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lakngulf
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Ted, those are some beautiful plants, but I got confused. Do you use a traffic cop to direct each how to grow? I admire how much you get in those boxes.

crobi13
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tedln wrote:
crobi13 wrote:I have about a dozen volunteer pumpkin?/squash? seedlings that popped up in my strawberry bed. This past weekend, I moved them to a new area to see if they will grow and what they will produce.

This past fall, I got 3 chickens. As a treat, I would give them pumpkins and/or squash (various varities). Then I composted their bedding & poop.
This spring, I used the bedding & poop to mulch my strawberry bed. Now, I have about a dozen volunteers! :D I have no idea what they will turn out to be but I'm very excited to find out. If I get a few treats for my girls, that will be the icing on the cake! :lol:
Thats what I call the circle of life. If we keep it going that way, we can occasionally reach into the circle and remove our needs, but we have to keep feeding the circle.

Ted
What a great way to put it, Ted! Thanks :D

Tate
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Ted,

What are the nets over your squash for? What type of netting is that? Initially, I thought it was row cover you were using to stop the squash vine borer, but then how do you get pollination? Are you hand pollinating all of those? If so, that is a pretty cool trick to defeat the borer organically.

Tate

kgall
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Location: New Hampshire

My biggest experiments this year are probably things most everyone has done before, but this is year 2 for me.

1. I am growing everything from seed. So far so good, though my peppers, tomato and basil are not in the ground yet.
2. I am trying potatoes :roll: and onions :? this year
3. in an effort to thwart the SVB I am growing my squash on the opposite side of the garden with row cover, I am also planting some in whiskey barrels, also covered.

Ted...I planted my squash seeds today. Do I have to cover them immediately? I know I will have to hand pollinate and I am ok with that.

tedln
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Tate wrote:Ted,

What are the nets over your squash for? What type of netting is that? Initially, I thought it was row cover you were using to stop the squash vine borer, but then how do you get pollination? Are you hand pollinating all of those? If so, that is a pretty cool trick to defeat the borer organically.

Tate
It's a real cheap material I buy at fabric stores called tulle. It is for the squash vine borer and squash bugs in general. I have it set up where I simply lift the material from each side every morning and hand pollinate each bed. It takes about fifteen minutes to do two beds.

I would be hand pollinating anyhow because the traditional pollinators haven't shown up yet. I think commercial bee keepers arrive at about this time every year either to make honey or to pollinate farm crops. They are not hear yet. No bees.

Ted

tedln
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kgall wrote:My biggest experiments this year are probably things most everyone has done before, but this is year 2 for me.

Ted...I planted my squash seeds today. Do I have to cover them immediately? I know I will have to hand pollinate and I am ok with that.
No, I covered mine early because I don't know when the first wave of borers will arrive. It will probably be another couple of weeks. Usually when the first extended hot weather shows up, they show up. After the first wave, you can uncover for a month or so until the second wave or second generation of borers arrive. Some parts of the country only get one generation and it lasts for a couple of weeks. I will keep mine covered because squash bugs are around almost all the time. I've never had much damage from squash bugs, but I figure since I have the netting up, I may as well use it.

You won't need it until your plants are up and growing pretty well.

When the natural pollinators like bees become active, I may simply leave the netting up for a couple of hours while I work in the garden. Then keep an eye open for borers. They are easy to recognize. When they show up, I will put the netting down.

Ted
Last edited by tedln on Thu May 20, 2010 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tate
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Location: Houston

Thanks for sharing. I am going to try that next year at least for some of my plants. Good idea!

Tate

kgall
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Location: New Hampshire

Last year I lost all 9 of my squash to them!

tedln
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lakngulf wrote:Ted, those are some beautiful plants, but I got confused. Do you use a traffic cop to direct each how to grow? I admire how much you get in those boxes.
I hope no cops are around. They would arrest me for vegetable abuse. That bed is planted even heavier than I normally plant. Thats why I listed it in my "experimental or just messing around" category.

While I have a lot of space, it is simply easier to grow more with less. If you noticed, that bed is designed almost entirely for vertical growth. When the carrots and Swiss Chard are gone, I will probably plant a couple of varieties of tomatoes so we can eat tomatoes with our Christmas dinner again. Then it will be a totally vertical garden.

I purposely plan to grow a lot of stuff vertically in order to best use the square footage of my garden. I'm thinking about growing melons and cantelope on my current cucumber trellis next year. I think they would do well because they wouldn't have to hang straight down.

Ted



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