Re: VENTING goes here! (What went wrong thread)

[Kelejan]

Kelejan Today at 7:24



First, moles have got into one of my beds and eaten all the roots of the runner beans and are now nibbling at the rest of the stuff in the box. I will have to clear the box as much as possible of lettuce, chard etc

I just know I should have put down wire to stop them when I remade the beds this spring as I have observed the molehills gradually marching down our road for the last few years, getting nearer and nearer to my yard.

Second; we had a windstorm a couple of days ago and all my snow peas have kind of doubled over. I did not realise when I planted them that they would grow so tall, and I put off securing them properly until the inevitable happened. Luckily that was my first seeding and the second seeding I did two weeks later in another bed it is not too late to have extra supports put in. I will do that this morning.

So that is two things that can be corrected next time. What I will take from this is, lesson learned. Neither of these two events will happen again.

Now, from what else can I learn a lesson? :scratch: This Forum I know for sure will save me from many more misrakes but I am sure I will find some more.

[kiwirose]

I think several of us bought brussles sprouts on a whim, or cuz they were there, then found out or remembered they are better as a fall crop, but .....

Does anyone happen to know if our giant non producing brussel sprouts that we planted in the spring will produce in the fall if we can keep them alive long enough???

My big blue box store (home improvement) has a limited selection of fall seedlings - I got broc and cabbage last year but they came in too late, or winter came in too early - or a combo of both and I lost my entire crop to snow. This year I am planting from seed.

[stripesmom]

Kelejan Today at 7:24



First, moles have got into one of my beds and eaten all the roots of the runner beans and are now nibbling at the rest of the stuff in the box. I will have to clear the box as much as possible of lettuce, chard etc

I just know I should have put down wire to stop them when I remade the beds this spring as I have observed the molehills gradually marching down our road for the last few years, getting nearer and nearer to my yard.

Two years ago, I had a mole problem too. You can see them coming, you just hope they will go around you, lol. I got those sonar things from walmart. You stick them in the ground and they make this buzzing sound. It drives them nuts. I drove them out of the yard. They kept trying to come back in at different points, but I'd just move the stick thing over where they were. Last year, they tried to come in again and I was on them right away. No moles this year though.

[busygirl]

DITTO to weather!!!! It is RAINING AND 64 AGAIN(STILL)!!! Only about 4 days over 75 in the last 14, and rain on 10 of those days. Six nights with lows in the 40s or 50s. Most of the others in the low 60s. Not to mention the wind GRRRR!

BER on the tomatoes that are actually setting. My experiment with that was to put milk in a spray bottle and spray the leaves for a quick shot of calcium (someone on another thread mentioned a calcium spray sold at stores so I thought why not) then do tums, calcium supplements and eggshells in the coffee grinder and sprinkle them around. I also had some plain yogurt that was a couple of days out of date, and I just put that around on top of the MM, too. The LAST thing I want to do is add anything LIQUID so I didn't thin it down or water it in. I figured I can at least make the weather do that part for me if it is going to insist on raining FOREVER.

Flea beetles got the eggplants for the second time and I can't even put out DE or insecticidal soap because it will just be washed away by the $#^$#* rain!!

Oh, and did I mention the RAIN?

[herblover]

DITTO to weather!!!! It is RAINING AND 64 AGAIN(STILL)!!! Only about 4 days over 75 in the last 14, and rain on 10 of those days. Six nights with lows in the 40s or 50s. Most of the others in the low 60s. Not to mention the wind GRRRR!

BER on the tomatoes that are actually setting. My experiment with that was to put milk in a spray bottle and spray the leaves for a quick shot of calcium (someone on another thread mentioned a calcium spray sold at stores so I thought why not) then do tums, calcium supplements and eggshells in the coffee grinder and sprinkle them around. I also had some plain yogurt that was a couple of days out of date, and I just put that around on top of the MM, too. The LAST thing I want to do is add anything LIQUID so I didn't thin it down or water it in. I figured I can at least make the weather do that part for me if it is going to insist on raining FOREVER.

Flea beetles got the eggplants for the second time and I can't even put out DE or insecticidal soap because it will just be washed away by the $#^$#* rain!!

Oh, and did I mention the RAIN?

