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 Post subject: island garden
PostPosted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:22 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2009 5:20 pm
Posts: 15
Location: Greenville,TEXAS
I live between cash and greenville.
I have started a new garden this year on an island. My boys call the pond "the moat". I took bags of quikcrete, soaked the bag and made stairs down into the pond so that I can easily go down and get water in buckets for the garden. I have 15- 4ft x 4ft squares. With each square, I used 2 x 6 pine. I dug out about 8 inches of soil and added 3 bags of Back to Earth composted cotton burrs, mixing in the old soil alternately. Some squares had more clay soil so I added expanded shale. Around the South end of the island I had to build the ground up so I used cinder block. The pond happened to be dry at the time, so I dug out some of the muck and used it to build up the island. It was there that I put in a 20 ft row of asparagus. The fronds are beautiful. In the cinder blocks I planted herbs and cabbages. The cabbages were free from the nursery because it was late in the season. They made no heads but they sure are pretty alternating green and purple. I don't have to water the plants in the blocks as much as I thought. On the East side I am going to build up like I did the South end and plant blackberry and on the West side, grapes. I have 2 tall oaks on the north end that only shade out the morning sun for 1 square of peppers and a square of catnip. They are doing very well!
Most everything is doing well except my squash. The zuccini flowers would not open so the developing fruit would wither, unless I tore the flower open and hand pollinate. I dug out some squash vine borers and buried the wounds. Yellow squash was fair, but was hit often by aphids. I had to treat every 5 or 6 days. Which tells me that they are really stressed. In addition, I have a winter squash that I have grown vertically. I have no idea what variety it is. My 2 year old "helper" pulled all of my labels after I planted the seeds. It was doing beautiful and had many promising fruit. The vines grew 8 ft. I noticed that as the vines got thicker, it was putting roots out at the leaf junctions. Now the leaves are showing stress. I have been doing foliar feeding with garrett juice plus. I have used peroxide on some aphids. I also noticed very small, black holes in the vine. I have seen some tiny, tiny black beetles. I don't know if they made the holes. I have dusted with DE and sprayed with orange oil after dark, which by the way is not a very fun thing for me, I have already been bitten once by a water moccasin. If the plants don't die, the fruit set has been aborted. Was this particular plant stressed because it needed to put out roots at the leaf junctions as it sprawls across the ground?, or is this a spacific insect infestation that I have allowed to go on too long?.
Also, I have been having great success with cucumbers using vertical support. I planted them late and am now starting to get fruit. I was affraid that they would be bitter. They are fantastic! I have Straight Eight and English. On another note, my 4 year old eats my brussell sprouts off the plant!
Thank you for your program!
bugmomof6


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 Post subject: Re: island garden
PostPosted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 2:32 pm 
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Joined: Wed Jul 02, 2003 8:09 pm
Posts: 1917
Location: Fort Worth,TEXAS
This sounds like a really interesting project in that location, and must be something to look at. And it sounds like you've tried a lot of good approaches to curing your squash problems. I go some years not planting them because I get tired of the number of problems I have to solve with them. (I have a couple of zucchini in the yard now that may have the borers. I need to get a syringe and inject BT into the hollow stems, a Howard tip from a few weeks back).

The only other thing I can think you might try is dancing around the garden naked under the full moon. :lol:

(I know, I know, this is a totally silly suggestion, but sometimes you try everything that makes sense and reach a point where you feel like trying something totally outlandish).

Good luck! I hope you'll post some photos of this interesting pond garden of yours.

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 Post subject: Re: island garden
PostPosted: Fri May 14, 2010 11:45 am 
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Joined: Wed Jul 02, 2003 8:09 pm
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Location: Fort Worth,TEXAS
Heard back - thanks! BTW - I've put in a couple of types of squash this year, and am watching them daily and will probably treat with BT soon.

I don't see a link to photos you mentioned. But I'll look around some more.

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 Post subject: Re: island garden
PostPosted: Sat May 15, 2010 6:04 am 
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Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2009 8:35 am
Posts: 102
Northwesterner..look under Howard's Blog for some lovely pics of the island garden.

..and squash--whew, cucumber beetles, and squash borers, and sqauash bugs, and powdery mildew, and pollinating--oh my!


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