Hi Danielle. Maybe it's better to be a little behind than too early! I started tomato seed in January and the plants are outgrowing the light shelf. Oops.

What are you going to start this week? Sure wish spring break weather was going to be nicer.

I'm kind of tomato obsessed and the squash bugs killed all the squash last year :-/ So tomatoes will be starting up inside, and probably throw some carrots outside in the garden for fun. I'll have to look and see what else I have still.

Hi Danielle, Well this is the right place for anyone who is kind of tomato obsessed.

For squash, I've begun growing them under Micromesh and Biothrips netting and that's been a wonderful new experience. It does involve lifting the netting to hand-pollinate the flowers, but it sure cuts down on squash bugs. Or, at least it did last year. We'll see what happens this year. You know, you cannot consider anything a big success here until it has worked for 2 or 3 years, because one year is just not a long enough track record.

Dawn

Hi Danielle! I'm getting more seeds out this week too! I'm either behind or way too early. Like hazel, I started the tomatoes WAY too early (which I partially blame Dawn for (wink), but since I've done it before I guess I have to admit I know better and it's my own fault! And Dawn has a greenhouse which I don't! Lol)

I was wondering just how soon everyone will be starting cukes, and squash indoors? I was considering starting some corn indoors too just to get a small jump on the season. Thoughts?

Go ahead and blame me. I can take it.

It is oo early for corn in central OK or anywhere else in the state. It can go into the ground down here in southern OK beginning somewhere around March 23-25, but often is damaged or killed by late freezes, so probably shouldn't even go into the ground here until around April 1st. If you want to start corn plants in a plantable container like paper cups, you probably could start about 2 weeks before the date you intend to put them in the ground. OSU says March 23 (SE OK) through April 30 (NW OK) so since you're in the middle of the state, you probably wouldn't want to plant corn in the ground before around April 10-15. Well, unless Lee says winter is done.

For cucumbers and squash started indoors, it still seems a bit early. I'd wait another week to start them probably. There's one exception. If you have cucumber beetles, start 6-12 seeds indoors now. Once the plants have 1 or 2 true leaves, harden them off in the garden and take them out there with you every time you're out there. Have your favorite pesticide....insecticidal soap or whatever....handy with you. The early hatches of cucumber beetles will flock to those first cucumber plants, so you're using the early plants as a trap crop to lure them in. Kill ever cucumber beetle you see on those plants. You can spray the with insecticidal soap, or you can put on disposable gloves and squish them between your finger or you can knock them quickly into a bowl of soapy water (before they fly away). After a week or two of killing all the cucumber beetles you find, you can put your real crop in the ground. That week or two of killing the early cucumber beetles will give your future cucumber transplants or new seedlings if you plant from seeds sown directly in the ground, a chance to make some growth and get off to a good start before the next round of cucumber beetles show up.

I will just set a six-pack of sacrificial early cucumbers that I'm using as a trap crop on a table in my garden so it is easy to keep an eye on it and on the pesky cucumber beetles. I carry it inside at night so the cucumber beetles can't feast on the plants while I'm indoors. I want to see and kill every one of them.

Cukes and squash should go in the ground later than corn as they need warmer soil temperatures. Rushing them into the ground won't give you an earlier harvest because the cold soil/air temperatures make them sit and sulk and refuse to grow for a week or two.

Trying something different for squash this year. Planted in pots two weeks ago, and will transplant in big pots until they can be planted out. Hope it works. Bad SVB issues

Danielle I put some carrots out about 8 days ago under clear plastic and they are just starting to pop up! I love homegrown carrots!

Thanks Dawn! I felt it was still too early for everything, but I've got the itch just like everyone else around here lol

This is my first time trying corn so I'm not sure what I can get away with. I knew transplanting corn must be done relatively quickly 2-4wks so thanks for clarifying. I have 3 varieties with different DTM the super sweet being the fastest to maturity. If the DTM are staggered about 5-10 days but all planted at the same time, will they still pollinate each other? I don't have a huge area for the blocks but I'm trying 2 blocks/4 rows ea. about 15ft apart. (Sounds weird but working with what's available space-wise) Hopefully it'll work.

James- I never win the SVB battle, even with C. Moschata varieties, but I refuse to give up! Pots have helped me before as long as they were covered until blooming, and succession sown so I had transplants ready when the adult plants succumbed to the inevitable attack. Let us know how yours fare!

