Thought I'd show some pics. Beans- new foliage and tiny beans that don't grow:

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Discoloration on some old foliage:

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Stunted peppers, a few in ground look like this with no new foliage and leggy:

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These ancient sweet peppers were performing well earlier, but now they look yellow and wilted, hardly getting new foliage or peppers:

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Butterstick squash getting few fruit, but stay tiny:

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Dwarf powderpuff- had to show something good!

Whaddaya think? Help!!!

Anna

Anna, Telling the difference between RK nematode galls and nitrogen nodules is easy. The RK galls are just a swollen part of the root. The nitrogen nodes look like little clumps of fine sand that are clinging to the roots and are easily brushed off. The Sting nematode is another parasitic pest of beans in Fl that can cause the damage you describe. It doesn't cause galls like the RK nematodes so it's harder to spot. It does cause a small root clump like you described. Unfortunately plants that are resistant to the RK nematode may not be resistant to the Sting (like some cowpeas) so to find an alternate plant to grow there may be hard. Your plan may work...for a year or two. You could do a soil test. I think the county ext office have kits to do that.

Good luck, john

Can you grow the pole-beans in pots, on your trellis ? just line-up the pots and put a piece of roofing shingle or something under the pot to keep it from touching the ground... each pot can hold lots of bean-vines.... just a thought... that's what I did last year, because of the RK nematodes.... sally

Anna,

I grow them in containers and make new potting mix every year. I've used both 5 gallon nursery containers (which are really 3.5-4 gallons), and 3.5 gallon buckets. I don't have good pictures of the beans because I've never focused on taking pictures of them but they are always healthy every year.... The first picture is with pot-in-pot nursery containers, the second is obviously my new move into the white 3.5 gallon buckets nested in 5 gallon buckets to reduce the amount of soil in each container and also to reduce the soil temps.

Tom

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John, unfortunately, I didn't have my glasses on while I was pulling the roots out, so I didn't really get a good look, but it didn't seem like root knot nematode damage. The nodules seemed round and white, but I didn't try to wipe them off and I'm not sure. Anyway, I may never know. All I know is that these bean plants are awful. Maybe a virus?

Sally, I already have so many containers, I was hoping to grow some things in the ground and beans have always done well for me in the ground- till now. I may very well have to do it in pots from now on, though.

Tom, your beans and sugar snaps look great! So healthy and vigorous! Do you grow zucchini in containers also? UGH! This veggie growing is maddening!

Anna

Yes Anna, I grow everything in containers including zukes and cukes. We've cut out the pole beans this season in an attempt to diminish the white fly problem but we also have flowers mixed in the veggie garden this year for the first time so it remains to be seen if the pests associated with them still cause viral problems for the tomatoes...all the books say so but we'd sure like to have more color in the garden and are willing to make some concessions as long as it doesn't spell disaster...only time will tell.

Tom

So frustrating to think I will have to grow so much in containers when I have the space in ground. How does Silvia do it?

Hi Anna

I am very sorry about your veggies, I know that you try hard and should be rewarded for your effort, I was away on vacation and did not see your post.

I planted some peas today just to show you how I plant beans and peas without crop rotation, I am in the same situation and can not put them anywhere else.

After any harvest I put black cow, all purpose fertilizer, lime, let it sit for a while, at least a couple of days. After I make a hole, and put coffee filters in the ground, I fill with any container soil that I have made or bought, water lightly, put the seeds in and water again. This way I make sure that the beans or peas grow and are strong, when they go in the raised bed soil they are at least bigger.

I took a picture just for you, today is nice and cooler, fall is here.

Beans planted the same way are doing well even I was not caring for them or spraying.

Going back to your pictures I think that the problem might be caused by either too much rain, watering or small insects
The peppers if you have them in self watering containers maybe they are too wet? The zucchini if it is not reaching full size might be nematodes? I would use a small brown bag to start them instead of coffee filters. Anna, do not be discouraged, you still have nice weather to plant again, just remember when soil is cooler nematode activity slows down, we can put carrots, beets, lettuce, broccoli, almost everything to eat and make a nice salad. There is nothing compared to our own home grown veggies.

