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Vegetable Garden selections

Discussion in 'Other Discussions' started by Earth Wind and Fire, Apr 15, 2014.

  1. Earth Wind and Fire

    Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known Member
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    Yea I do & then I can get clean potting soil from Walmart. I also use Epsom Salt as a purifier & to add extra Magnesium back into the ground.

    Are you aware of any disease free (meaning BER) tomato plants?
     
  2. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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    BER has only been sporadic problem for me, it has always 'ran it's course' and gone away on it's own.

    "feeding with manure or compost tea is recommended by many"

    Wow, never had a slug problem with cabbage, White Fly is the problem here. Beer in bowls sank in at ground level attracts and drowns them. We did this when we lived in town because we detested stepping on them in the dark, not because they were molesting the cole crops.

    Squash Vine Borer is a very real problem here, so are squash bugs. I have on several occasions (it helps tremendously to have someone assist) performed surgery, splitting the stalks, spreading them open, finding/removing the worms, and taping the cut shut. Probably 75% success rate. I've had limited success by sowing radish seeds in the hill with the squash and let them grow, it seems to repulse them. I've had the best success against SVB, cucumber beetle, AND squash bugs by simply delaying planting time, that is IF, IF, you haven't got a neighbor close by that has squash out; hold off planting any squash out until after June 15th, all the parent bugs pick up and leave searching for plants to lay eggs on, then set your plants out. To do this you need to start your squash plants inside a month earlier, works like a charm with cukes and squash.
     
    #22 kyredneck, Apr 16, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 16, 2014
  3. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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  4. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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    Cool, learn a little something everyday. Explains why BER goes away on it's own (for me at least):

    "First you need to understand what actually causes BER - and it is NOT a lack of calcium in the soil. There are literally 100 discussions here about the cause of BER and why hole additives such as egg shells, bone meal, TUMS, and the many other weird things folks claim prevent it have nothing to do with actually preventing it.
    While having a proper soil pH is very beneficial for many reasons, including help in preventing BER, you have already accomplished that. From the point of transplanting on the key is stabilizing the soil moisture to a consistent level and allowing the plant's root and circulatory system to mature to the point it can provide the needed calcium that is already in the soil to the fruit."

    "Thanks for helping to debunk the BER myth. It's exactly as you said it.

    It is not unusual for a few of the first fruits to have BER, not because of calcium deficiency in the soil but because the plant temporarily is unable to use the calcium efficiently. The problem quickly goes away with no intervention. It will also go away if treated, which helps to perpetuate the myth.

    To further confuse the picture, calcium deficiency is a possible cause of BER. But few of our gardens have calcium deficiency to that degree and a few crushed egg shells aren't likely to help in such a case."

    http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tomato/msg0522494525586.html?12
     
  5. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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    Sorry brother, I don't mean to hijack your thread, but I'm not thinkin' real swuft, and the thought just now occurred to me that you have slugs, slugs like wet places, and it's possible that your garden spot could be too wet for the tomatoes early on, retarding root growth and inhibiting absorption of calcium. Dad used to have some BER when he gardened in the bottom; my beds drain well so any BER is only temporary until roots get established. Just thinking out loud here... :)
     
    #25 kyredneck, Apr 17, 2014
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  6. Earth Wind and Fire

    Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known Member
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    Yes.....along with all this Jersey clay soil .....Ive been combating that for a few years now. One year I put in allot of Gypsum to round it out. also peat moss has been added, 5-10-5, egg shells, limestone, Manure, etc. I think what I will do this year is select all heirloom resistant varieties & just dig out big holes and put in clean rich potting soil into the hole when planting the seedlings.

    Just so you know, I have a grower here who I have been chatting with that consults with Rutgers University.....they have advised him to lime the ground more....it also has the end effect of making the tomato's much sweeter. He claims that he has more clients buying his tomato's because of that. His real problem is with his peach orchard....the stink bug swarms we have here are destroying his peach crop. They haven't come up with a good way to confront the stink bug problem....yet.
     
