2022 Garden Thread

[Mossback]

Lupines have a specific to Lupine aphid, and I do not grow them, but my better half does...but not in the flower garden.
I just blast with hose any plant that shows signs, our Broccoli never gets any, roses get a few but nothing to worry about here.

 

[Dr. Magill]

Lupines have a specific to Lupine aphid, and I do not grow them, but my better half does...but not in the flower garden.
I just blast with hose any plant that shows signs, our Broccoli never gets any, roses get a few but nothing to worry about here.

Great tip
Many thanks

 

[Anonymous member 148]

I grew some delicata squash this year. Some have skins that are thin and edible, while some have a very thick and hard skin that is not soft enough to eat. All were from the same seed packet but appear to be shaped differently (pointed ends vs rounded ends. Could they have mixed seeds or could they have been fertilized by some pollen from the spaghetti squash causing different skin thickness and hardness? Tastes good except for the skin.

Squash need to be isolated to keep the variety pure. The fruit from seeds you planted this year will have no effect from what pollinated them this year, that will affect the seeds for next year's crop. I'm curious what company the seeds are from. Look up toxic squash syndrome, you can actually get really sick from random squash crossbreeding.

 

[Mark Yoshida]

Squash need to be isolated to keep the variety pure. The fruit from seeds you planted this year will have no effect from what pollinated them this year, that will affect the seeds for next year's crop. I'm curious what company the seeds are from. Look up toxic squash syndrome, you can actually get really sick from random squash crossbreeding.

Thanks for info.
Seeds came from Ed Hume wife picked up at City Peoples Mercantile.

 

[Doublebluff]

A question for the folks- I grow dahlias every year, a mix of some I buy and some I take out of the ground and store in the garage. Well, this year I planted about 15 tubers, a mix of store-bought and stored, and only 2 came up, both were pretty sickly. I ended up with 2 total flowers on two plants so far, maybe a few more flowers in the next month or so. I basically gave it up for the year. Weirdly, ~8 of the plants that did not come up in the spring have decided to sprout this week. They all came up on about the same day. They got no water all summer long. First off, any idea why this happened? Second, should I harvest them and store them, or just leave 'em in the ground? I'm in the Willamette Valley. Here are a couple pics, where they shoulda all been, and what they looked like when they emerged.

 

[Paige]

My old man was a Dahlia freak, 50-100 plants every year. All I know is he would dig them up every fall and store them over the winter and re plant them in the spring.
This was in Edmonds Wa for what its worth.

 

[Mike Cline]

Albeit about 2-3 weeks late our dahlias are putting on a pretty good show. The big orange ones are at least 8 generations now. We have to pull and store the tubers as the ground freezes solid here every winter. We store the tubers in dry peat in 5-gallon buckets in the crawl space. We are up to about 20 buckets now. We divide them in the Spring and sprout them in 1-gallon pots in potting soil using grow lights and bottom heat. Once they are about 6 inches+ tall and frost chance is low, they go in the ground. I think this year the very dry and hot stretch we had in July/Aug impacted the bloom a bit. Heavy winds and some monster hail didn't help them as well. Dahlias really benefit from deep watering, and it was tough to keep them hydrated during mid-summer.

 

[Mark Yoshida]

My tomatillos are really small. More like a cherry tomato if even that size. First year trying them as it was a gift from a neighbor who I trade with. How did yours do this year and what size. What do you do to get any size to them? I got lots of them but just small on the one plant.
Thanks. BTW I am in Seattle. Tomatoes are doing great tho.

 

[Capt Insano Emeritis]