Gardening and Plant Thread

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I think I'm going to have to move the peppers out of the general vicinity of the basil plant. They're exploding while the basil plant appears timid. I guess I'll use the hippie-ass ecobags I got a couple years ago.
 
I caught this sprout this evening. It's not quite done germinating, but I'm genuinely shocked at how aggressive mulberries are. I planted this one roughly five days ago, straight from fruit to the tray. I've also been pretty aggressive about keeping the substrate wet. The most successful trees I've found in the wild all grow in dense, saturated clay.

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Rakovnik said:
A chain and a 4wd truck will remove most shrub stumps
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Somehow my brain tells me to use this method for removing irritating shrubs everywhere BUT the gardens near my house. I just spent 30 minutes frivolously cutting back the invasive assholes in my rockery. Thank you for the reminder that, I can, in fact, rip the little bastards out of my home garden just the same.

Someone's got a date with Mr. Chain! The reckoning is coming!
 
SphinxItOver said:
Mulberries are a fun pain. If you just want a young tree asap you could try air rooting one of the wild trees you're harvesting from. Keep an eye on them too, they need a good trunk leader and you'll get more fruit if you put the effort into directing the side branches to angle down slightly.
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I'm trying very hard to do them from seed. This is a personal obsession at this point. I hope to have 20 acres of rural land to plant them in within the next couple of years.
 
Lucius Aelius said:
I'm trying very hard to do them from seed. This is a personal obsession at this point. I hope to have 20 acres of rural land to plant them in within the next couple of years.
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I imagine they fair better the more you have. Cross pollination helps a lot with some berry plants like blueberries. Some plants can be odd ducks though like hollies where entire bushes are male or female. The majority work best if there's more of them planted together or sometimes even more than one type of the same kind of plant, blueberries are like that.
 
Honored guest said:
We can all dream bro, out of curiosity do you know what variety of mulberry you're growing? I have a few wild mulbery trees on my property and surrounding neighborhood, I think they're red mulberries.
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It's almost certainly a red. They grow everywhere here, whether from seed or otherwise. Also, land is like 2.5k an acre here, so it's very achievable.
LowlyPheasent said:
I imagine they fair better the more you have. Cross pollination helps a lot with some berry plants like blueberries. Some plants can be odd ducks though like hollies where entire bushes are male or female. The majority work best if there's more of them planted together or sometimes even more than one type of the same kind of plant, blueberries are like that.
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These are like that, where trees are either male or female. I spread a wide net this year, and planted seeds from four distinct trees, all at least twenty miles from any of the others. I'm hoping this will give me some better genetic diversity in the long run.
 
Do any of you have preventative advice for FUCKING Cucumber beetles or bacterial wilt? Even though I always spray and get them before major leaf damage my cucumbers and melons and related vines have a 75% fucking bacterial wilt death chance and ruin my early-fall flush of delicious fruit. I'm not the hottest place but I suspect the summer heat ultra-incubates the bacteria before any natural plant immunities can kick in. (Image for demonstrative purposes only)

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The weather has been super weird here this year. I direct sowed my Peas, Turnips and carrots outside like two months ago. I usually have a pretty good harvest of peas going by now, but this year my plants are only about 10-12" tall. The turnips and carrots are barely poking above ground.

I'm worried my peas aren't going to produce before it gets too hot and burns them up.
 
Silver Coin Anon said:
Do any of you have preventative advice for FUCKING Cucumber beetles or bacterial wilt? Even though I always spray and get them before major leaf damage my cucumbers and melons and related vines have a 75% fucking bacterial wilt death chance and ruin my early-fall flush of delicious fruit. I'm not the hottest place but I suspect the summer heat ultra-incubates the bacteria before any natural plant immunities can kick in. (Image for demonstrative purposes only)

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I planted cucumbers in the same spot for years, and then ignored these beetles, still got lots of cucumbers. In the following years the infestation got worse, and it got so bad one year my cucumbers all died without producing fruit. I had issues with cucumber mosaic virus as well. Ended up moving my entire garden, and now I never plant cucumbers (or any cucurbit) in the same spot in the following two years. I really make sure things are autistically rotated.

The other thing that helped was that I made sure to buy the most disease resistant hybrids my seed company offered, and that has helped a ton as well. You should see what other varieties are available, look for the disease resistant ones, it's usually in the description somewhere. Thanks for the PTSD inducing image.

waffle said:
I'm worried my peas aren't going to produce before it gets too hot and burns them up.
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Is it feasible to put up some shade netting/cloth? I used some old screen I had lying around to shield some peppers from intense heat one year. Just need some stakes, some creativity, and you can give them some protection from the midday sun. Maybe an old, thin bed sheet might also work.

