bump

I am sure they are many who do grow them... Would love to see some posts and discuss what is doing better this season.

The zucchini and yellow are fruiting but tiny ( too hot i guess)

the beans are making vines no flowers yet. ( again Hot)

the eggplants are recovering from the Eggplant beetle war. they have grown a bit and looking much better.

the tomatoes are fruiting( green still) :-)

the hot peppers are getting ready ( already a few peppers)

The onions just do not seem to know what to do... all the upper leaves are gone... and I do not see anything below the soil... looks like something is loving them sweet onions... all gone.

the marigold flowers are loving the weather and blooming good.

the Blackberry vines are finally getting the berries to the reddish stage slowly. good crop... Now now the birds are eyeing them already

the blue berries are ripening a few at a time...I am picking them up early morning...

the okra still in the 2- 4 leaf stage ( did not like the transplanting )

the bottle gourd seems to be growing ok

the bitter squash is just about a 9 " tall. slow and steady...

hello Chas 045,

I lived in california too!!! Bay area!!

I lived in mountain view and santa clara. We moved here 20 years ago.

I agree the title should have been veggies or edible gardening..

Thanks for posting. I guess it is the heat that is forcing the critter ( all kinds ) to raid the garden in search of food and moisture...

Chas , if you need any thornless black berry cutting this fall, I can bring them for you. I have plenty of them. Just remind me.. :-).

The squashes , i think, are not liking the intense heat!! They are tiny and dry. I am watering deep and yet by next day it all looks dry!!!

My runner beans got decimated by the neighbor's cat . The cat likes to chew anything tender. She tried to chew the eggplant transplants and did not like the flavor... so she uprooted them all!!! Silly cat...

Glad to know there is still hope for beans... I think we have a long enough season to replant them... Just get a mesh basket and put it on top of beans till they are a foot tall. after that the will leave them alone..

The tomatoes... Horn worm is the culprit for me whenever i see that..

I have put a fence ( sort of ) around my veggie garden. It is ugly but seems to function..

To solve the problem of thirsty critters, I place a few trays of water in a shaded spots in my backyard. Hope that keeps em happy.

Hi Sabji, old neighbor: I was in Menlo Park, a golf ball's throw from Palo Alto and Stanford.
I doubt that heat is really a serious problem for squash. My first year with squash was terrific because squash vine borers didn't find them. It is always hot here. I think the humidity might make them get fungus sooner than in CA. If your squash recover from heat, later, I would like to know what you may be doing that hasn't drawn the borers. Of course, your serious wilting could actually be the borers, but it seems a little early for their affects to show up.

I haven't had a serious issue with horn worms. the problem here is the continual heat or perhaps the humidity again. Remember in CA, we could just leave tomatoes on the vine until completely ripe (and then some), while here, they have to be picked a couple days early or they will rot on the vine.

Re blackberries: that actually sounds tempting, but I'm not going to say yes yet. I actually have a couple plants that came from my one attendance of a swap two years ago. They haven't grown well. It very well could be my poor treatment; I have let my enthuseasm wane; or perhaps the area isn't condusive for their production. One would think that I should have offshoots aplenty but I don't. I went to that swap hoping to meet the people on the web, but found that John didn't suggest that people put their screen name on the name tags. In any case, most people there were not gardenweb regulars, but rather just swapers. There are even fewer posters now due to the Houzz switch and a gradual general earlier drop in activity.

Hehe,

Old neighbour indeed!! My husband and I used to come to stanford often.... we used to walk there; the chapel and then the rose garden in the back where the staff homes are... Beautiful.. !!

I just grew a few peppers in pots. they did well.

I joined the forum recently . Fall 2013 was the first swap I attended. So we have not met.. yet, unless you came to the later swaps. I was at the spring 2015 swap.

Yes, the activity here has dropped as, 1. The garden season has begun and 2. it is different from the old garden web forum.. I think ( Hopefully) it will pick up once the gang gets used to this new interface.. There is always a lag when there are changes.. Just like I am not happy with 8.1; I loved the XP ...

Well, the machine just died and so I was forced to work with 8.1 on my laptop.

I am hoping that win 10 is better than this... But you know, You have to carry on with whatever technology, etc.. throws at us.. Squashes included. I just sliced the 4 small one and deep fried them.. They were yum. I guess anything deep fried tastes good.