Silvia

Here is a link that might be useful: mosaic in beans

Silvia, thank-you so much for your demonstration! I don't think I have time to plant any more beans and get a harvest before cold this season. However, when it cools down more, I may try sugar snaps in the same way you showed me. Are those #4 or #2 size coffee filters? How many seeds do you put in each? In spring I switch the tomatoes (in swc's) to this trellis and plant beans where the tomatoes are now, so I will try your method then as well. I sure hope it works for me like it works for you. Thank-you again for your suggestion. I think it could be that mosaic virus you linked to or maybe nematodes. The soil does not get too wet there. Will the virus go in the soil or will it go away with the plants? I wonder.

Silvia, do you think there is still time to plant zucchini in the brown bags? I just knew I would have luck with zucchini this season and now look. I am still hopeful with cooler weather at least the butterstick will give me a few reasonable sized ones? I think the costata romanesco is too far gone.

I suspect you are right about the self watering containers and the peppers being too wet. I think I will put them in regular containers next time.

Two last questions. Silvia, do you spray the beans and peas with the spinosad and serenade? I have been doing that, but I don't know if I should. Also, what is the best temperature to plant sugar snaps. It is high 60's at night now, 86-88 highs during the day. Thanks again!

Anna

Anna - The coffee filters are natural basket-style, no bleach added, fits most basket style coffee makers 8-12 cup and I think I got it in Publix. I put 3-4 seeds in each basket for peas and 2 for beans. I planted my peas this morning, it is cool enough for me, but we have a window of planting so whenever I get the space I will plant more later on. Before I went on vacation, I did spray with spinosad and serenade. I will start spraying tomorrow again.

The fungal diseases that we get here are usually caused by rains and humidity, I think the biggest problem with the soil are the nematodes but we are going to a cooler season so they are not going to be a major issue.

I was saving the space for cool season crops so I planted the butterstick zucchini in a pot, they have been producing well, the costata romanesco planted in the ground grew so close to the delica squash that covered the whole backyard door, next week probably will be picking some. I would try to grow 1 zucchini plant in a container if I was you, if successful, you will get fruit if not you can recycle the soil in the garden bed. In spring, you can try the bags.

About the peppers they like to be on the drier side, it is better to under water them than over water them.

Here is a picture of the delica winter squash and costata romanesco in the ground planted in brown bags.

Another delica squash planted in a potato bag

Butterstick zucchini planted in a tomato pot

Silvia

Silvia, all your squash look so healthy and vigorous. I will try one in a pot this week. I will put those coffee filters on my Publix list. I will try to remember about keeping the peppers on the dry side. I definitely think that's what happened to the ones in the swc. Thanks again, Silvia, and thanks for posting the photos.

Anna

Silvia, I read about mosaic virus and I think you're right again. I think that's what I've got. It's always something. I just hope other stuff in the garden doesn't get it.

Anna

Anna - I don't think it will transmit to any other parts in the garden. When plants are under stress or weak they fall prey for the insects and they are the carriers, the rain and humidity does not help either. The soil does not cooperate with us that is why we have to make them strong at least as seedlings. I was talking to my friend who grows commercial crops and he said they make the soil as sterile as possible before planting. Spraying regularly also helps but is not a cure all. Before planting in the same spot again, try to clean the trellis with a mild bleach solution. After I came back, I saw the garden and everything made it, the only ones that are not looking too good are the cucumbers and I know why, overhead watering from the sprinkles because that is all they got and no spray for disease or bugs, bingo.:( And they are in containers. I am just looking at the positive and concentrate on the cool season crops which we love!

Silvia

...overhead watering from the sprinkles....

Okay Silvia, you and Willy have done everything else, now it's time for a micro-sprinkler system, as a back-up. Not as good as rain water but when you can't tend the garden in the morning or while your away, like us working folks, it will solve some problems!

Tom

Tom, because Willy is such a great gardener, lol, he said that overhead water is good because that is how they do it at the nurseries. And to prove his point he always show me when we go some place. Maybe some day...in the meantime because I have small garden I don't mind to water it, at the same time I check the crops, the black jungle butterbeans were not sprayed or water, at least they made me look good when friends come to the house.:) I wish more people would know how to cook with them, they are very good for our weather and resistant to bugs. I am going to freeze some more tonight after I shell them.

Silvia

I feel the same about the Red Noodle pole beans, they started out in the spring great then the stink bugs aphids and everything else swarmed them, I had lima beans right next to them and hardly any bugs, the Red Noodle must give off an enormous amnount of sweet nectar, even with the almost daily spray.
Silvia I looked for the black jungle beans and it looks like no one sells them. Would you be so kind to spare a few if I send a SASE to you, you have been so kind in the past with sharing your bounty, in fact I have some of your tomatoes starting to form fruit right now. If not I understand like I said they are hard to find.