I hear you on the rain!!! I am in southern Delaware county and the cool, rainy weather is nuts!

[Kelejan]

Kelejan Today at 7:24



First, moles have got into one of my beds and eaten all the roots of the runner beans and are now nibbling at the rest of the stuff in the box. I will have to clear the box as much as possible of lettuce, chard etc

I just know I should have put down wire to stop them when I remade the beds this spring as I have observed the molehills gradually marching down our road for the last few years, getting nearer and nearer to my yard.

Two years ago, I had a mole problem too. You can see them coming, you just hope they will go around you, lol. I got those sonar things from walmart. You stick them in the ground and they make this buzzing sound. It drives them nuts. I drove them out of the yard. They kept trying to come back in at different points, but I'd just move the stick thing over where they were. Last year, they tried to come in again and I was on them right away. No moles this year though.

I must look into that, Stripesmom, next time I go to Walmart.

[etherati]

Weather, oh man. I had planned for a late May plant-out of all of my seedlings, but by the end of May we were STILL getting snowstorms. Frost danger passed by June 1 but still way too many nights in the high 30s and low 40s, and by the time I just said 'whatever, 50 overnight is high enough' and planted out, there was a random dip to 38 two nights in a row with three inches of cold, cold rain in about five hours. Two of my tomato plants turned sorta blue that night and seem stunted now, and all these sub-55 overnights has caused what fruit HAS set to set in a way that I'm sure they'll end up catfaced.

On top of that, I messed up bigtime when we had a hailstorm and in a panic, I draped the nearest thing to hand - black plastic trash bags - over the boxes, and then didn't notice when the hail abruptly ended and the blazing sun came out. Singed my strawberries (recovering ok), basil (had to prune them a little shorter but whatever) and cucumbers(mixed bag, some recovering, some not).

And my poor sad bean plants, which were emerging the night of the 39 degree rain, all have their seed leaves rotting away and are not growing.

And my MM seems to have a constant dry crust on top even though I'm *100% dead certain* there isn't too much peat.

...aside from the epic list of complaints, though? Everything's still alive, it's not hot enough for blossom drop, and I've had a remarkable lack of pests so far this year. So it's not all bad, but every time I go out and look at the scrunchy tomatoes growing and the singed strawberry leaves and the rotting beans, I just want to throw my hands up.

[MeyerLemon]

I have been really sick with a particularly awful sinus infection for about 10 days, in which time the husband was responsible for the garden and yard.

Well...the garden is pretty much ok thanks to my new drip system and composting I did at the beginning of the season, but there is a big bald/dead patch in the lawn. Sometimes the sprinklers don't quite cover the area, but when I'm in charge it is no big deal because my garden gets daily face time, and if that area looks a little crispy it just gets some hand watering and is fine. A week with 80+ degrees every day and no face time from me? Dead lawn. It is grass, so it will recover, but still it is REALLY annoying.

I also lost a bunch of blackberries to squirrels, because the husband noticed the berries on the ground but didn't tell me or notice the netting had been pushed up in one corner. GRR. Ok, vent over. It is all I can do to leave it along, because I know I've been sick longer than I have had to be because last weekend the yard finally drove me crazy and I went on a weeding spree in the front yard. Why can't ALL my landscaping be my low maintenance SFG?

Believe me, when we remodel the house, it will be. I'm planning on grass in the middle and disguised SFG beds around the perimeter. Since all of the brickwork and retaining walls need to be redone, I can do the weed barrier + wire mesh when all the old stuff comes out so I have the proper bottom to it.

[Lindacol]

My biggest gripe right now is my neighbor!

My garden is in the back but against the fence seperating our properties. I love the few minutes of solitude and quiet time I spend out there a couple of times a day, harvesting, pruning, just puttering around. But this week my neighbor has made it his mission to come out and question me nearly everytime I go out there. I think he sits out there under a tree where I can't see him and watches for me. The problem is he is drunk and always has a beer in his hand. And he keeps asking the same questions over and over and over. Now the first time I didn't mind much. He is from a farming family and was actually trying to compliment me. Things like this repeated every 5 minutes ad nauseem: "It looks so good. How'd you do it? You need to pick the peas (they are beans). Why don't you pick the tomatoes(I am as they get ripe)? How do you cook them? You are smarter than you look (this one ticked me off although I think he meant it as a compliment)"

The first time I gave him complete answers but get really tired of answering the same questions many times in the few minutes I am out there. The only way I can get him to leave is if I walk away, telling him I am busy.

