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SAVE 25% ON SEEDS THRU 7-31-12
EXCLUDING BULK AND WILDFLOWER SEEDS
Timely Tips About Your Garden
and How to Grow Information
from 2B Seeds |
July 2012 |
Questions and Answers about Vegetables
We thought that we would share some of our questions from customers and others that have emailed us.
They come from beginners and experienced gardeners alike, with each having a different growing areas and concerns. Each month we will bring to you new questions on different plants. Let us know what you would like to see mentioned. We hope that you will find the information useful to you.
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| Misbehaving Beans
Q: I had planted many beans this year, and some are fine and yet some seeds behaved in a very strange way. They came up but never produced leaves. What is this?
A: A seed corn maggot is a voracious creature that will eat out the germ of beans, peas, squash, cabbage and just about any large vegetable seed. These little creatures will virtually kill the seed and nothing will sprout, except for the bean which has just enough energy to emerge from the soil and cause confusion to the grower with small stems and no leaves or beans. These are only a problem in the cold, damp weather of early spring, as the softened seed sits in the ground long enough to attract these. Best cure for this is to wait until the the cold, damp weather passes before you plant your young seeds. |
| I Want More Brussel Sprouts
Q: I'm confused about when and how to harvest my Brussel Sprouts. The plants are good sized and I see lots of baby sprouts, but they are smaller that the ones in stores. I was told that removing the leaves will make the sprouts grow larger, is this true and how many should I remove?
A:Leaf removal works by driving the energy of the plant into sprout growth, there are 2 ways to do this with 2 different results. A home gardener may wish to remove minimal leaves, this will give you more sprouts over a longer period of time, but only a few at a time on each plant. Just remove the bottom two or three rows of leaves, either cutting or snapping them off carefully so you do not damage the sprouts at the axils. Harvest the bottom sprouts as soon as they are about an inch in diameter. Then as each successive sprout reaches harvestable size remove the leaves below it and cut or twist off the sprout, leaving a small spur of stem on the plant. In a long mild fall, these spurs might produce another crop.
Or the commercial version is a bit drastic but this is how to do it, watch until the sprouts at the bottom are 1/2 to 3/4 inch in diameter. Then remove the top of the plant-including the growing point and the top rosette of leaves with it's tiny sprouts. The plant will now concentrate on the sprouts at hand - which will be ready in about one month. As long as it has its growing point and sprouts leaves and sprouts until daytime temperatures stay below 45 F, it will yield small harvests every 10 days or so for about 2 months. The sprouts that are the tastiest are improved by a light frost. |
Cracked Tomatoes
Q: Last year I had many tomatoes that cracked, by mid summer many of them had long cracks coming down from the stem and by late summer I had cracks going in the other direction-around the stem. What caused this?
A:Both radical cracking ( from the stem downward) and concentric cracking( around the stem) is caused when the plant takes up too much water too quickly. As tomatoes begin turning red, their skin becomes less flexible. Uneven watering or rain following a dry period encourages the plant to drink too quickly, thus cracking the fruit in a radical direction. Later in the season cool nights combine with uneven moisture will then cause the concentric cracking. The smallest and tomatoes over 3" in diameter are most susceptible, as well as old varieties. Some of the new tomatoes are now crack resistant like Celebrity. Read more on Tomatoes. |
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| What is Going On With My Zucchini?
Q: Last year I had 3 Zucchini plants, they flowered but only produced one female flower that resulted in only one fruit. I have cucumbers, peppers, eggplant,and tomatoes nearby, can you till me what is going on?
A: If you are getting female flowers that do not go on to produce fruit or only have male flowers? The more common problem is female flowers not producing fruit. The three most likely culprits are shade ( squash is a sun-lover) or very hot weather-especially if temperatures do not moderate at night, and ususally wet conditions. If you had very wet conditions that might stimulate male flowers only, and if you had any female flowers they might just abort at such an early stage, you may have not even noticed that they were there. Squach plants have to be in good health to produce female flowers. |
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Trust Us For Non-GMO Seeds
We at 2B Seeds DO NOT SELL ANY GMO MODIFIED SEEDS. We do offer many open-pollinated,F1 hybrid, Heirloom, AAS and FSM Winners that were selected for their outstanding performance in nationwide trials and evaluations. Our product lines at 2BSeeds offer you untreated as well as a few vegetable treated seed varieties. The seeds that we sell are produced by traditional open pollinated and cross-breeding methods. Throughout our site, you will see listed past and present All-America Selections Winners. The AAS Winners have been selected annually since 1932 based on actual performance of new, unsold flowers and vegetables at official test sites across the country.
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