feeding the soil first!

Gymgirl, hope you have a good trip. I've been so busy with the new irrigation system we're adding that I haven't had time to get online.
The dry molasses I use by sprinkling it around. I put down a thick layer of grass clippings(fresh from the bagger), sprinkle dry molasses and alfalfa pellets and water it all in. Within 6 months it turns into beautiful soil. We fill the trenches between the beds with the grass clippings too.
The turnips, I just prepared the bed, planted the seeds and covered them with compost. When the plants were up and going I started adding mulch. The worst pest I had on them was those darned little snails that are everywhere down here.

Yes, definetely have a great trip! I have been busy as well, I just planted out my cover crop of legumes in my 2 raise beds.

I really hope this helps my soil get more nutrients and beneficial insects.

I have also planted lettuce on containers and mesclum salad, if this does well, I might as well use my containers to plant greens such as lettuces and use my raise beds for other veggies.

Calalily, how long do you have to leave the grass clippings, molasses and alfalfa lettuce to decompose before planting? I am planing to build another raise bed this month and really would like to make it as cheap as posible.

Carminator I had wonderful mesclun mix last fall that really lasted into early March. I took some scissors with me and just took the largest leaves every couple of days. I grew them in a large pot and had it under a tree for dappled sun. I think our sun is too intense for their liking even in winter because I started a second pot later in full sun. They never thrived. I'm going to start a couple pots soon so I can have salad every day all winter. Good luck with it.

Carminator, I plant first, then add the mulch, alphalfa pellets and molasses. As the mulch decomposes I add more. It helps cool the soil and conserve moisture. The earthworms love it.
Twiggybuds, we can grow lettuce here in full sun in winter, I wonder why it won't grow there?

I blamed the sun because the second pot was right beside the first. It didn't germinate as well either. If it wasn't the sun, I bet it was a different soil mix. I'm going to be trying it again soon and I'll surely make sure there's plenty of compost in all of it so it holds moisture well.

Twiggybuds,I agree that different packs can germinate differently. If lettuce seeds have been exposed to high temps (lowes here has their seeds outside in the garden center area all summer, I know they're too hot), it has to be exposed to light to break dormancy and if it was exposed to really high temps, it won't germinate at all unless GA is used on it.
I've also gotten lettuce to germinate when it's a bit too warm by mixing the seeds with a little damp sand, putting in a baggie, put in the fridge for a few days, then sow the lettuce/sand mixture in the garden. Fools the little seeds into germinating!

I have my 2 pots under the shade, sometimes they do get a little bit of sun but I also heard that lettuce don't like full sun.

Calalily, what a great idea! I might try that with my 3rd bed that I am going to start this month.

I just planted a cover crop of leggumes in my other 2 so I have to wait at least 2-4 months to plant anything.

The problem is that I really don't have any worms in my beds, so I am doing this to be able to attract more worms and also have a better enriched soil as well.

By the way talking about germination rate, I had purchase some seeds from Parks, some swiss chard that was on sale, this is my third time trying to germinate the seeds and nothing comes out, I wonder if it is just a bad batch. I was wondering if I should write them about it and if they would replace the seeds or not. Have any of you had something similar happen and if so what did you do?

Thanks for that baggie trick Calla. I always plant small seeds way too thick and I bet the sand would help solve that problem as well.

Carminator the worms will find your goodies. I tried to rush the process several times by buying a container of fishing worms. They weren't my native kind and disappeared. I don't know why. However some large worms do like my potting soil far better than my native sand. I don't know how they got in there but every time I dump a pot out, it has worms in it. Maybe they ate the foreigners. If you have an area that has old leaves or grass clippings piled up, I bet you could find some to transplant.

Twiggybuds, the large worms find my pots too. I have no idea where they come from because I don't see them in the soil except in areas where I've added lots of organic ammendments. I take them to the garden when I find them and they do survive there.
Our native worms are very small compared to the ones I had in TN. These are more red also. I wonder if they're a type of red wiggler?
Carminator, Twiggybuds has a good suggestion, especially if you keep the area around the leaves/grass clippings damp(not soggy). Worms like the moisture.

As far as I know, earthworms come out at night, especially if it has rained, or there is a heavey dew. They crawl all over the place, and I assume if they find a nice damp pot to crawl into, they will do so (through the holes in the bottom of the pot).

This is what I have read, I have never gone out at night to watch for earthworms doing their nightly rounds :)

Thank you so much for all the good info.

Unfortunately I don't have any old leaves or leaves at all, I live in a prety new neighborhood and the trees that are around are tiny.

I did however place all the straw that I bought in the ground, and believe me with all the rain we've been having it is all wet and soggy. I am hoping this wet straw will atract them as well. I also placed some cardboard in the bottom of my raise beds and got it extremely wet, I had heard somewhere that wet cardboard attracts them as well, and also helps with the weeds.

I have some red wigglers in a tub in my laundry area, and did place some in my raise beds but a lady that sells them in my area told me they problably wont survive the harsh temps, since this worms are just composter worms.

