What did you do in your garden today?

[Esther Knapicius]

Too much rain again, soggy. Have some tasks calling my name, but cannot.

 

[Tundra20]

variety of peppers still pumping out
basil is doing very well it dont mind the heat a bit
and got some lettuce microgreens bout ready

planted carrots radish with the board method so we shall see

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Another method of growing carrots from seed or other things is to buy a length of plastic roof guttering. Pour in seed compost and sow. When sprouting dig a trench and slide in the seedlings.

I have tried this, didn't find it particularly successful. The first problem was it wouldn't slide and bunched up, reducing the length of guttering helped, but then I found that the carrots were not making it past the join between the seed compost and the ground and grew small and twisted in the top couple of inches. Mind you my soil is heavy clay, and I have never really had success with carrots in it, it might work better with loamy soil.

I am fully converted to the idea of carrots in containers, I can give them soil they love, carrot fly and other pests have trouble finding them, and I can lift them up and sit down comfortably to do those jobs like thinning and weeding that usually take so much bending. Also I can do them any time of day, not wait 'til evening, as I can leave them on the table and they are unfindable to carrot fly.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Most strange, the above post appeared here and on the end of the last page when posted, maybe because I was replying to a post on that page?

 

[Sluggy]

OB. I thinned out the carrots first then carried it out to the trench I dug then using a trowel placed the root bound soil section by section into the trench and fortunately for me I had sandy loamy soil.

 

[Meadowlark]

.... they are unfindable to carrot fly.

Is this the carrot fly you speak of? Never see them here.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Is this the carrot fly you speak of? Never see them here.


View attachment 117733

Can't say I have ever seen the actual fly, they lay their eggs in the top of the carrot and the larvae eat down into it doing the damage. They say that the fly can smell a disturbed or pulled carrot from half a mile away, for this reason we are told only to do things like weeding or thinning in the late evening. The fly travels about eighteen inches off the ground and the organic protection is to build a wall around the plot. The fly rises for the wall and goes over the plot, missing the carrots, having them in a container off the ground seems to work as well.

 

[Logan]

Not a lot just did some weeding around the path in the front garden

 

[big rockpile]

I can’t get away with anything. I’m wanting to fence in a small area for my Potatoes.

Had some post I needed to move. The ground is hard as a rock. I had one post being a bugger so I was basically digging it out.

My wife received a picture of me at work.

Been working on it got 3 more posts to drive in and then put wire up.

Had a load of Wood Chips brought in.

Waiting on some rain. Looks like it’s going North of us again.

big rockpile

 

[big rockpile]

I planted 350 carrot seeds in this 18"x36" rectangle made from 2"x2" boards. Now we wait and C what happens. It has not rained here in about a month.

View attachment 117718

Carrots need a lot of water. Hope for the best. I got some but been watering them.

big rockpile

 

[Meadowlark]

Treated about 120 newly emerging ears of corn today for the corn ear worm.

In my experience, for whatever reason these critters are worse in the fall than spring. I use Neem oil mixed with BT applied via medicine dropper to the silks. Very effective and very safe.

 

[gary350]

WHAT are this 2 plants? Seed package says, 6" Dutch Cabbage 65 day crop. Plants are both growing branches and starting to grow blossoms. Cabbage always grows 1 head.

 

[Meadowlark]

Definitely NOT cabbage. I have the very same thing happening here @gary350 . Cabbage seed planted but something other than cabbage germinated. I think it is a squash variety in both cases. I'm just letting mine grow to find out.

Contaminated seed. Note the cabbage next to the non-cabbage from the same seed batch.

 

[Sheal]

They look like what we know here in Britain as Marrow plants.

 

[Meadowlark]

Yes, @Sheal that could well be. A marrow, as I understand is a courgette/zucchini that has been left to fully mature.

I have never grown marrow per se, but many many zucchinis. It looks more like yellow squash to me, however. Time will tell and it shouldn't be long.

Seems very interesting that @Gary and I, separated by 1000 miles would see the same in cabbage seeds. Makes me think the seed supplier has contaminated seed. Suppliers seed can go into many different brands/packages.