Silvia, your garden is at least five times mine, small garden??? ;-) We didn't start any pole beans hoping to diminish the white fly problem with the tomatoes, but I have pentas and dwarf zinnias in the garden so the probability of pest problems is still high. I'm wondering if putting in some Black Jungle beans in would NOT pose a problem for the rest of the veggies since you say they don't attract the pests much.

Tom

BTW Silvia, tell Willy those commercial Ag guys can get away with overhead sprinklers because they also use tons of pesticides on their crops! They're spraying those nasty chemicals almost every day :-(

Steve - Maybe it was a bad season for red noodle beans not only here but there is an invasion of bugs all over, we have to start getting ready for the stinkbugs that come in spring, I will be using the kaolin spray this time early on. About the black jungle beans, I still have your address and will mail you some, you will be happy to grow them next season, when nothing grows in our weather, those will. The japanese sword beans are also very strong, however the taste is more like the yardlongs than a green bean.

Tom - I told you that were I was at the resort, the only had common ornamental plants, a lot of pentas I saw and they sprayed every day that I was there, oleanders, hibiscus, ruellia, even the sea grapes were sprayed and they had a bad bug problems.
About the black jungle beans, they did not get bean diseases and were very productive and strong, when we had the lubber attack they were not even touched, that is why I am saying strong plants can combat any disease or bugs, I wish that we can find more plants like that. From the cucumbers plants that I am growing now the diva was the one that had the most fruit, I guess for now the most disease resistant, let me know how your diva cucumbers will do.

Silvia

You know, I think it was the red noodle beans which brought problems to the pole beans. The red noodles became infested with ants and then lots of aphids. Little black bugs eventually on the back of the leaves. I planted the pole beans adjacent to them several weeks before I decided to pull the red noodles. I think the aphids brought the virus or disease to the pole beans.

Speaking of the pole beans and probable virus. I have completely pulled all the vines. Picked up any leaves/flowers I can see, pulled all the roots I can see, and removed about the top 3-4 inches of soil from about 8-12 inches on either side of the trellis. I am concerned there could still be roots in there, but I pulled all the ones I could find. By the way, there was no nematode damage on any of the roots. Just the tiny nitrogen fixing balls. I plan on spraying the trellis with a dilute bleach solution and letting it fall on the dug out soil areas. A few days later I will replace with new soil. How does this sound? Do you think this will get rid of the virus for future pole bean/ sugar snap pea crops? Should I remove the soil to a deeper level? Please advise!

Anna

Sounds like an awful lot of work to me, but then building new potting mix and cleaning my containers with a mild bleach solution every year isn't exactly child's play.

Tom

Anna - I think you will be fine. I had 3 cucumber plants in the same container, the poinset got sick but the other 2 that were diva were still fine and producing, to be on the safe side I pulled them out, next to it are delica winter squash vines and they are fine. This season brought in more bugs than I have ever seen before, I can control what goes on in my yard but I can not control anywhere else in the neighborhood, diseases are a lot of time airborn. The food that we buy we don't know what conditions were raised and what chemicals. I heard someplace that the stinkbugs came in a shipment from China, also the other day saw it on the news a beetle that it was in an imported food from somewhere else.

When the beds are new everything grows well, after we just have to be more careful. I had one lesson early in life when I saw the nomad tribes in the jungle, they plant one season in the fertile soil and after the harvest move somewhere else and plant again. Cooler climates than us have a winter season to put a stop to the bugs and let the soil rest. My friend said that around him they have 3 gardens, one to let fallow and 2 to plant.

Maybe another person has better suggestions about what to do, there is also a product actinovate that I found it at ace, if you are still concerned about disease.

Silvia

I grew my red & green noodle beans in the screen-greenhouse and did not have any problems with the bugs on them. They put out beans for at least 3 months (granted I did do successive plantings but the originals kept making beans), and I still did get the mold & virus because I think it comes in on the wind or in the rains. I had some molds & fungus develop on some of my other plants too. I mechanically dusted (above & under leaves) with diatomaceous earth ground to talc sized powder to control any small flies & critters that fit through the screen. Powdery mildew was my biggest problem this year after each rain storm. I also had small breakouts of sooty mold on two citrus trees and one lychee tree. The stink bugs just sat on the outside of the screens with the lubbers and drooled all summer :) Only two small green grasshoppers sneaked in but they chomped on the rice seeds and were easy to catch and squish.

