Cilantro in particular should be started with seed in the ground. Bolting is related to age of plant. Transplants always bolt fairly early because the plants tend to be too old when they go into the ground and then use more time to overcome transplanting shock. Net result is feeble old plants that are soon ready to go to seed. Hmm, maybe I didn't ask Antonius the right question before my reply.

ekreider wrote:Cilantro in particular should be started with seed in the ground. Bolting is related to age of plant. Transplants always bolt fairly early because the plants tend to be too old when they go into the ground and then use more time to overcome transplanting shock. Net result is feeble old plants that are soon ready to go to seed. Hmm, maybe I didn't ask Antonius the right question before my reply.

We had both, some from seed and some transplanted. No doubt, the transplantees bolted quicker -- it seemed almost immediately but in any event, it wasn't very a long span of time.

A

In doing my morning inspection of the garden today, I was happy to see that one of my plum tomato plants has quietly continued to produce and now bears quite a few, mostly rot-free fruits. Earl the Skwerl has thus far neglected this plant, which is set off on its own in a part of the garden away from the main group of tomato plants.

***

My zucchini plants were all, save one late bloomer (planted off on its own in a spot that got less sun in the early summer and is getting more sun now), attacked viciously by some kind of bug (weevil?), which for a time could be seen in great numbers munching away on various parts of the plants. These little beasties seem to have been on the decline over the past week or so (I saw not a one this morning) and the result has been (I assume some relation between these observations) my surviving zucchini plants (2 potted ones died, one was unaffected, and that leaves then three further ones that were attacked and seemed to be on the verge of death) are all making a come back. Lots of new, healthy leaves have been followed by lots of new, healthy blossoms and fruits. This morning I found about a dozen beautiful blossoms ready for picking.

Antonius

Antonius:

So your productive zucchini has convinced you of the benefit of succession planting (technical gardening term ) I've just put in a new basil, as the early crop has turned bitter. I could barely scavenge enough to mildly flavor some cappelini with fresh tomato sauce the other night, one of my favorite simple summer pastas.

My kitchen is awash in tomatos for sauce making. And fruit flies.

Yes. It appears that the tomato floodgates have opened up here as well...my favorite garden event of the year. We are also awash (to keep up the watery theme) in eggplants. The possibilities are endless.

We had an amazing number of tomatoes ready to pick on Saturday. I only have two plants, so this was an unusually heavy harvest for one day. We also got 3 cucumbers, which have also been on hyperdrive, although they seem to be coming to an end.

Saturday's Harvest (square foot garden in background)

HI,

Today I bought a bag of onion sets plus spinach, swiss chard and radish seeds. I also plan to buy some peas. These are all cool weather crops, which you can begin planting now. Please do consult the seed pouches for precise planting information plus the University of Illinois, which has research-based information on garden vegetables on the index bar.

I also bought pansies, which are going in my entry planter first thing Sunday morning. Pansies are considered a cool-weather annual. I know gardeners who have experienced pansies with bi-annual and perennial characteristics. Since I spent $12 on four plants, I would be pleased to see them return next spring.

Regards,

stevez wrote:We had an amazing number of tomatoes ready to pick on Saturday...

Holy manure! I was in Europe and missed this picture when you posted it in September -- Don't you all have squirrels out there? And if you do, maybe there's hope for me...

***

Cathy (and other green-thumbs),

Have you planted peas before? That's something I'd like to try. Any tips?

Antonius

HI,

I have never done peas before nor any early cool weather crops. I always think about it too late. I hesitated on the peas yesterday because all they offered required trellis. I recall hearing of some which had a bushy habit, which would require less from me.

I have seen gardners strap together Christmas tree trunks teepee style to act as this support trellis for several bean/pea plants.

As for tips, I will be relying on the U of I's recommendations because they are quite specific for our area. IF you ever phoned a Master GArdner volunteer, they would be looking at practically the same resource.