This is a much more intense example:
 
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Silver Coin Anon said:
Do any of you have preventative advice for FUCKING Cucumber beetles or bacterial wilt? Even though I always spray and get them before major leaf damage my cucumbers and melons and related vines have a 75% fucking bacterial wilt death chance and ruin my early-fall flush of delicious fruit. I'm not the hottest place but I suspect the summer heat ultra-incubates the bacteria before any natural plant immunities can kick in. (Image for demonstrative purposes only)

View attachment 7334879
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I have a very bad cucumber beetle infestation where I live and after years of being able to grow cucumbers with no problem I can no longer do it since bacterial wilt wipes them out pretty quickly. All it takes is one infected beetle from the previous year getting in a little nibble for the plant to be toast, and as its dying it will attract all the surrounding beetles who will then become vectors for the bacteria and spread it. As far as I know there is no immunity or even resistance to bacterial wilt and it will always be a death sentence for any infected plants, if I'm wrong and anyone knows of an immune or resistant variety please share it. Last year I had moderate success by growing Parthenocarpic varieties under insect netting. I set up some pots with trellis support under a little hoop house fully covered with insect netting. I even set up the whole thing in a new area to avoid the chance of any over wintering beetles from coming up.

As for controlling beetle populations I've have no idea what to do, traps have done nothing for me, and skipping cucumbers for a year didn't prevent the spread of bacterial wilt. I think I read somewhere that predatory nematods could be used to kill and eat the larva as they're in the soil but I could be confusing cucumber beetles with another insect.
 
Honored guest said:
I have a very bad cucumber beetle infestation where I live and after years of being able to grow cucumbers with no problem I can no longer do it since bacterial wilt wipes them out pretty quickly. All it takes is one infected beetle from the previous year getting in a little nibble for the plant to be toast, and as its dying it will attract all the surrounding beetles who will then become vectors for the bacteria and spread it. As far as I know there is no immunity or even resistance to bacterial wilt and it will always be a death sentence for any infected plants, if I'm wrong and anyone knows of an immune or resistant variety please share it. Last year I had moderate success by growing Parthenocarpic varieties under insect netting. I set up some pots with trellis support under a little hoop house fully covered with insect netting. I even set up the whole thing in a new area to avoid the chance of any over wintering beetles from coming up.

As for controlling beetle populations I've have no idea what to do, traps have done nothing for me, and skipping cucumbers for a year didn't prevent the spread of bacterial wilt. I think I read somewhere that predatory nematods could be used to kill and eat the larva as they're in the soil but I could be confusing cucumber beetles with another insect.
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Do you change the beds you plant your curbits in each year? Can you have chickens? It can be worth it to let the bed go fallow for a year, let the chickens turn the soil and eat the bugs, then toss some compost in before attempting planting again. If you don't live in a neighborhood there's always the burn and turn option.
 
Maori Kiwifruit Growers said:
I just made a section of my land a garden plot. What's a good first time food crop to grow that will produce a lot?
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What's your climate?
As people have said here before peppers are usually the beginner plant (although ive had mixed results). I have serious heat with a lot of sun so I've personally had a lot of luck with things that you have to dig out like sweet potatoes, carrots, garlic, radishes, etc. Anything especially susceptible to pests gets obliterated in novel and strange ways save for like 2 months a year.
I grew some loofah last year and it grew much faster than the disease could take it and I got like 4 loofahs(?) from it.
String beans produce a lot but the heat wipes them out in the summer for me.

You'd be hard pressed to kill a green onion, just get some from the grocery store and plant the bottom couple inches after using it to cook. Ive had the same plants for like 3 years now and i've dug them up and replanted them in different locations several times.
 
I think beans and squash is the easiest stuff to grow, you just have to watch for beetles with squashes.

Corn can be hard to grow in small patches because it is wind pollinated. Its a solvable problem you should just read a little about it.
 
SphinxItOver said:
Do you change the beds you plant your curbits in each year? Can you have chickens? It can be worth it to let the bed go fallow for a year, let the chickens turn the soil and eat the bugs, then toss some compost in before attempting planting again. If you don't live in a neighborhood there's always the burn and turn option.
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Yes I switch the beds that I grow them in and yes I have chickens that I let out in the garden at the end of the year. I skipped growing cucurbits for a year as well, and while it helped lower the initial population of the beetles all it takes is one infected beetle to infect a plant and then you're pretty much done since all the others will quickly focus in on it and become infected as well. I think whats killing me is my liberal use of woodchips as the adult beetles can overwinter in them.
 
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Honored guest said:
I think whats killing me is my liberal use of woodchips as the adult beetles can overwinter in them
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Somebody said it above but it may have seemed like a metaphor. Put out brush on your garden area, then burn it out and till the ashes in. Even if you live in town you can probably get a burn permit they'll just be asses about when you can do it.
 
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