One more hint;
Do not pull your bean roots out, just snip the bean vines off at the soil level and let the bean roots decompose in the soil thereby slowly releasing the nitrogen they made back into the soil. If you just throw them whole onto your compost pile most of the nitrogen they made in the nodules will be lost due to leaching in your compost pile.

Lou

Lou

You are a funny man! lol. You were not spared of mother's nature wrath.

I got some nice red noodle too, this season I grew different ones because I was busy with the new additions.

My red noodle June 2009

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Silvia

Sylvia,

Your garden pictures are awesome, I wish I knew Martha Stewart like you do and get her plants after her staging for TV shows :)

The only way I can get my garden to look like yours is to plant the plastic plants, but the wax vegetables & fruit stick to my false teeth and don't taste much better than what I can buy at Publix market. LOL

Lou

Well, I'll see what kind of energy I have this weekend and if I feel like removing more dirt. Maybe I'll find more roots to remove. Lou, I have to remove the roots this time because they could be infected by the virus culprit. Next time I won't though if they are not diseased.

Silvia, come to think of it, I only have 3 cucumber plants growing in a pot and climbing the trellis. I noticed today the middle one has a yellowing growing tip and foliage. I thought the same thing... could this be virus? Should I pull this plant or even all three even if the other two look fine? So many questions!

Tom, it was a lot of work, but it's what we do, isn't it? All for the challenge of growing veggies. Probably not worth it for the amount I get!

Anna

Lou - You should do an experiment next spring, plant the black jungle butterbeans in the amended soil outside your fortress,lol. I bet you money that you will be successful. If you want to try them, send me your address to my email.

Tom - At least we are growing some muscles mixing the soil,lol, and we do get some rewards here and there, it is only sometimes that we get a problem. We have to remember that there is no paradise anywhere, we just have to make the best of what we have.

Anna - Cucumbers are very prone to get sick, just like the tomatoes but as long as I get fruit I am not complaining. One way for sure to know that you have the virus in the cucs is to taste the fruit and it will be bitter. They do get a lot of yellowing leaves, I would not worry about it unless you see more symptoms like distorted fruit and leaves.

Silvia

...the poinset got sick but the other 2 that were diva were still fine and producing, to be on the safe side I pulled them out, next to it are delica winter squash vines and they are fine.

Silvia, I thought it was a no-no to plant cukes next to zukes/squash. Seems I've read somewhere that the zuke/squash diseases are easily transmitted to the cukes.

Tom

Tom - The cucs were planted 3 in a pot alone, 1 poinset and 2 diva. The delica winter squash is planted on the other side of the garden in the potato bag but when I was away, the squash had grown all over the yard including around the trellis where I had the cucs and tomatoes. At the corner of the tomato garden is the butterstick squash in another pot still looking healthy. I still have to make pickles with all the cucs that I took out and the butterstick, I already have people ask me for those.:)

Silvia

Sylvia,
Let me build my raised beds outdoors first to see how much room I will have outside for everything. If everything goes as planned I should have room and will ask you for a few black jungle butter beans. As I grow older I seem to go slower each year building things so I'm not sure how much I can build because it all has to be completely fenced from all the wild critters here, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, armadillos, tortoise, deer, wild pigs, oppossum, field mice, etc.

My cucumber vines grew up the sides of the screens and across the roof top screen and the cucumbers were hanging down from the stems like papaya 15 feet up in the air. I had to pick them standing on a step ladder. I didn't dare take any pictures because you people would think I was gone totally nuts. Now that I pulled all the vines down I feel safe to tell you. I felt so stupid planting them next to the screen-house walls.

Lou

Silvia- Thank you for sharing your bounty once again, I will put the Black Jungle Beans to good use and hopefully I can grow enough to share with someone as well this coming spring. Plus the extra surprises as well- the Sword bean seeds are huge.

Steve - You are welcome. For next spring, you will need strong trellis for the butterbeans. The sword beans, you only need 1. I have only 1 seed in the trellis and they are still alive since March, they are heavy producers. If you put it in a pot with a tepee made of bamboo, they can be very ornamental, you may or may not like the taste, they are only eaten when inmature, they will be a show piece at your house.:)

Silvia