re: 2023 Spring Garden Thread

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Well, everything I read said it wasn't as likely to happen, but I have SVB eggs all over my butternut squash. What should I do about this now, besides picking them all off?

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Butternut is supposed to be somewhat resistant to the borers because the vines are a little tougher and thicker. But they aren’t completely immune. Pick off as many eggs as you can find and keep an eye out for frass in case any of them get through.

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I have Bt... besides injecting it a couple inches above the soil, should I elsewhere? Will they enter near the top of the vine where the eggs are?

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You can inject all down the vine if you’d like. But that’s very tedious. And as soon as they hatch they’ll immediately start chewing through the vine and enter wherever the eggs are laid.

The best way I’ve found to effectively control them is to put Sevin dust in a baster tube and apply it directly to the vine. You’ve got to deal with the negatives that come with Sevin dust and it is tedious, but it kills the borer larvae dead. I’m able to keep squash growing and producing until I’m tired of them with the method. If you use it correctly, it keeps the dust off of the flowers as well.

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I finally have some tomatoes starting to turn red!

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You are way ahead of me. My biggest tomato is probably the size of a quarter. Plants are starting to load up though.

We got too warm too fast. Then winter decided to finish up.

I'm two weeks behind on everything because of it.

Just some random thoughts and maybe questions-this is only my third season trying to grow anything.

My cucumbers are also way behind last year.

The tomato plants I thought were dead when we were all panicking, have mostly all recovered, and the grape ones are the tallest tomato plants I have ever had.

I stuck three large suckers from 3 different varieties in a glass of water and they began showing roots. I planted them after about 2 weeks in water and they are already flowering.

My first attempt at growing romas from seeds resulted in a lot of baby plants. Just for fun, I placed them in 4 different situations to see the difference. The best one so far is in a pot with a bell pepper and I had read not to do that. They love each other

I stuck some asparagus roots in a pot and more on the side of my house last year, and they are now making a few spears. This has made me want to dedicate and entire bed to them, but I really don't have the space. How water tolerant are they? Could I plant them on a bayou bank?

Is it normal for home grown bells to be WAY smaller than store bought? And, how do I know when to pick?

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I stuck some asparagus roots in a pot and more on the side of my house last year, and they are now making a few spears. This has made me want to dedicate and entire bed to them, but I really don't have the space. How water tolerant are they? Could I plant them on a bayou bank?

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I dedicated a whole bed to them and just grow other plants on top of them. Spears coming out everywhere between my eggplants peppers and beans right now.

They are perineal and you plant them deep, so you can plat a bed on top of them with little issue. I planted them a few years ago and forgot about them. On year three now, and letting the stalks fern out for the first two years to develop the roots definitely paid off.

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Anyone that doesn't believe in the power of compost

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Do you have a quick beginners primer on composting?

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Did you just plant the asparagus in between the would-be rows and plantings for the "top bed"... i.e. leaving an "empty" area for your eggplant, etc?

How deep did you plant them?

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In the 4/8 bed I planted a few up the middle, and a few in the corners / on the sides. Yes I do usually plant an even number of rows so that would typically fall between the rows, but this year I planted eggplant and peppers up the middle and it hasn't had an impact on them.

They were planted about 7-8 inches deep, so nothing I'm planting in that bed is going to disturb them.

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I may try this thanks! Did you plant from seed?

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No I couldn't imagine how long that would take and how tedious that would be. I bought the dry root packs.