The Garden
Freesteading group focused on the discussion of gardening.
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A season of struggle
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A season of struggle
This year has been a bit tough in the garden I had a lot of “firsts” like corn tassleing super early and then turning into a corn cob (very strange) I have had two mystery squash plants and then had a serious invasion of borers when I left for a few days. Greenbeans struggled to even take off, something was stripping them despite me adding bug net! My pole beans did okay despite some rust and tons of beetles. Did anyone else experience “firsts” or have struggles?
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71 Replies
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Very good question! I am interested to hear what others have to say. @TagNBee did this happen for ya’ll as well?
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We had a tassel turn into a corn cob too! Weirdest thing I ever saw! We’ve had lots of veggie mutants too, two squash growing conjoined from a single bloom, same with several paste tomatoes etc I’ll see if I can get pics of them. Would love to know what’s causing this… Maybe the increase in emf ?
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Ha ha! I had conjoined twin tomatoes, shared the same bloom but grew into two connected at the top. The one alien squash plant I had I also think was maybe two combined, it never put on any female flowers and then succumbed to the vine borers before I could figure out what it was.
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The same thing with my corn! Really strange looking! Something took out my cucumbers and cantaloupe. They started out doing great! Melons were growing well…then almost overnight, ruined. All of it. Grrrrrr!!!
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I was so excited for this big beauty but sadly it was bitter. I had plenty of melons as well!! but the vine started to die off 😢 do vine borers effect cantaloupe too? I know they’ll take out watermelon but am unsure about cantaloupe or honey dew 🤔
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Our pole beans had rust no matter what we did to prevent it. What did manage to continue growing took forever to make any beans at all. However, what we grew in a shaded area did well. Thank the Lord for planting in separate areas.
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Agreed, I am just now starting to get enough beans to store, all from pole beans, bush didn’t make it.
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We made some beetle traps that worked great. Our garden was a bumper crop except the corn. It was poor
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I would love to know how to make the beetle traps.
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Me too!
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Thank you!
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Thank you 😊
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Wow amazing and freeeee chicken foood haha
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I have never seen so many in one place before!!! 😲
thank you for showing us how to catch them!
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This is an awesom idea. I love it and will be making 4 of them this afternoon 😁
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Lots of issues in our garden this year. Corn was a bust. Plants struggled after tasseling. Ears were extra small. Strawberries got some type of fungus that we could not control. About 2/3s of them have died. Purplehull peas looked great up to starting to put on the pods. After that, not too many pods and some pods were smallish even though we fertilized and watered appropriately. Tomatoes did OK early, but once the heat dialed up, not many blooms and those rarely pollinated. Watermelons are ripening correctly. First one we pulled I thought was ripe based on the usual ripe characteristics, but found it barely have any ripe meat in it, and zero sweetness. This has been a strange year for the garden.
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Ooooh strawberries they’ve been a struggle for me! I’m 3 years into finally establishing a full bed, I get a fruit or two but I’ve basically been letting them run and make babies, here’s hoping for a better producing patch next year. Our watermelon hasn’t produced much for me this year we had cantaloupe that made several fruits but the vines didn’t survive long enough for them to be sweet. I managed to get a second round of sweetcorn in but have yet to find out if it’s any good. It’s certainly been a roller-coaster season, it’s nice to know I’m not alone.
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I had a low yield season as well. Everything started fine, then it was as if everything was stunted. Yield started late and was less than usual.
We also had to battle blister beetles and Japanese beetles this year.
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And Squash bugs GALORE and I’m still squishing many daily. They are also leaving blemishes on my tomatoes, better a blemish than holes though.
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Yes! Blemishes are always better than holes!
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I would like to hear about the beetle traps too. Last year when I had Japanese Beetles I refused to pay $20 for a beetle bag. Read that geraniums have the same effect. Low and behold I had just planted geraniums by my garden beds the day before. IT WORKED! Supposedly the beetles are attracted to them but are stunned by them. While they lay on the ground stunned, birds swoop in and eat them. For whatever reason, the Japanese Beetles were gone in just a few days and didnt come back. I hope to always have geraniums in the garden from now on.