Regards,

I have several pans full of peat pots planted with vegetables, herbs and flowers in front of my kitchen windows already. Some of their growth has become leggy (due to overcast days) and I expect I will have to replant those closer to May. But what was amazing to watch were the 2 large serrano chili plants that I had brought indoors in pots last winter. Practically on the first day of spring, it was as if some internal alarm sounded and they began filling out their green foliage and producing masses of tiny white flowers. I've resisted the urge to put them out on sunny days when the temperature has approached 70 degrees, not knowing how how this would positively (or negatively) affect them. I hope they can go out around the first of May if our warm weather continues.

I'd like to ask our fellow gardeners out there if anyone has any experience fighting those little roly-poly grubs--the ones that are sort of oval in shape with multi-legs all down their sides. They fold over and roll up in a ball when least provoked. I have several large planters outdoors and these grubs destroyed my zucchini plants in one of them. I generally hate to use any insecticide and prefer to use more natural method to get rid of these things. Tossing all that (otherwise) good soil in the planter seems wasteful to me, so I'd like to fight these things first if at all possible, before they spread to all my planters. I welcome your suggestions.

Cathy2 -

One of the problems with the colder weather crops (like peas) is that most people are afraid to grow them early enough because of the threat of frost.

My father in Cincnnati tries to get three separate plantings of peas each spring starting in early March through Memorial Day. Occasionally, he loses the first ones to frost ... but when he doesn't he ends up with 2-3 bushels in years like last year.

Last weekend we planted the first spinach and two varieties of peas (Sugar Ann and Oregon Sugar Pod II). All are beginning to emerge as are the shallots and garlic we planted late last fall. Sugar Ann is a fairly early sugar snap type with medium vine length and is a lot earlier than Sugar Snap. Sugar Snaps tend not to bloom much until the vines have reached nearly full length, so shorter varieties are earlier and less likely to be killed prematurely by heat. The Oregon Sugar Pod variants are snow peas that develop pretty good sized pods with fairly early maturity. Peas tend to produce until heat or powdery mildew gets them.

Even with so-called bush peas I recommend a low trellis so they don't sprawl all over the place and are easier to find and pick. I plant in a double rows about five to six inches apart. The trellis will go in between the two rows. Eventually tomatoes will go on the same trellis. I just pull a few pea plants if necessary to get room to slip the tomatoes into the ground.

Antonius wrote:Holy manure! I was in Europe and missed this picture when you posted it in September -- Don't you all have squirrels out there? And if you do, maybe there's hope for me...

We lost some, but very few, tomatoes to squirrels last year. We had a family of feral cats move beneath the deck in the yard next door and they did a pretty good job of keeping the varmints away. Hopefully, they'll be back this year!

Cathy2 wrote:I have never done peas before nor any early cool weather crops. I always think about it too late. I hesitated on the peas yesterday because all they offered required trellis. I recall hearing of some which had a bushy habit, which would require less from me.

I have seen gardners strap together Christmas tree trunks teepee style to act as this support trellis for several bean/pea plants.

Bamboo poles are sturdy enough.

My favorite peas are 'Lincoln.' They do require some support but I've found that tomato cages work well. They're actually shorter than I'd prefer. Believe me, you don't want the really low bushy kind because they are a (literal) pain to pick, requiring stooping and kneeling -- they were bred for machine picking -- and pea picking is a challenge anyway, when they start to bear, 'cause the darn things hide in the foliage. It's really much nicer to deal with trellising or poles just once at planting time and be able to pick standing up.

In some books, you read that you should plant peas by St. Patrick's Day, but I always think that's for eastern zones a little warmer than here, where the soil isn't such heavy clay. We always have to wait for things to dry out before we can plant, or else use fungicide.

Y'awl are making me AWfully jealous! All this talk about planting stuff... today is basically our second warm day this Spring, hereabouts, and, to give you a fer instance, the tulips in the warmest part of my tiny garden are about 4 inches (uh, 11 cm as they say 'round here!) out of the ground.