Thanks for all the added info on squash and other pests! I might have to try out the netting... squash is one of the few veggies all of us like lol

Growing multiple corn varieties in close quarters is tricky. Having DTMs staggered 5-10 days apart probably is too close. I try to have them 30 days apart. You can try it and see what happens. If you have the space to put a tall, fast-growing barrier crop between them, like sunflowers for example, that might help. Just a row or two of sunflowers between the different varieties might help block the wind-blown pollen enough that you wouldn't get cross-pollination, although about 5 rows of sunflowers would be more ideal if you were not space challenged. I usually grow my early variety in the front garden and my later variety in the back garden so they are separated by about 300', with the house, detached garage/barn, greenhouse and garden shed between them to keep the pollen from either one interfering with the other. Really, without the structures in place to help block pollen from traveling on the wind from one corn crop to another, I might even have trouble with those 2 gardens being only 300' apart. It would be better to have the two different corn varieties separated by 400-500', but that's not going to happen unless I plant my corn in the woodland, which just wouldn't end well.

I have grown different corn varieties 30' from each other with no cross-pollination issue, but I had tall barrier crops between them as well as 3 or 4 weeks of a time difference in between when the first one pollinated and the second one began to pollinate.

What you don't want to have happen is for the pollen from one variety's tassels to be able to make it to the silks of the next variety, so in that sense, it is best if one variety tassels and silks and then is done, and then the next variety tassels and silks and is done, and then the third one does the same thing. Some people work around that by removing the tassels from each variety as soon as the corn silks on the ears begin to turn brown and they know for sure that pollination/fertilization has been achieved. That would work, but would work best only if the next variety hasn't already got its silks out before you remove the tassels from the previous variety.

It is the supersweet corn that suffers the most if it is cross-pollinated by a regular sweet corn or a sugary enhanced sweet corn. The cross-pollination can override the supersweet genes, basically, so that the supersweet either doesn't develop the sweetness it should or it does develop the sweetness but cannot maintain it for very long after being picked.

I can just hear the deer and raccoons whispering, "Awww, come on, plant some corn in the woods for us, pleeeease!"

They don't whisper. They yell. (grin) That's why both gardens have an 8' tall fenced, dubbed "the prison fence" by Tim's best friend. I don't care what he calls it. It keeps the plants safe inside and the wildlife out.

Oh shoot! I had no idea corn shouldn't cross pollinate! Ok, I will stagger my plantings a lot more, and hope for the best. I was under the impression more pollination would be a good thing. Thank you Dawn for saving our super sweets (wink)!

I went ahead and planted a tray of trap-crop cukes. I don't recall them being awful last year, but aphids stunted the cukes terribly so maybe they never found them. Then later in the season I realized I actually have root-knot nematodes in that area. Bummer. I bought over 3 dozen huge Marigold plants from TLC and planted them in that bed in hopes of killing some of the population off and trapping them as well. Supposedly if they are in the ground over 90 days they emit a toxin to those nematodes? Here's to hoping. I hated throwing away all those plants at the end too. What a waste of future compost! But no sense in spreading those evil creatures into the compost pile! Yikes.

Any recommendations on what to try in that area? I have peas in it now since I read the nematodes don't become very active in cool soil. Maybe I'll get a harvest before they go to town.

Some folks have good luck with marigolds, some have poor luck, in terms of controlling root-knot nematodes. To be most effective, the marigolds need to be sown almost as thick as grass. I've seen recommendations that the plants be no more than 7" from one another so that nematodes cannot survive in between the plants, and the marigold planting must be kept completely weedfree so the RKNs cannot survive on the weeds. Some marigold species and varieties work better than others. If I had RKNs I'd grow Elbon cereal rye as a winter crop every winter. It traps the nematodes in its roots and when you pull out or plow out the plants you take the nematodes with them, so to speak. Two other ways to combat nematodes involving working tons of organic material into the soil or even adding clay. Nematodes thrive in very sandy soil, so doing whatever you can to reduce the percentage of the soil that is sandy will help a great deal.

There are some specific types of veggies (and also some flowers like zinnias) that are not susceptible to root knot nematodes, and that includes onions. Even with vegetables that are susceptible to nematodes, there are some varieties that have been bred to have increased tolerance of (though not necessarily total resistance to) nematodes. Sweet potatoes are a great southern crop that grows very well in sandy soil and a lot of the popular sweet potato varieties are tolerant of nematodes.

The linked fact sheet lists some of the varieties with nematode tolerance. Any hybrid tomato variety that has an N listed after its name has at least some tolerance for nematodes, so when purchasing either seeds or plants, watch for than N. Usually you see it listed in the string of other letters that are shorthad for various disease or pest tolerances, like VFN or VFNTTA or whatever.

Clemson Univ: Nematodes

Thanks Dawn!

You're welcome.