But when it comes to tiny seeds, like carrots, spacing according to the packet directions is easier said than done. Go to the tape: Crowding your plants invites disease and deformity. Monitor a few times a day for several days. You can check the soil’s temp the same way you do a roast turkey’s: Stick the probe of an instant-read thermometer (meat or garden type is fine) 3 or 4 inches into the soil. Optimal temperatures vary from variety to variety, but 60 degrees F is sufficient for many vegetable seeds. Wait for warm soil: Seeds need more warmth to sprout than they do to grow once established. Shown: Frost sweetens the flavor of ‘Lacinto’ kale (aka Tuscan kale), which was grown in Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello garden. Insect traps also work you can make one by spreading Tangle-Trap, a sticky organic compound sold at garden centers, onto cardboard and going from plant to plant, flicking the invaders to their doom. Here’s another trick to try: Grow vulnerable plants between hairy-leaf types, such as radishes, which flea beetles don’t like. Tender seedlings are most vulnerable to all sorts of insect infestation, so it’s smart to start with transplants, which are hardier. They look like black or bronze pinheads, about 1⁄10 inch long, and jump if you wave your hand near them.Ĭure: These pests are a common problem for mustard-family plants (like broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and kale) as well as nightshade-family members (such as potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant). Quandary: The leaves are riddled with tiny holes.Ĭause: Flea beetles. Shown: Cherry-tomato vines are vigorous ramblers avoid disease by staking the plants to keep the foliage off the ground. Your local nursery can help you choose types that thrive in your area. And hedge your bets about when cold or hot weather will hit by growing some fast-maturing varieties as well as some that develop over a longer period. Too much nitrogen fertilizer makes plants produce foliage like crazy-not fruit.Ĭure: Go light on nitrogen-rich fertilizer (the label should say 4-12-4 or 5-20-5). Soil chemistry offers another explanation for a skimpy crop. And the high humidity that makes so many of us sticky and sluggish plays tricks on pollen, too, making it hard for the wind to scatter it. Scorching days pose their own set of problems pollen diminishes when temperatures push above 85 degrees to 90 degrees. Many tomato varieties don’t set fruit when nights are colder than 55 degrees F or warmer than 70 degrees. But the tomatoes never showed up.Ĭause: Blame the weather.
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