Ok back to the squashes..I don't know.. Some years ( I have grown them every year, for 20 years), they do exceedingly well !! and then some times they just collapse under the borer damage. :-(. This year they took too long to germinate and then half of them look ok. They are the ones that are fruiting .. No signs of the stink bug or borer.. YET!!!! they are plenty of flowers, ... I do see bees from my neighbours Bee hive.. No idea what to make of them. I have not been very successful with cucumbers the last 10 years too!! I used to get a gazillion of them before...

Anyway. one thing has always worked for me. Malabar spinach vines, Bitter squash, peppers, eggplants and tomatoes : lettuce, fenugreek, and arugula too.

. Hope you figure out whatever it is with the tomatoes... Good luck!!!

I just pick the tomatoes a smidge early and that works fine. My wife has a friend that likes to pot up from seed (and share) various heirlooms, and I end up with all sorts of odd ones from her. I have found that her yellow ones don't rot in the heat. I guess the cherry type don't either.

If you walked behind the chapel going north on Panama (or Santa Teresa too, I think), you would come to Searsville Rd. Were those the houses you were referring to (not that close to the church)? Anyway, if you walked all the way north to the end of Searsville Rd, you would have been across from our house. We walked our dogs out Searsville many evenings. I liked to think of 'uncle Lealand (Stanford)' to be our downed tree provider of firewood after no one cut or picked it up for a year. Eucalyptus is wonderful (and pretty) firewood.

That was 20 plus years ago!!! I am not sure... I just remember walking right behind the chapel for about 30 minutes .. Vaguely remember a faculty club,,, and so assumed they may have been faculty housing nearby... Neat little streets and beautiful roses everywhere. I guess next time I go up there I need to go to Stanford again... We usually end up going to Cannery row, Santa Cruz and half moon bay besides Frisco for sure.

Oh I do miss the fresh smell of Eucalyptus groves... Off of 101 going south.... past Gilroy...

Hello Chas045

Here is the first large Zucchini.. They are several small ones on the plant.

I see no signs of Stinkbugs or borers yet! This year I interplanted marigolds in the veggie beds.

Beautiful. I guess you must have started your plants around April 10 like one is supposed to. It was so wet that I didn't feel like fighting my way into the bog to plant anything. I haven't seen many stink bugs yet this year, but I usually have plenty of them. They don't appear to do much damage and I often leave them alone. Marigolds are certainly easy to grow. I will try them next year.

I think I like the marigolds in the veggie garden. they certainly seem to be helping, even if it is just looking colorful:-). I keep deadheading the spent flowers and throw them in the beds..

Someone once said that if you plant radish seeds with your squash that something in the radish plant repels squash vine borers and squash bugs. I have never tried it but now I think I will along with marigolds.

haha John,

I did that too!! did not know the benefit ! I grew it in another bed for fun as it was too hot already for them to make radishes. They did make a ton of leaves...I ate some and then....pulled them out last week. Making the bed ready for something else i can adopt!! Hehe. A couple of Loofah squash seeds that took 2 months to germinate are in that bed and so I think it will use up all space unless I put a trellis. It is slow going this year with the temps and humidity so early in the morning.
I just put my tomato stakes and bean trellis. Yes they are still just making vines.. kinda slow.. (In shade).

No method is fool proof, but no harm in growing them.. them bugs were there on earth from a very long time... and evolve rapidly to suit the surroundings. They sure know how to survive eh?

The marigolds are such care free plants and they do look colorful.. I am sure you will not regret it.. even if the bugs love them.

I had read about using radishes as green mulch. Now I know they have another purpose!! Will put them with marigold for Squashes.

this morning, what do I see? The leaves of my squashes got squashed (hammered) with the stink bugs!!! It happened so fast!!! They look terrible. The high temps have stopped production.. The stems are still ok.. No borer yet!!

But I do know that one bad bug messages another to come to the party..they are very good at that to!!

I will wait another week and then... make a decision.

Umm, speaking of Asian/Indian veggies, this person is selling lots of different varieties on Craigslist:

http://raleigh.craigslist.org/grd/5024090277.html

:-)

well!! It looks like the yellow squashes are the ones getting hit with the stink bugs.. The Zucchini is doing ok!. It has minimal damage.. I had given up on it ..I have another couple of them for harvest!! Yay!!!

The yellow.... u'mmmm not so sure !!