  7. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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    I assume you're referring to poor drainage. There's a simple fix to that if you're willing to put forth a tad of labor at the beginning and change your gardening practices a wee bit, and this is by simply (after a thorough tilling) forming your plot into 'raised beds' by laying out paths and shoveling the dirt onto the beds, and then never walk on the beds. Use the paths only to walk on. You can squeeze a whole lot more produce from limited space this way, kinda like square foot gardening or French Intensive gardening, and drainage will never be a problem again.

    This is in our back yard 10-12 yrs ago before the wife made me move it and give her yard back:

    [​IMG]

    After a lot of rain you can see the water lingering in the paths, the 'raised beds' have drained already:

    [​IMG]
     
    #27 kyredneck, Apr 18, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 18, 2014
  8. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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    Another year, another garden, same spot:

    [​IMG]

    Another year, another garden, same spot, viewed from the opposite end:

    [​IMG]
     
  9. Earth Wind and Fire

    Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known Member
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  10. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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    Late blight took about half my plants last year late Aug/Sept, but I've thought it was because I planted too close together to get good circulation around them. Going to grow fewer plants with greater spacing to see what happens this year.

    Glad you found your plant, hope it works. :)
     
  11. Earth Wind and Fire

    Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known Member
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    I am doing the same....tomatoes here don't go into the ground till after May 25th. Considering the rain we had yesterday they would have been waterlogged. Do you stake them?
     
  12. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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    I'm usually ok to plant after May 1 but so far all that's in the ground is onions, lettuce, mustard, and kale, may be a week yet before peppers and tomatoes get planted.

    Yea I stake AND cage; thinkin' about suckering (at least partially) to improve circulation so I will need even taller and deeper stakes to handle the extra height of the vine.
     
  13. Earth Wind and Fire

    Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known Member
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    Peas & Lettuce are going in tomorrow (pending more rain) ..... Ive never grown kale....is it like lettuce? also do you plant any flowers in the veggie beds to propagate bee pollination? Like marigolds perhaps? Last year I spread some Dutch White Clover in the back yard to do that. Right now though, the chickens are feeding on it & that chicken poop is bound to be nitrogen rich (I use that for fertilizer).
     
  14. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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    Kale is very nutritious, and is like lettuce in that it can be eaten raw (older is better cooked though), it's more akin to collards, it's very frost hardy, and makes excellent cooked greens, especially when combined with mustard greens; my Dad loves it and I grow it for him as much as for anybody.

    I have inter planted nasturniums and marigolds among the veggies in years past, don't even remember what with or what they're supposed to repel. Bees love white clover, good idea. Manure from my daughter's chickens & ducks goes into the compost pile.
     
  15. Earth Wind and Fire

    Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known Member
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    Here is the interesting thing about clover. Try to find it in one pound bags ....it's not commercially marketed anymore. Most grass seed is devoid of it & by-in-large its looked at as a weed (to be killed). Now I am old enough to remember that New Jersey was once dominated (at least NW NJ) with dairy farms & clover was in wide use as food & to re-nitrate depleted farm fields. Then I recall full fields of clover....wafting perfumed smell throughout the neighborhood. Today, they kill it.

    Interestingly enough, I feed my chickens a mixture of grass, clover, dandelion greens & bird seed. They also open range graze..... which requires me to pick up the poop (again used as compost) but I get tons of eggs & those yolks are dark yellow/orange....tons of protein. As you can see, Ive tried to go organic as much as possible.
     
  16. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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    "...tons of eggs & those yolks are dark yellow/orange....tons of protein. As you can see, Ive tried to go organic as much as possible."

    oh, lawdy, there's no comparison between free range chicken eggs and the other, free range eggs are 20 times more nutritious in the 'omega fats' from INSECTS alone. Have you checked out Black Soldier Fly Larvae for composting and chicken feed? I'm thinkin' about tryin' this just for fish bait if not for anything else:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOHQ2xW4tlU

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpzuJhRc8Qk

    Lol, you MUST watch this one (only 2:01), these guys are like piranhas, they eat meat, you can actually compost meat scraps:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-zAbzRx29I
     
  17. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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    Do you keep a rooster?
     
  18. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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  19. Earth Wind and Fire

    Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known Member
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  20. Earth Wind and Fire

    Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known Member
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    Yup....two of them......one is named "Peckerwood" & the other is named "Tail." Tail intimidates my wife. He will have to teach me how to do that cause she intimidates me....:laugh:
     
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