But I'm getting ready: downstairs, under the lights, with a heating cable underneath the beds, about 6 tomato plants [couple of short season varieties you'll never have heard of down there in The South, plus Costuluto, Marmand, and Brandywine], maybe 10 peppers, both Italian-type [Gypsy, LaBelle] and some chiles [Super Chile, Aji dulce, 3 kinds of tepins and 2 varieties of C. chinensis that a chilehead friend recommended], plus a bunch of herbs, are all getting ready to be set out c. 1 June.

But what I've got that I betcha not toooo many of you have going is about 100 grapevine cuttings, from about 8 different varieties, mostly wine grapes, except for a couple which are from wild species that I've collected recently. It's pretty exciting to watch the buds swell, and hope that there's rooting going on, too.

I've never tried Spring in a place this Winter-bound. It's pretty weird for a guy from the South [KC ! ] like me. Man, my whole neighborhood has been going crazy for since last weekend, cleaning up their yards, washing porches, doing laundry--everyone has a moveable clothes line stretched from their porch across the alley or out to the telephone pole. It looks pretty jaunty up and down the alley.

An amazing number of my neighbors have grapes planted.

What a place, Montreal in the just-becoming-Spring.

Geo

I am a first-time vegetable garden and so far, things are going reasonably well for me.

Except for this one plant: Ichiban eggplant.

I saw the little plant at the garden center and it looked healthy and happy, and I had room so I planted it and thought I'd give it the ol' college try. For the first couple weeks, it was the shining star of the garden. Seemingly overnight, the veins of the leaves and the center of the stalk turned to a deep, dark purple. The plant looked happier and happier every day.

Then, a couple days ago, I woke up and it looked like someone took a match to the leaves. One of the leaves was totally gone, just a bunch of the veins hanging around. Most of the other leaves had large holes in them. This problem just seems to be getting worse.

I hope an experience gardeners shed a little light on the following questions:

What likely happened here? Disease? Pests? My own ignorance?
Should I remove the plant?
Am I a fool for even trying to grow eggplant when I've never grown anything else before?

Thanks for any assistance.

Best,
Michael

Bugs. Maybe cucumber beetles (I'll leave pest ID to someone from your region who will know better than I what the species is), but there's no doubt that it's bugs.

Don't know what your anti-pest philosophy is, so I won't even suggest anything. But you have a number of alternatives. It won't get any better if you just leave it be.

Good luck!

Geo

Chewing insects sound like the culprit, but I don't know what kind. Slugs can do similar damage but are not likely to climb the rather hairy to spiny eggplant stems. I don't live too far from eatchicago and have not seen any cucumber beetles, striped or spotted, yet this year. Flea beetles are around, but they produce tiny holes in leaves. Flea beetles, white flies and aphids are the only insect pests in eggplant that have caused me problems over the years. Flea beetles don't usually cause enough noncosmetic damage to justify using even organic pesticides.

Eggplants do lose their older leaves as the plants grow larger. The leaves turn papery and brown before dropping and might look as though they have been singed with a flame. That behavior is normal. Skeletonized leaves are not normal.

If there is major leaf loss, get another plant. I used to grow Ichiban but have found that Orient Express is an even better Japanese-type eggplant. If the new plant is at all root bound, make sure you tease the roots out before planting. Don't worry about breaking a few roots in the process. Teased roots will spread much faster than if the plant is just stuffed in the ground.

I've got some questions on my 1st herb garden, mostly about how to harvest effectively.

- parsley. Should I just let each plant get full and then clip all the stems off a couple inches above the soil ? I've done this with good success so far but the 2nd growth seems to be sputtering a bit. I've been watering a bit more due to the warmer weather. Suggestions ?

- basil. Seems easy. I've been pinching off the larger leaves to allow the smaller ones to grow. I took off some flower buds earlier today.

- oregano. I hadn't harvested anything before today but notice that there were *lots* of what looked like buds of flowers so I clipped the branches back to about 6-7" and brought them in to dry. Should I clip them lower ?

