Merchant Park Community Garden

I just wanted to share with you this North Dakota State Univ Ag school link on bacteria wilt in squash. The key to preventing the wilt is controlling the cucumber beetle. I thought the wilt overwintered in the soil. This is NOT the case. The wilt overwinters in beetles and they carry it forward. It’s important not to plant curbits (squash /…[Read more]

Hey — the tomatoes at Sam’s school have got blossom end rot (you’ll see big, brown leathery blotches at the bottom of the tomato). Apparently, it’s pretty rampant this year. Haven’t seen any at our garden but thought I’d pass on the UofI info on it (see below). It’s very easy to deal with. Also, I’ve seen a lot of flowers on basil plants.…[Read more]

A quick tip for future tomato staking is to reinforce your inverted conical supports with stakes. I use 3 per support, pushed into the ground and then attached and tied around the rim with garden twine. If you have several tomato plants growing alongside one another, you can usually bind them together for a stronger formation so that each support…[Read more]

I’m not afraid to sound dumb, so here goes … When I planted seeds, it was windy and they all scattered around, so I’m not sure what I’ve got growing in that corner! If one of you more experienced gardeners is willing, could we arrange a time to meet in the garden for a little tutorial?

The best time to harvest basil is right before it flowers. I think this goes for most herbs (anyone want to jump in here?) If you don’t want to harvest all your basil, you can continue to grow basil but pinch the flowers — that keeps all the energy and nutrients the plant is generating going to leaves and roots not to flowering and reproducing.…[Read more]

Heard that someone had a question about how to harvest lettuce. For “leaf” lettuce types, you pick the actual leaves from the outside, letting the inner leaves to grow. For “head-type” lettuce, you cut the lettuce from the base or just pick the entire plant, roots and all. Also, with leaf lettuce, I’ve seen gardeners grow baby leaf lettuce,…[Read more]