at the beginning of the summer before the plants started producing veggies.

Yeah, and the learning experience is a big part of it.

8/7/2013 10:14:54 AM

^This is my first time gardening, so really I'm sure I had plenty of error, but blight really was the end of my glory this year. It's okay... I put seriously maybe $100 into it and the rest was donation equipment and dirt and sweat. Mostly wanted to learn the routine and hobby. Maybe in the future I will put some serious effort into it, raised beds, testing dirt quality, more pest control, et cetera.

8/7/2013 3:29:59 PM

Got a visit from my little turtle buddy. Notice the red mark I put on his back 2 years ago.

8/8/2013 9:06:17 AM