What did you do in the garden today?

[CluckNDoodle]

I've wondered the same thing.

Is your friend planting 'burpless' cucumbers? Those are the only ones that do not have a bitter note for me. They have low cucurbitacin content, which is the chemical responsible for the bitter taste in cucumbers.

It is naturally found in the entire family of squashes, pumpkins, melons, and gourds. The higher the temperature outside, the more it forms in cucumbers, hence the bitter flavor. The older and bigger they get, the more they have.

It's definitely cooler where she lives than where I am and she's tried several varieties.
Last year she planted Munchers from seeds that I sent to her so they should have tasted the same as the ones I am growing.

I make sure to pick them before they have any yellow but I don't have any issues with my cucumbers getting bitter otherwise and I planted like 12 varieties this year, lol.

You can rub the cucurbitacin out of the cucumbers. I do that when I wait too long to harvest.

Armenian cucumbers never seem to get bitter even when you allow them to get enormous because they're more like a melon.

 

[Sally PB]

You can rub the cucurbitacin out of the cucumbers. I do that when I wait too long to harvest.

How do you do that?

 

[LifeSimpleAndSweet]

You can rub the cucurbitacin out of the cucumbers.

" 'Splain, Lucy!"

 

[Sally PB]

My slips came! They look a bit the worse for wear, but I think they'll be ok.

Now I just hope they will take off and grow fast.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

How do you do that?

 

[Sally PB]

Thank you!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Thank you!

You're welcome! I've been doing it my whole life and didn't know it was weird until last year when someone asked me what I was doing.

 

[gtaus]

Great use of chicken wire too..

those wire “cages” look good, maybe I can build something like that for my eggplant and cabbage

They really work great for us and are so easy to make, use, remove, and store.

I use chicken wire for lots of stuff - but never for my chickens!? Go figure...

Thoughts? Should I just remove the acidic top layer of soil from the beds?

Interesting how your soil is good 2 inches and deeper, but the top 2 inches is a problem. Can you simply amend the top few inches with compost?

Another thought comes to mind is that this year I started my plants in 3-inch net cups. They all got transplanted into the garden and were at least 3 inches, or more, into the garden bed where your soil is good by your description.

Although I am not generally a proponent of tilling, if your top 2 inches of soil are not very good, maybe you could dump some good soil/dirt/compost on top and till everything together? My mini battery 40v tiller is good for down to 6 inches, and my big gas walk behind tiller mixes stuff up as much as one foot deep. Tilling is fast and easy if you have the machines. If it's a small area, a good pitchfork should work fine.

Although I'm not certain, I think compost is usually a neutral PH of 7.0, which in your case would raise those top 2 inches of soil where you need it to be. Every year I top off my raised beds with fresh chicken run compost. That's where I make more compost than I can use. However, any compost, even store bought, should help in your situation.

I live on a lake, and my soil is very sandy. For years, I was tilling in anything organic I could find... grass clippings, leaves, etc... It helped improve the soil, a lot, but I finally got smarter and built raised beds and just filled them with a high quality topsoil and compost from my chicken run. Instead of trying to grow soil in my in-ground garden, I'm now actually growing plants in my raised beds.

I read a passage somewhere on gardening that asked the question... "Do you want to spend years trying to improve your soil, or would you rather invest in high quality soil and compost now and be growing plants starting this year?" Given my age, I opted to invest in the later and am happy I did. I buy my topsoil from a nursery by the trailer full, but I get all the compost I can use, and more, from my chicken run composting system.

Point is, if you have a problem with your soil, take care of now and enjoy the rewards now in terms of healthier plants that produce good food for the family. If you can start a composting system, you will have compost to amend and top off your garden beds each year. Good luck.

 

[CNJ]

I dug this 3 year old Surinam Cherry tree up and didn't have anywhere to plant it, so I stuck it in a pond plant basket and covered it with rocks. I wonder if it can live in filtered tilapia water? The green stuff is duck weed, it multiplies really fast, I feed it to my fish as a supplement daily.

 

[Eagle343]

Added some trellis and worked with the bees.