I actually have never gone to check whether there are worms in my raise beds at night, I'll have to do that.

If you sow lettuce, spinach, and such outdoors now for fall crops, very lightly stir the soil over the seed....covering much of the seed a bit and not covering some of it. Then put a strip of weed barrier on top with something to hold it down. Then water well. This works very well and the seeds should come up pronto. Some lettuce seeds need light and some do not. I think it is a matter of white seed and black seed.

Thanks Indy. I actually used the worm castings to cover the seeds, I love this stuff! is is fluffy and not coarse at all, it is very refined soil plus it's one of the best composts. Actually all my seeds germinated within 3 days, I was really surprised to tell you the truth.

I also have some oriental mix that I am thinking of putting on another container to see if it would do well.

In the meantime I am waiting for my cover crop to emerge from the alfalfa hay, nothing just yet, I guess I am just to impatient.

My Swiss chard finally sprouted, but I have to say very poor germination rate, out of 6 planted only 3 came out, I decided to place some more seeds in wet paper to see if I can get it to germinate like this and then plant the ones that have germinated into the containers.

Here is a picture of my lettuce ( Black seeded Simpson) on the blue tub, and then mesclum salad on the round planter.
The mesclum salad looks all the same type of sprout, is this normal?

This is a picture of my garden so far, with my 2 raise beds and my composters.

I plated a cover crop of legumes on both of my raise beds, covered them with alfalfa hay. Here is a picture.

That rain you got today ought to bring them out but I see a what may be a problem. Most legumes like peas and beans sprout with very large cotyledons. If you have the large type, they might have some trouble getting past the straw. I'd be checking for signs of green and trying to help clear their way a bit if they need it..

I think you're going to learn a lot this fall and have some great results next year. Those beds look really nice and I think you're going to want some more before spring planting time.

Thank you twiggybuds, actually I was instructed to place the alfalfa hay on top just enough to cover the seeds, some of the seeds you can see through the hay so they are not extremely covered up. This mix I purchased from grow organic and it Contains: 40% Bell Beans, 20% Magnus or BioMaster Winter Peas, 15% Lana Vetch, 15% Purple Vetch,10% Cayuse Oats. I did see a few sprouts but not sure if they are legumes or not.

I guess if I start seeing that the legumes can't get passed the straw or alfalfa I might as well take it out, fortunately I have a lot more seed I can put down just in case this one does not sprout correctly.

As far as more beds, yes I can't wait to get more, I have so many things I want to plant that these will definetly not be enough.

Twiggybuds, I decided to go and took my top layer of alfalfa hay to try to thin it out more than it was, I think I might have overdone it.
It was not very difficult and I was able to do it without disturbing my seeds. We are definetelly getting lots of rain here in Mobile so I really don't think they will dry out.

Thank you so much for helping me out, sometimes it really helps when people can see it in a picture.

My legumes are finnally coming out!
It's been raining almost everyday so I haven't had to water the legume beds at all, they seem to be doing prety good.

Here's a picture:

here's the other bed:

I also planted some lettuce and mesclum they are both doing well, and like I mentioned before I planted both in containers.

Here's a picture

I also planted some beets a while back in another of my earthboxes but they are getting devoured by tinny caterpillars so I decided to spray the tiny plants with BT, hopefully this will take care of the problem.

She's baaasaaack! With a tropical island tan and sunburn to boot. Swam in the ocean every day. Laid out on the sand. Margaritaville was at my fingertips. Sea breezes wafting, Caribbean swells crashing upon the rocks at the shoreline. Somebody please punch me and tell me it wasn't just a dream. 'Cause today I gotta move this mountain of soil & compost into my two new raised veggie beds. Too bad I can't do it in my swimsuit! Ya'll pray for me 'cause the DDH ain't even about 2 help me.

Welcome back, Gymgirl - I'll be home from a vacation in Williamsburg on Monday. I understand it rained at least once while I was away, so hopefully the garden will still be alive!

I learned while I was here that it helps if you sing while you work in the garden - I'm going to give it a try :)

Welcome back to the real world. That heap is so beautiful ...just think of all the great stuff you'll be harvesting and it might ease the load a little. I wish I had a yard full of that stuff.

Welcome back! That pile looks so great, I bet you'll be growing some great stuff with that.

Please send us pictures of your finished raise beds.

Hello I wanted to post some pictures of my raise beds so you can see how much the leggumes are growing since this is an experiment an all.

The legumes are doing fine but one of my beds is getting bad damage because of a black ugly caterpillar, I will post a picture as well. I am trying to spray with BT and see if this will take care of the ugly pests.

Also I wanted to post a picture of what I think are tomato plants growing along with my leggumes, maybe you can tell me whether or not these are tomatoes or not.

Now this is the picture of the tomato plant or what I believe to be a tomato plant growing in my raise bed.

This last one is a picture of the type of caterpillar that is munching on my leggumes, they are doing a great damage to the plants, I really hope BT can take care of this.