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seems to be widespread. right from early spring things got bad. At first I thought I had a soil problem, some things just did not want to live, almost everything suffered after transplant and I couldnt figure why. lots got replanted and shuffled around, then things started to take off, and look OK for a while, then bugs came. Asian beetle, squash bugs as bad as ever, mites and aphid O plenty, and a constant battle with molds and blights of every description. Extended heat waves and drought, then deluge. You REALLY have to enjoy a challenge for this stuff sometimes.
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Amen! I am so thankful for what I was able to produce this season, I’ve been growing for 10 years and some are much smoother than others. Powdery mildew is the bane of my existence it manages to take hold every season despite my attempts to eradicate it. Last year I made sure to burn every leaf and stem and then when we trimmed trees we burned all the cuttings in the garden plot sadly it didn’t even make a dent in the powdery mildews vengeance.
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Everything I grew this year did well except for my sweet corn. I kept the sweet corn well watered and fertilized and the plants grew very well and put on lots of ears but the corn was not sweet at all! I tasted some every day through the milk stage and it never tasted sweet.🌽
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That’s awesome, abundance seasons are the best!! I planted a few different varieties of sweetcorn this year and my all yellow types were awful, very starchy and not sweet at all. The bi-color and white were sweet but really small kernels. Did you plant multiple varieties too?
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I planted mostly peaches and cream and one row of silver queen.
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Our corn did poorly. We had a drought just as the stalks were developing nicely. We watered every day but it did no good in the end. Very small ears with a good taste on what did make it but not enough to be impressed with. The stalks looked really rough. I bought some corn from a local seller that looked great but were not sweet at all. Our tomatoes in the raised beds are doing wonderful though. I’m from NW PA.
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Thankfully our tomatoes have been abundant as well, peppers were late to get started but have been producing fairly well, all was not a loss but definitely a season of emotions 😆 I’m in 6B, very south in Indiana.
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I just bought corn off a local farmer, and they were having limits of 3 dozen per person. I haven’t even looked at it, but was planning on canning it tomorrow. I also live in NW PA.
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Canning corn does take a lot of time. I’m picky about getting as much silk off the ears as possible so it really is work for me!
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Y’all should look into the Jadam method of pest control. I tried it this year for the first time and it really helped with the striped bean beetles, Japanese beetles and preventing squash bugs. Last year I didn’t get a single zucchini because of the squash bugs. Zucchini plants are prolific this year with no damage.
I had a triplet tomato🤪
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Next year I will try Jadam! I bought the book months ago and got too busy to put it into practice. I ended up with zero butternut squash harvest this year (luckily lots of tomatoes and other things) but had major squash/cucumber issues.
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I had no squash bugs this year. First time EVER. And I am OLD gardener. Normally I begin my BT spray routine when I see the first silk on the corn. This year I began at the first fruit on my straightneck squash. No holes. Zero zip nada. Dittos cucumbers. No holes. I also did likewise with the tomatoes. Not a total success but much less early hornworm damage than usual. And as for my corn…. For most of my career the perfect ear was the exception. I’d usually lose a third of the crop (chopping off ends) to ear worms. Since I started using BT…the bit end corn is the exception. I counted less damaged ears out of about 300 stalks in the last couple of years than I have fangers on one hand. This year I also added Cap Jack Dead Bug to the mix. Fantastic success. If it’s a worm…it’s dead of the bellyache pronto. And you can eat the produce the same day.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Alabammer.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by
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As I read through all the comments in this thread, I am reminded that, as rewarding as gardening is, it is always a challenge. Weather and pests can make or break our yield. Even with years of experience, we all have years that are more difficult than others. I often think how lucky I am that my survival does not depend on my success gardening, as it might have a few hundred years ago. I also chuckle when I read comments on preparedness channels, posted by viewers with no gardening experience, who claim they are ready to survive any SHTF because they purchased a 100 packets of heirloom seeds online. Good luck to them. Becoming a successful gardener is a lifelong evolution.
