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Randy Asks Multiple Questions For Starting a Raised Bed Garden

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Questions from Randy:

I am starting my own elevated garden bed at home and I need advice.

1.) What vegetables would you recommend starting off with in this hobby for beginners?

2.) How often would you recommend watering these vegetables and with how many inches of water?

3.) What brand or type of vegetable fertilizer would you recommend for this garden bed?

4.) What brand or type of soil would you recommend for this garden bed?

5.) Do you have a calendar or schedule available that would help us to determine when to plant, harvest, and perform maintenance on vegetables?

Hancock County Advanced Master Gardener Bruce answers:

Hi Randy,

This should help you get started for a successful gardening experience. I am answering in the order that you asked your questions.

1. Make sure you grow what you like to eat! Easy and quick vegetables are radishes, leaf lettuce, green beans, and carrots. All of these can be planted by seed. Tomatoes and peppers are easy but buy starts from the garden center.

2. Watering needs vary based on the soil, temperature, wind, and drainage, There is no hard and fast rule. Put your finger in the soil about an inch deep. If it feels dry then water. With an elevated bed, you may need to water daily.

3.When you go to the garden center you will see all types of fertilizer with numbers like 10-10-10, 5-10-5, 20-20-20..
The three numbers on fertilizer represents the value of the three macro-nutrients used by plants. These macro-nutrients are nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) or NPK for short. Look for a fertilizer with an NPK of 5-10-5, 6-10-4 or something similar. You want a fertilizer with a higher P (phosphorus) number than the others. P encourages more flowering which means more fruit. N will encourage new growth which may be at the expense of flowers. The K is for general health of the plant.

4. Compaction of soil is one of the problems of container, raised bed, or elevated gardens. You can mix your own, buy a raised garden blend, or amend potting/garden soil. The economical method is making your own which is 1/3 top soil/ 1/3 compost/manure/peat moss, and 1/3 vermiculite. Raised garden bed soil requires the least amount of work . All you do is open the bag and dump it in. It usually has fertilizer already added, but it is expensive. With garden/potting soil I would add vermiculite to help eliminate soil compaction. Use 2/3 potting soil and 1/3 vermiculite. Brand doesn’t really make a difference. It’s whatever you are comfortable spending.

5. Here are a couple of resources to use as a planting guide:

https://www.purdue.edu/hla/sites/yardandgarden/extpub/indiana-vegetable-planting-calendar/.
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/growers-library/growing-center.html
If you buy seeds, the package will tell you how many days till the vegetable is ready to harvest. Any vegetable starts should also give you the same information on their plant tag..

6. The main thing is to enjoy and have fun growing your own vegetables. Some plants don’t make it for various reasons. If I had a dollar for every plant that died, I would be living the good life in Hawaii!. We are here to help you be successful in your gardening experience. Don’t hesitate to contact us in the future. I hope this gets you off to a good start.

Final response from Randy:

Great email and advice!

I will be in touch.

Be well,

From Bobbi; Help-Early Blight On Tomatoes

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What is your question for a Master Gardener?

I have a gardening question. The last few years I’ve gotten early blight fungus that has affected my tomatoes. What can I do to get that out of my soil? I’ve rotated my crops. I only have a 10X10 garden space.

Tomato leaf with spots that are round, brown and up to half inch in diameter. Larger spots have target like concentric rings and tissue around spots is yellow

                            Tomato leaf with Early Blight Disease

Researched and answered by Advanced Master Gardener Bruce.

Thanks for your question Bobbi. Unfortunately there is no known practice to eliminate Blight, but there are things you can do to help lessen the effect of Blight:

Rotate your tomatoes every year

Remove all parts of the tomato at the end of the season and turn the soil to help bury the blight spores.

Plant blight resistant varieties. The variety will not eliminate blight, but the plant is more resistant to the disease.  Use link to view varieties http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/Tables/TableList.htm

Water tomatoes at the base of the plant instead of watering from above soaking the leaves.