- thyme. simple. I've been using the more tender branches so I don't have to worry about the woody stems

- peppermint. I think I may have bought a different type than I thought. Seems more like a creeping bush with smaller leaves. I'll let it go, I guess.

In the pests vein - I have something that is boring holes in my new wooden table on my deck. I have not seen these holes in the deck itself. Smooth, perfectly round, some under, some on top. Holes.

Anything I should treat the table with that won't be toxic to the environment (my dogs, us, the garden)? I do plan to oil it so it stays dark (it's not teak, not sure what kind of wood it is)

Parsley: Cut a few outer stems at a time within a half inch of ground. Shearing will weaken the plant and delay regrowth. Stems cut below first leaves will die. Production is continuous with proper harvesting because parsley continually puts up new stems from the crown. Parsley puts out a tap root and so does better with less frequent but deeper watering once it is established. Small seedlings take a while to develop tap roots and are easy to tranplant at that stage but become quite difficult to transplant successfully once they are old enough to have a tap root touching the bottom of a cell or pot.

Basil: Cut tips of branches (1-3 nodes) just above a node for routine use. New branches will grow from the node just below the cut while the stem stub above the node will die back. Cut all tips that are showing flower buds; quality will deteriorate after blooming starts. Basil trying to flower now indicates that the plants are pretty old. Major cutting (down to 3-4 nodes from base) can rejuvenate older basil plants to some extent. New plantings every couple months are needed to keep a good supply of high quality basil over a Chicago summer.

Oregano: I would go back to about 3 inches. June is quite early for oregano to bloom unless the plants were old seedlings when planted. Oregano will sometimes survive a Chicago winter but will not bloom until late summer. Oregano will self-seed profusely. We have some nice volunteer plants growing out of a crack between concrete walkway and west side of garage slab.

Thyme: Either use tender tips as tem is doing or cut stems down to about 3 inches. Cutting encourages branching and tillering (new shoots from near the base of the plant). Thyme leaves are easy to strip off woody stems but not off tender tips if you just want leaves. Woody stems of thyme are fine if going into a stock or somewhere else where the stems will be fished out.

Mint: Can be cut anywhere above any node depending on whether you want sprigs or leaves stripped off stems. Most mints will branch from node just below the cut. All mints send out underground runners, which in turn send up new stems. From tem's description I doubt that this is really peppermint.

I thought I would post a status report on my garden. How's your doing? I harvested the first pickles of the season today. Some of my pepper plants are doing better than others, but all have at least flowers, if not fruit forming. Tomatoes are doing well, with an abundant supply of still very green fruit. Eggplant is doing OK, but not as well as in years past. Maybe this stretch of hot weather will do everything some good.

Harvested first tomatoes yesterday. The plants, all Italian and French varieties, are loaded with green fruit - I pray they don't all ripen at the same time!

Basil (Neapolitan and Genovese) got pounded by a hail storm (the tomatoes have a protective screen over them). I seem to have the worst luck with basil. Nira isn't doing well either. I should just stick to tomatoes.

Bill/SFNM

Steve, my garden sounds a lot like yours. I've also just started harvesting some very large pickles this week and the tomato and pepper plants are all showing a lot of promise. I did recently discover that one plant that I purchased thinking it was a jalapeno turned out to be a green bell pepper plant. I now have two of those that are producing plenty of peppers, way more than I can use. The eggplant that did suffer some early pest problems seems to have bounced back and is nice and tall with some flowers now but no fruit yet.

Best,
Michael

I hope this isn't too long winded. I'm proud of my edible garden and grow everything in raised beds that take up about 1/3 of my yard. The yard used to flood, hence the first raised beds, and as the garden expanded we just kept the raised beds. I mulch heavily between beds to keep weeds down but the wild morning glory is nearly unstopable. Oh well.

This is an abreviated plant list.

Ichiban eggplant: Ate the first two last week in stir fry. Lots of flowers and some fruits that will be ready soon. The plant in a container is doing better than the ones in the garden bed. They seem to be about two weeks behind the container plant and I suspect are in a cooler microclimate.

