Way too many. I will have to give a bunch to the food bank for sure

I don't suppose that anybody knows an affective way to get rid of root maggots? I'd love to grow some veg but every attempt I make at growing veg results in them being destroyed by root maggots

AmberLeaf said:I don't suppose that anybody knows an affective way to get rid of root maggots? I'd love to grow some veg but every attempt I make at growing veg results in them being destroyed by root maggots

That sounds terrible. Are there some soil additives that discourage them?

Root maggots are primarily pest for brassicas. You should be able to grow most other vegetables. Assuming of course that you have cabbage root maggots. The other maggot that is a pest in some parts is the carrot fly. Really no effective pesticides available to home gardeners. https://ag.umass.edu/fact-shee...

I haven't tried soil additives but have always used the same compost for all my plants but only certain plants are affected, onions are the worst that get affected, and carrots and parsnips, cabbage and broccoli as well. My other plants are never affected by them. Somebody once mentioned that coffee granules are a good way off keeping root maggots out and others have mentioned tobacco can be used as a pesticide, I've tired both them but nothing works. I'd be interested in more soil additives that I could try.

I also just wanted to add that I've seen Kiwi plants growing outside in the wild in Hampstead Heath which bare fruit that I'm fascinated by. Edit opps sorry wrong thread...

Back after some months. Just wanted to say that my experiment (where I wanted to see whether I could grow C. maxima squashes and not just C. moschata if I had a trap planting of amaranth) failed terribly. I got not a single squash, summer or winter. Even the faithful Black Futsu was only able to produce a single fruit smaller than my fist. I started out trying to pick and kill as many squash bugs and cucumber beetles as I could, but they won. It wasn't a nightmare swarm, but too many for me to keep up with.

I kind of think I didn't have enough amaranth. But either way, not willing to try that again until I have space to plant a lot more squash. It's C. moschatas from here till then, and they're worth it on their own. I'm just greedy.

I still haven't pulled up the two cabbage turnips I planted. Need to do that, but kind of scared, lol. The plants got huge, and there's a three-foot, 2-inch thick purple stalk on one of them that I think was originally root but ran out of space in the container and just started pushing up out of the ground.

Tomatoes are still producing, and we've just been cooking with them mostly. What else... beans sort of ran out of steam during the drought, as did the kale. I'm a terrible waterer, need to hook up an irrigation system again.

Good to be back, I'll be reading back through the thread.

Franchi put their remaining garlic on sale:

- - 20% off the website prices PLUS
- - another 20% off with coupon code GARLIC2016 (good through Nov. 18 or until they run out)

The thread "Franchi (Seeds of Italy) 36% off garlic" in Garden Deals forum

Another beautiful day for working outside here, with a high temp up near 60F and sunshine! DH mowed (mostly picking up leaves off the lawn) and dumped everything on the garden. I took the rototiller to the "mature" part of my compost pile to loosen things up, and put 7 or 8 bucketfuls on my asparagus patch, followed by covering the whole thing up with the leaves.

The base for the new hoop house is finished and tomorrow we plan to start building the sidewalls! We had considered using pavers for the floor in the part that had been inside the old greenhouse but it occurred to me that if we just used dirt, with cedar mulch for walking on, it would leave the option open to use the entire area for in-ground planting sometime in the future. Otherwise, I know we would never be up for doing as much work as it would take to remove the pavers, dig out the sand underneath, and then add the soil for growing. At this point I don't really think I will want to take out the seedling benches and stuff to allow more planting room, but you never know

Good to plan ahead!!! And your moving along nicely with your project.