Mulch around the tomato

Remove the lower leaves on the tomato plant. Leave about 12 inches from the leaf to the soil. Water will splash the fungus from the soil onto the leaves.

Prune to aid in air flow through the plant. See the following Purdue link for more information.

https://ag.purdue.edu/btny/ppdl/Pages/Tomato-Blight.aspx

Good luck Bobbi! We are always here to help.

—
Bruce

Fruit Tree Questions

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Amy asks several questions for proper care of her fruit trees.

Response by Master Gardener Bruce:

Hi Amy,  Thanks for your your question about your fruit trees.  It’s good that you have cut the dead out of your pear tree.  You may want to prune it to maximize your pear production. The best time to prune is late winter. Here is a link for pruning a pear tree. https://www.goodfruit.com/the-1-2-3-rule-of-pruning/

So you haven’t seen any plums on your tree yet?  It normally takes 4-6 years before the tree will start to fruit.  It has been growing long enough so there must be another factor causing your plum not to bear fruit.  If you know the variety, look it up online and check the following:  Is it an ornamental plum?  If it is an ornamental then it will not bear fruit.  Will the variety self pollinate or do you need a second tree for pollination?

The most common cause is frost damage.  They bloom earlier than most of the other fruit trees which makes it more susceptible to frost damage.  This year on April 15 & 16 the temps dived to 25 degrees. That pretty much destroyed your crop for this year.  It may have been the case last year as well.  I read where someone put Christmas tree lights on the tree to help keep the temp above 32 degrees.  You can also put sheets on some of the branches to help protect the flowers if it happens again. With the change in weather patterns, I’m sure it will happen again.

If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to write back.–

Bruce

Strawberries Didn’t Bloom and Produce

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This is a question asked by Julie, a strawberry gardener:

Hi, if my ever-bearing strawberries (planted this year) didn’t bloom and produce, should I leave them and see if they produce next year? Thanks! Julie

Answer by Master Gardener Bruce:

Hi Julie,  Thanks for your question about unproductive strawberries.  Newly planted strawberries may not flower and produce the first year.  They need to get established before they will give you ripe luscious strawberries.  Mulch them this winter, and you should have a nice crop next year.  If you fertilize, use something like a 10-10-10 fertilizer.  To much nitrogen, the first number in fertilizer, can cause excessive leaf growth and very little to no flowers. If you need any further assistance, let me know.

Tomatoes Slow to Ripen

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Question
Hi Master Gardener,
For the first time ever, I planted tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets, using Schultz garden & vegetable dirt with 2″ mulch on top of dirt. They get 7-8 hours of sunshine, I water every day if no rain. The plants are 4-6 feet tall, healthy with the usual leaf production ( I pruned the suckers as the plants matured.) I planted seedling sprouts on May 1st. It is now 116 days later and the tomatoes are VERY VERY slow to redden ( ripen) There is a good quantity of fruit, but ripening seems to be extremely slow. Where am I wrong or is this common? Thank you Please email respond as I am anti telephone HA:)
Bill 

Answer by Master Gardener Bruce:

Good morning Bill,

Thanks so much for the information.  After answering a few questions, I feel you are doing everything right so I did some more research in solving your ripening problem.  This is what I came up with.  I looked for information on tomatoes ripening in a container vs ripening in the ground.  I couldn’t find any information on the difference if there is any.  Once the seedling is planted in the container it takes 2-3 months for tomatoes to be ready for harvest.  Which is about the same for inground tomatoes.  I did run across a study done at the University of Maryland with tomato ripening this year.  Enough potassium is required for the tomato to produce lycopene.  Lycopene is the agent that gives tomatoes there color.  With the massive rains received this year, they believe that the excess water may have inhibited the plants ability to absorb the potassium.  Their study shows the soil was rich in potassium but when they checked the plants, there was a low level of potassium found.  They don’t know why.  Since your tomatoes are container grown, maybe the excess rain washed all the nutrients out of your container causing a potassium deficiency.  You might try adding some potassium to your container and see if that corrects the problem.