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Exactly! Gardening is heavily dependent on the weather and we all know who has the ability to control it. It’s gonna take a whole lot more than seeds.
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I am old gardener, having plowed my same 80×60 or so patch for more than 40 years. And I couldn’t agree more. I had a fair good garden this time around while everyone else was crousing about their awful gardens. I ascribe my success to the notion that I’m so old that I have just about run out of mistakes. Even so, I made a pepper boo boo saving seeds. Ever heard of a Marconi bell pepper? Neither had I. Not a pretty sight at all. Another lesson learned. Ha. You nailed it. Takes time. Lots of time. And weather. And cooperative bugs. Etc. Etc. Etc.
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This year I did find it a bit odd the way my corn tassels filled out long before there were any silks at all, by the time the silks showed up most of the pollen had already dropped , silks are still coming and the pollen is long gone for the most part, making sure to track it down and hand pollinate every silk .
Have never heard of a tassel turning into a cob before , that is pretty cool and weird for sure.
Another odd thing for me this year is a white powdery mildew-ish looking fungus or something of the like that is growing in spots on the leaves and stems of certain plants, I have never seen it on any of my plants before, my next door neighbor has it and my friend who lives a few miles away also has it. in the past I have been hit with white and black molds that look nothing like whatever this is and they usually wont hit for another month at least.
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Yes! I’m having that problem now with my second planting, I’ve had to save pollen and hand germinate nearly every stalk.
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Same exact thing happened to my corn also. Peas burned up.
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rabbits ate every single pea plant this year, might do something to keep them out of gardens next year
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Really good fencing or something a little stronger..might be good for the crockpot.
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What zone are you? You may have time for a second planting. I’m 6b and just finished fall plantings and sweet peas were top of the list. Peas are one of my crops that I’m lucky if any make it indoor for long-term storage, I eat them all 😂
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I am 7b
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You should still have plenty of time if you wanted to try for a pea harvest this year 👍 I know if I don’t plant early enough in the spring mine burn up before I can harvest and sometimes I get too excited for my fall planting and end up burning up another round 😂 I do succession plant so it’s rare that I lose an entire crop.
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I am in East Texas zone 8a. This has been a very weird growing year. I have a bunch of new bugs that I have never seen before. Both good and bad bugs. I actually decided to embrace (cautiously) fire ant when I found them drilling into my southern peas to get to the bugs that bore into the bean seeds. These particular larva have decreased my yields for the last 3 years. I am hoping that between my picking and the fire ants eating, that we can finally break the pest cycle. Just have to be really careful when I pick and where I step, lol.
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Is that a flea beetle?
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Yes, Passionflower Flea Beetle, https://bugguide.net/node/view/4521https://bugguide.net/node/view/4521
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I just recently learned that fire ants eat flea larvae but didn’t know that they ate the flea beetle larvae too, nature is amazing. I have found myself making friends with paper wasps and bees despite being allergic 😂 If they help keep my brassicas alive I am willing to step aside and let them do their thing, I just wish I had as many ladybugs as I do bees 👍
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I haven’t tried it yet but you can buy live ladybugs from Amazon pretty cheap but the trick is will they stay in your garden or go somewhere else. I will try it next season when the aphids start up again and let everyone know how it goes…
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The sun has been tough on the vegetables this year it blistered the sweet corn and I only got about half of my normal harvest. The early summer beans and peas did very well but the late summer crop has struggled with the heat and bugs mainly stink bugs and pea weevils and neem oil has no effect on them. I am hoping that the fall crop will fair much better…
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Me too! I was late on nearly all my brassicas and didn’t get a single cauliflower or broccoli hopefully fall will be my saving grace.
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