Cucumbers: We've been eating them for a couple of weeks. They're about to innundate us and the neighbors will benefit.

Beets: This is our first year for beets and they're doing well. We've been eating them for about 2 weeks, only picking a few at a time and letting the rest get bigger.

Corn: Tassled earlier than I expected and we should get the first ears in a week or two.

Pumpkins: I tried to start only four seeds. One germinated. That plant is trying to take over the world. There are maybe half a dozen large fruits and the plant has aborted at least that many more. If I can keep the critters away, we'll have a festive halloween.

Tomatoes: Nothing is ripe yet although I planted several varieties. Early Girl because I'm impatient; cherries because I love to eat them by the handful; Mr. Stripey--sweet and low in acid; Brandywine--large and flavorful; and a purple heirloom for fun.

Peas: My husband planted peas in mid May. We'd never really grown peas and I thought these went in late. He also lost the packet so I had no idea what variety they were until they fruited. They're Oregon Giant snow peas and they're producing like mad. Large tender pods.

Squash: Got the first yellow squash last week and are eagerly waiting for the next ones.

Rhubarb: I grow plants that are decended from my Great-grandfather's plants. (as are my winter onions). This year we needed to divide and move a couple becasue we reconfigured the garden. I now have several plants doing double duty as flower garden accents.

Also present: peppers (four varieties), carrots, second planting of radishes, basil (two types) cilantro, parsley, oregano, winter savory, thyme (two kinds), mint (hopefully contained this year), chamomile (flowering!), rosemary (managed to overwinter it), lavender, and lots of sunflowers.

Diannie

So far I have two green tomatoes hanging off the purple something tomato plant, nothing on any of the others. I had one green tomato hanging off the beefsteak, but the dogs got into the garden, pulled it off, and didn't even have the grace to eat it We have a better fence now. I'm still eating my lettuces (I planted a mesclun mix, seem to have mostly REALLY bitter arugula and something mild). The peppers have flowers, the herbs are doing well (except the rosemary, which died) and my grape (niagara, I think) is doing well too. That is the second one, the first was dug up by the dogs.

Crops this year limited to chilis, tomatoes, arugula, pole beans and lots of wine grapes.

We've been eating the arugula for months. Well, maybe better: for 6 weeks. The first (and last) Early Summer crop of beans has come and gone. Yum, delicious. The chilis, esp. Super Chili, are developing apace. But the tomatoes are awful this year. Too cold earlier, waaay too hot now. But we're getting our third Costuloto Genovese today--have to pick it while still only vaguely orange, or the squrrels get it. But here's something I learned long ago from a Rodale/Emmaus site: once 2/3rds of the tomato has colored, it will gain no further benefit from staying on the vine, being alluring to squirrels. I've followed that dictum for yrs, to no ill effect.

Costulotos Nos. 1 & 2 were simply fabuluous. If you're in an impossible climate such as ours here in KC, it's the only tomato to grow. The rewards are stupendous: dense, juicy, mouth-smashing flavor. Oh boy.

Grapes? I have the best crop I've ever had, the bird nets appear to be holding, and I'll be testing the electric fence shortly.

I'm beginning to fear the Unknown Disaster which will most assurredly befall my wonderful prospective crop of grapes. The kosmos will not allow such a crop to come to harvest. Hail. T-storm deluges. Powdery mildew. A successful assualt by Turdis migratorious. Whatever. There WILL be something.

Sigh.

Geo

I have an Habenero plant in a pot. Last year it bore 3 peppers. This year it has at least 20 peppers on it (so far).

These things are so hot, they should be classified as WMD

I don't know what I will do with them, but for now they are pretty to look at. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Today I harvested the first giant San Marzano Redorta.



This one was 4 1/2 " long. There are even bigger ones still not ripe. One of the sweetest and meatiest tomatoes I've ever had. It ended sliced up on a pizza margherita.

Bill/SFNM

If I had some beautiful haneros like that I would make a blender full of jerk marinade and grill up some chicken thighs and pork chops... but thats just me.