Good luck and stay in touch!.

 

Drone Farming

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This is an interesting post about forage crops including a short video demonstrating a creative way one Tennessean farmer uses to monitor the harvest of a corn forage crop using an overhead drone.  Corn silage is a high-quality forage crop that is used on many dairy farms and on some beef cattle farms in Tennessee. …  The object of silage making is to preserve the harvested crop by anaerobic (without oxygen) fermentation.  Silage is usually made from grass crops, including maize, sorghum or other cereals, using the entire green plant (not just the grain). View video here  Do Indiana farmers use drones to assist in farming? If you have any thoughts, please post a comment. And if you would like to receive an occasional educational and informative post, please sign up for our Backyard Botanist Blog.

Water for Gardens

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If you have missed the thunderstorms and showers  in central Indiana, here is a good rule of thumb to follow when garden soil drys up. Most flower and vegetable gardens perform best when they
receive 1 to 1-1/2 inch of water per week. Supplemental watering is best done in the morning and delivered directly to the soil surrounding the plants. Soil type does not affect the amount of total water needed but does dictate frequency of water application. Lighter soils need more frequent water applications, but less water applied per application. Good luck and good gardening and may mother nature take care of all of your watering needs..

Hancock County Master Gardeners.

Jump Start your Vegetables and Flowers from Seed

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Is It time? ————Yes, it is! — and if you start vegetables and flower  seed indoors in late March and early April and give the seedlings some TLC you will have a jump start with home grown transplants to move to your garden after the last spring frost. Cold weather crop seeds like Broccoli and Greens can even be started indoors as early as February. By starting your seeds indoors and taking tender care of the plants you will have strong healthy transplants which will flower and bear sooner allowing an earlier harvest than plants started directly outdoors. Growing from seed allows you to buy seeds for many more plant varieties than you will find for sale in the plant supply store and gives you the opportunity to experiment with unusual flavors, shapes, and colors of plants. Have fun by trying an heirloom tomato variety like Brandywine or a Crested or Plume Celosia flower which may be difficult to find as a transplant at your plant store. Another advantage worth mentioning is by staggering the start date of seeds you can spread your harvest over a longer period and avoid having all the fruits mature at the same time. Gather your seeds and supplies and if you love to watch plants grow, jump in and start your seeds now. To help you get started, here are links to two publications from the Purdue Horticultural experts which you can download and print…… Good Luck and enjoy.

https://www.purdue.edu/hla/sites/yardandgarden/ardeners-start-your-seeds/

https://ag.purdue.edu/hla/pubs/HO/HO-14.pdf

A Perennial That Blooms All Summer

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A Perennial That Blooms All Summer

The Popsicle Kniphofia (Poker plant) rewards its owner with blooms from May through September.  Choose a full sun location and watch the flower spikes grow up to 30 inches tall.  Once the bloom is spent, clip the flower spike to promote repeat blooming.  Colors available include Banana, Creamsicle, Lemon, Mango, Orange Vanilla, Pineapple, Red Hot and Papaya. Papaya is shown in the picture.  The grass like foliage attains a height of 18 inches which will grow into a clump from 12 -18 inches wide.  For maximum bloomage, plant in full sun, water regularly until established, and fertilize in early spring.  Look for the Popsicle variety of the Poker plant.  It is the only rebloomer in the Kniphofia family.

Other long blooming perennials include:

  • Garden Phlox
  • Stella de Oro Daylily
  • Shasta Daisy
  • Perennial Salvia
  • Russian Sage
  • Yarrow
  • Lavender
  • Ice Plant
  • Coneflower
  • Moon Beam Coreopsis

Questions? The Master Gardeners of Hancock County are here to answer your gardening questions.

Article submitted by Bruce Matter.

Cracks in tomatoes

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Question: why am I getting large cracks in my tomatoes?

Answer: Either you are overwatering your tomato plants, or, the ground was dry and suddenly you got a heavy rain, which could cause the fruit to grow and expand quickly, thus causing the crack.