I don't even look at him but try to nicely answer the questions but I can't enjoy my garden with him watching and hanging on the fence asking questions.

[Pam Nix]

Lindacol, there's a saying about good fences make good neighbors. If you can't put up a fence, consider some quickly growing shrubs to block his view.

[unmadecastle]

My tomatoes have tomato blossom drop. It hasn't even been hot here.

I have got to stop obsessing over my garden. It is starting to stress me out.

[Kelejan]

That really is a nasty one, Lindacol.

As a person who values the privacy of my garden I do not how to cope with that kind of problem. It's bad enough for me that my neighbours have taken down all the bushes and trees that shielded their house from my view and have built a deck that overlooks the whole of my yard, but generally they ignore me apart from "Good morning" or a wave. They don't bother me as they are nice people, but I do regret what I have lost.

[Unmutual]

I didn't realize that butterflies reproduced so prolifically. I'd get some insect netting, but I'd have to net the entire garden for 2 months. Did I mention I hate caterpillars? Bacillus Thuringiensis(BT) is my new friend.

[WJB]

Squash bugs.
Potato beetles.

We are at war.

They are killing me. And my plants. Just back from a long weekend out of town. Pulled all squash up. A million bugs everywhere.

Pulling up potatoes next.

I'm so sad / frustrated. How can I prevent them from coming back next year??

Burpee trellis disintegrated. They are kind enough to replace it.

[sherryeo]

This thread was such a good idea, BBG! I don't know if it's ever been done before, but think it should be done on a yearly basis! Even in our complaining, there are lessons to be learned that can help others who are having the same problems!

While I maybe shouldn't say it out loud and jinx myself, but I am amazed at the minimum of pests I've had so far. My biggest gripe, pest-wise so far, is the @#^*X!# leaffooted bugs. Almost every time I go out to the garden, even if I venture out after dark on a bug hunt, I find about a dozen of the nymphs and sometimes several adults, too. They just seem to love my Southern Peas. If you've never seen them, they group together on the plant (little orangey red things), which does make them easier to find.



I've gotten very brave about just grabbing them bare-handed and smooshing their little brains out! Now, the adults have a hard shell on them and feel a bit prickly, so I grab my garden glove to dispose of them. Oooooh, when did I turn into such a violent person?

My main problem is usually stink bugs and they still have plenty of time to show up, so that will be another war and I've found them harder, indeed all but impossible, to control. Next time I'm going to try the extra light insect row cover.

[Kelejan]

Aww! Looks like a group hug.

Since coming on this forum I have never seen so many different bugs.
but then, North America has many different climates so therefore many different bugs.

[sherryeo]

Kelejan! But whose side are you on, anyway, finding the bad bugs cute, are you? LOL. I think the coastal and tropical south probably hits close to the top of the list in this country for having trouble with the bad bugs. It's the heat and humidity - they just love it!

[Patch]

I really don't have anything to vent about. Everything went great, the weather was perfect(it went from a cool Spring to a hot summer in early June. The wind here averaged about 25 mph, and were are in the middle of a draught.). I have a great crop of burmuda grass(like a dummy, I evidently didn't put enought grass and weed fabric under the garden box). All my actually veggies are wind burned and stunted from the heat. My tomatoes just set there and look at me, because the temp is contently over 95 degrees. I've been thinking of pulling everything out and cover the box with heavy black plastic and mulch to hold it down so the maybe I can kill out the grass, and hope that by the time it gets time to plant a fall crop the weather will cool down, the wind will settle, and the drought will end. I'm loving it.

[Chopper]

What went wrong was in a mistaken understanding that I would have to move any minute now I did not plant for the summer! Arrggghh. As I am still here and could be eating tomatoes et al by now. I am so bummed! Still have some onions out there and then that is it.

Bright side - it is California and we have two seasons. A really long summer and a really long spring and no time off unless you decide you want it. But I am moving. Real soon. I am sure of it...

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