All Vegetable Gardening (irrigation, growing, bugs, vines)

[kinkytoes]

Originally Posted by South Range Family

It has always been my understanding that you shouldn't use Milorganite on vegetable gardens, because it is treated human waste that contains heavy metals from the sewage treatment plant.

Valid point. I don't eat a lot of seafood anymore and stopped eating even the costly "low mercury" tuna altogether. I'd hate to replace one source of heavy metals with another. I haven't done a soil test anyways, so once I've added the fertilizer I'm going to send a sample to the UMASS lab. UMass Soil and Plant Tissue Testing Laboratory

[happehart]

Originally Posted by nmnita

to the gardening pros here: I am wondering if and when I can start seeing signs of Okra? Our plants look like bushes almost (well not quite) and have beautiful leaves but I have no idea where the okra is or what I should be looking for? Will it bloom like squash or peppers, will the Okra just start growing, what?

Nita

I had the exact same question and when I googled "how to grow okra"I found this link How to Grow Okra > Bonnie Plants > How to Grow Bonnie Varieties which has some pics for the different stages of the plant. I am still at stage 2 I guess, no flowers yet. Hope this helps.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by happehart

I had the exact same question and when I googled "how to grow okra"I found this link How to Grow Okra > Bonnie Plants > How to Grow Bonnie Varieties which has some pics for the different stages of the plant. I am still at stage 2 I guess, no flowers yet. Hope this helps.

thanks I am going to google it right now. I could care less cause I am not a huge lover of Okra, but hubby loves me more now than when we were married 53 years ago and why? I planted him some Okra..

[Djuna]

I put our vegetable garden down about a month ago. I started all the seeds inside and transplanted them except the celery.

First pic



These are some photos from today. Its coming along nicely.

[TRosa]

Thanks for sharing those pics Djuna. Nice garden. What all are you growing in that layout? looks like some zucs and or cucs in there?


I'm ticked off at this time because I have a knat infestation. I couldn't find mint seeds so I bought a mint plant from Walmart and am not sure if I brought the infestation in from the plant or fruit I purchased at a local fruit & veggie groccer. Could be a bit of both. I've been trying to get rid of what I believe are knats with all kind of home made solutions that were suggested on different gardening and organic bug killing sites.

I'm having other plant issues as well, this Fl sun scorched my bean plant, so I've been moving and repositioning many of my plants. I'm hoping they don't all end up having to be thrown out due to the bug problem, if so, I'll wait till after summer to start over. Might have better luck with cooler temps.

On a good note, my basil is doing fine and other herbs seem to be popping up nicely. At least I know I'll still have my frozen (1) green bean and bountiful herbs for the summer

[Djuna]

I have cucumber, zucchini, tomatoes, broccoli, bell pepper, celery, lettuce, pickling cucumber, spinach, carrots, scallions, squash and beans. Only 2 or 3 of the same plants because I want to stagger the plants to get a regular yield, plus there's just myself and my husband.

I have coriander and basil in pots on the front porch along with a bay plant on the windowsill.

I'm really enjoying watching everything grow

[Dusty Rhodes]

Originally Posted by nmnita

to the gardening pros here: I am wondering if and when I can start seeing signs of Okra? Our plants look like bushes almost (well not quite) and have beautiful leaves but I have no idea where the okra is or what I should be looking for? Will it bloom like squash or peppers, will the Okra just start growing, what?

Nita

Nita, when the okra plant flowers, the Okra grows as a pod from beneath the spot where the flower was, pick it (cut the stem with either a sharp knife or a pair of scissors) before the pod gets any bigger than about 4 inches long. One cup of corn meal, one cup of plain flour, salt, black pepper and a finely minced clove of garlic. Cut the stem off of the pod before cooking, I bread the pods and fry slowly in olive oil. Some folks use a deep fryer, and corn oil, it all depends on what taste you prefer.

[Osito]

I'm growing bell peppers.

[HB2HSV]

I went away for 3 weeks and came back to find that my single cucuumber plant has taken over the entire 4'X8' raised bed. (I put in a drip irrigation system with a timer before I left). My sugar snap peas have all but died and was replaced by the cucuumber vines up on the trellis. I just wonder as to the cause of death? Were they murdered by the cucuumber? or because of the heat wave we had for the last 3 weeks? The 2 zuccinni plants are fighting for air superiority space against the cucuumber. The consolation is that the plant put out nice big cucuumbers, as big as 8 inches long with 3 inch diameter, whole 11 of them I harvested. The zuke only put out 1, don't seem like a good yield for the huge space they take up. I wonder if I need to cut the cucuumber vines back so my bell peppers and sweet potatoes have a chance to geeting much needed sunlight?

[happehart]

Originally Posted by HB2HSV

I went away for 3 weeks and came back to find that my single cucumber plant has taken over the entire 4'X8' raised bed. (I put in a drip irrigation system with a timer before I left). My sugar snap peas have all but died and was replaced by the cucumber vines up on the trellis. I just wonder as to the cause of death? Were they murdered by the cucumber? or because of the heat wave we had for the last 3 weeks? The 2 zucchini plants are fighting for air superiority space against the cucumber. The consolation is that the plant put out nice big cucumbers, as big as 8 inches long with 3 inch diameter, whole 11 of them I harvested. The zuke only put out 1, don't seem like a good yield for the huge space they take up. I wonder if I need to cut the cucumber vines back so my bell peppers and sweet potatoes have a chance to getting much needed sunlight?

Can you redirect the cuke vines away from everything else instead of cutting it. I have been watching mine so they don't do that. And you are right about the squash and zucchini, they are taking a lot of space for the yield they bring. Well, I know I have an issue with pollination so whenever a baby zuke is ready it dies