My vegetable garden has been sabotaged. This is my first garden so I have no idea what has happend,?
the tops of my cucumber and tomato plants have been eaten off. the plants have not been uprooted or damaged in any other way. it almost looks as if somthing came through with sheers and cut off their little tops, including my only grown tomato. the cucumber plant that was ruined had no cucumbers on it and only little flowers and leaves. WHAT on earth could be doing this? i am going out to buy a giant fence to put around it, but is it possible that my dogs are doing this? one of them eats gras alot but she is large and fat and I cant imagine she could manage to gently trim the flowers from my poor veggies. Please help me!
What is destroying my vegetable garden? Something is eating tops of the plants.?
Definitely deer...the rule-of-thumb actually where I live is you need at least a 7 foot high fence to stop them.The fact you've never seen them means they've adapted and are almost completely nocturnal-and it doesn't take a herd of them-it only takes one.There can be fields of green grass and all kinds of browse in the woods around but deer are drawn to tomato plants like bees are to honey.If you can't fence them out the best deterrent I found was to string fishing line about 2 feet off of the ground between two stakes..or poles or trees etc.-with an aluminum can (just thread the fishing like through the pop-top-and wrap it once or twice so the cans don't slip on the line))every 8 feet or so-buy a small package of marbles and put two or three in each can-when deer touch the fishing line the can rattles(deer don't like "metallic" sounds)-I tried other noisemakers that relied on wind(but there's generally little wind at night) and they were ineffective.
Vegetable/Fruit Garden - what to grow?
A tomato plant. If you get a cherry tomato, only get one plant. For large tomatos get like 3 plants tops! Big boy is a good kind, or Early Girl. And cage your tomato, its easier than staking a plant. Then you could try one hill of BUSH zuchinni. get the bush kind, it doesn't vine all over the place and pci the zukes when they are about the size of a small cucumber and they should keep coming. If you try a pepper plant or two keep them away from your tomatos. Peppers dont like fertilizer, tomatos do. Onions are easy from onion sets if you can find a dozen or so instead of a bag of 100. Who needs that many oinons? From seed, carrots, radishes, green beans, wax beans, pole beans, just follow package directions. If you don't use all the seed it should still be good next year if kept warm and dry. Things to avoid, potatos, they are so buggy it will turn you off and cheap enough to buy. Asparagus, it will take over and keep coming back for years. Rhubarb, same thing. Melons and pumpkins, the vines need too much room, leave that stuff to the farmer. Good luck. EDIT: For an almost maintenance free garden that is water saving, take a dark plastic trash bag and carefully cut it down both sides at the crease, then lay it out on the prepared soil like a sheet on a bed. use a few rocks to hold it down then tuck in all sides into the dirt and toss a little dirt on top to keep the plastic there. This will stop weeds from growing, keep the soil warm and moisture in. Use a blowtorch turned down low, one of those propane things, and barely touch the plastic where you want a little hole to plant your plant. After planting mulch over the plastic with a little straw of even lawn clippings. Now when you water all you have to water is the hole where the plant is and it saves water. Just water it and make sure it gets enough then walk away. No weeing, well a little maybe at the hole.
How should you plan your vegetable garden?
1. Make a list of your favorite vegetables.2. Grade the list according to preference: A for Absolute Favorite--couldn't live without; B for Better Than Many--really enjoy them; and C--Could Buy at Grocery Store if Necessary and Not Be Too Unhappy. Be sure to check with spouse if applicable, particularly if spouse is the one who does the actual cooking.3. Decide to give the most space or the best location to the As.4. Find the spot in your yard that gets the best sun and has the best soil. All the vegetables that produce fruits (tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, squashes, eggplants, peppers) will need to go here. Lettuces, kale, and onions can be relerated to semishade.5. On graph paper, chart out beds no wider than 4 feet so that you have easy access to the center when watering or weeding. The beds can be as long as you like assuming you have the space. Remember also that the beds should be close enough to a water source that you can run a hose to it easily.6. Chart out a path at least 4 feet wide to the beds. Narrower paths make for cramped wheelbarrowing of compost to the beds, an activity that will be crucially necessary as the season progresses.7. Allocate a space 4 feet square, out of direct sunlight, for your compost heap or bin. Renewing the soil of your garden bed with compost is essential for soil health and vitality.8. On your graph paper figure out where your A list vegetables will go. Give each the space recommended in the garden books. Remember that indeterminate (i.e., vining) tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, and melons can take up to two to four times as much space as nonvining vegetables, so look for compact varieties if available in order to save space (but even compact varieties get pretty big). Many gardeners train such vining veggies up trellises, or plant them with wire cylinders around them to force their growth upwards.9. Struggle with despair as you realize you have far too many vegetables for the space allocated.10. Give up and take up another hobby, such as model railroading.11. Just kidding.
Should I let my partner grow vegetables on my deceased dogs grave?
My lovely old labrador died three years ago and we buried him in the garden. We're on water restrictions so the garden isn't very healthy at all except in this one spot where my old dog is buried and the weeds grow profusely. My partner came up with the idea of growing vegetables there. I do miss homegrown vegetables but I cant imagine eating anything which my old dog has fertilized. What do you all think of this?
Can you substitute a good multi-vitamin for fruits/vegetables?
It goes like this: Pure Vitamins cannot be put in a bottle. Vitamins are an intrinsic part of a living thing and cannot be separated. Why, because vitamins are a complex, not just one element. What you see in a bottle of, say, Vitamin C is only one part of Vitamin C, usually the acid, with is only the preservative part of Vitamin C. Vitamin pills are a total scam. Perhaps a supplement made form whole foods would be better, but it would still be highly processed. I'm thinking that spirulina and blue green algae and such products would be the best alternative. Vitamins within a plant are naturally balanced with all of the other elements that make up the plant, thus, if you eat it, you will be eating a balanced food, and thus be balanced yourself. If you take a pill, even if it's packed with nutrition, it's totally unbalanced and thus you will be unbalanced. Being out of balance will put a lot of stress on your body because it will have to fight to keep in balance and do some drastic things such as break this down and get rid of it, take some of that from there and put it here, etc. Think of osteoporosis. Why does that exist? Because someone eats too much protein over many years. The body only needs and is only capable of using a very small amount of protein and any excess protein needs to be broken down and gotten rid of, and to do this it takes energy, vitamins, minerals, including a lot of calcium. The body takes emergency calcium from the bones to get rid of this excess protein. So, balance is the key to good health. So, start a garden. It's easy; it can even be done in thick plastic bags or pots on the apartment balcony. There are whole sections of books in your local library dedicated to such topics as growing your own food. And it's cheap cheap cheap!! We have a garden, and it's an all-year-round garden in Canada. We literally go to the garden and pull out $20 retail worth of stuff and it doesn't even look like we touched a thing. Living like kings, especially in the spring, summer, fall. It's one of those things that seems daunting, but once you start growing your own food, it's super easy. It's like learning to bake bread; you only get better as time goes on.