Carminator1,
That sure looks like a volunteer tomato plant to me! Good going. Sorry about the cats. Off on another vacation trip this weekend, but off Monday and Tuesday. Can you guess what I'll be doing all day Monday and Tuesday.

SOWING SEEDS LIKE CRAZY!!!

That sounds great to me, I wish I was in your shoes, I still have to wait to be able to sow any seeds in my raise beds. :(

I sure hope all this waiting does pay off though.

In the meantime I am using my 4 Earthboxes to plant stuff, my lettuce from my first bed is not doing so great so I might plant something else in it and just pull all my lettuce off.

Happy growing and keep us posted.

Yes that's a tomato plant. And that's the same cat that's plaguing all my fall stuff. I've been putting on the BT like a mad woman and then the rain comes right behind me to wash it off. I know it's been getting some of them but there's still more everyday. I'm about to give up on the maters. I had a few of these in early June and the BT worked great. Now all this rain is just helping them out. They're probably getting your legumes because you don't have plenty of other stuff they like better. I've got green beans blooming and southern peas but they don't mess with them. They've killed one of my cauliflower seedlings and are trying to ruin the rest.

Twiggybuds, I am sorry to hear that,

I know I think the same, I think the rain is definetely helping the critters, so do not give up please keep spraying, I was told you wont hurt the plants with this stuff and I am sure some of them will die eventually.

I was told these are cut worms, they tend to attack small seedlings and like to cut the seedling right at ground level.

We are now having a couple of days without rain so I am going out and spraying BT like mad when my backyard is not in full sun. The instructions of the BT sais to spray when you don't have sun since the sun will void the killing power of the BT.

Twiggybuds I want to send you this link, I found it the other day on the internet, it is a planting wheel for the Mobile area and since you are pretty close to my part of town I thought you might find it useful.

http://www.al.com/images/hg/spring_garden_calendar.pdf

I hope it helps. I am going to take mine and laminate it so I have it handy.


This message was edited Sep 25, 2009 8:34 AM

All Bacillus thuringiensis is not created equal - here's a link that explains which BT to use with what pest from UCDAVIS:

http://vric.ucdavis.edu/pdf/pests_BtCaterpillarControl.pdf

I love that garden wheel!! I'm 8b, wonder how close it would be to me or how I can modify it. Thanks for sharing.

LiseP

Thanks for that link carminator. You're right, that takes out the guesswork. I can see already that my timing was off on several things. I've been watching the TX folks and subtracting or adding.

Dipel dust is what I've been using and it does work on all my caterpillars to a degree. I think I could get much better coverage with the Thuricide spray and it would be a lot easier to apply. I bought this nice new duster back in June and was hoping to get my $ worth out of it. I've noticed some unusual patterns with the insects this year and I think it has a great deal to do with our unusual weather. I sure don't wish for a drought but this has just been ridiculous for rain. Not so much the quantity but the frequency.

So what I see in this article is that this Bt will not kill the cutworm that I have eating all my leggumes, so my question is what should I use to kill them. I also have diatomaceous earth in my pantry, so can I use this product to kill these critters. I would love to keep it as organic as possible.

Lise P I am not a 100% sure but I would imagine your timeframe and mine is not so different since we are both in zone 8, now I think for zone 9 probably I would substract 2 weeks since their weather is milder than ours.

twiggybuds, I completely agree, too much rain is just too much rain, it is depresing alsmost, I have 2 little ones and I've been wanting to take them to the pool this last couple of months but it's been imposible so we've been stuck at home. I was told Mobile is one of the rainiest cities in all US, boy I sure hope we get a little break.

Carmin I'd try the diatomaceous earth because it surely won't hurt anything. I've read that it won't hurt earthworms. I've not had cutworm problems, knock wood. My worms look like yours plus the corn ear worms which I think are called fruit borers. They burrow into the green tomatoes and peppers. I've also had a few of the big green horn worms but far less than last year. Those black ones like in your photo are trying to strip the leaves off my broccoli and such. The smaller the plant, the more tender and appealing to them.

I've also got some Greenlight 3 in 1 that has neem and pyrethin in it. It's organic but will kill everything. Sevin will do the trick but I hate to use it because it surely will kill everything, earthworms too I think. If it would just quit all this raining so often I could make some progress. There was a shower just an hour ago that was pretty hard but only for 5 minutes. It's getting old.

I will try the diatomaceous earth today and see if there is any progress. I was told that the worm in my picture was a cutworm, but maybe it is not since cutworms only come out at night and they are hard to spot, plus these worms have been tearing my leaves and not so much the plant itself. I do see a little bit less of these worms everytime I spray the BT so hopefully it is doing something.

Good luck with your plants, I just got some Calabrese broccoli seeds in a trade today, I am so excited!, unfortunately it is too late for me to plant it from seed right now, according to the wheel I have to start seeds in June and transplant the seedlings in September so maybe next year I'll be able to have some broccoli.

Sorry about the rain, lets hope next month is not so rainy.