Too new to know what the heck I am doing...

[newbiedigger]

I am brand spanking new to the whole gardening thing. I planted my first garden this year and am still trying to determine how to save my plants from pests and I have a couple of questions if anyone has time to give a bit of advice.

My first question is, how can I get rid of the little potato bugs eating the leaves off of my potato plants? I really don't want to use anything chemical on my garden. Any advice?

Secondly, I recently planted some watermelon seeds and a little critter dug them up over night. Any suggestions on how to keep them out until the seeds sprout? I know I don't have much more time to plant them.

One more...I planted head lettuce and they are not growing into heads. Should I just cut them off and give up on the idea of having head lettuce? I planted them on May 14th. I am in ohio. Here is a pic of my garden about two weeks ago.

My garden (www.rainbowforevertrust.com/garden.jpg)

Thanks,
Newbiedigger

[Lavandula Girl]

Newbie your garden looks nice! Are those your lettuce off to the left? What kind did you plant? Some lettuces don't grow a tight head like iceberg - they're open and leafy, and very good! We actually just harvest one salad at a time at our house - taking the leaves as we need them. Regarding the potato bugs - they are the bane of all no chem gardeners! What kind do you have? Some soap sprays seem to have an effect, but they wash off in the rain! In regards to the watermelon seeds, a cloche or row cover might help, but at this point you'll need a pretty short growing season variety - lots of watermelons are over 100 days, which puts you out to October if you're lucky! Hope this helps... enjoy your garden!

[newbiedigger]

Thanks! Yes, that is my lettuce row off to the left. The three little mounds to the right are my watermelons. That is what I've been doing here, every time I want a salad I run out to the garden for the lettuce. Although I think it is about time to pick it all, they are very large and bushy. I am not sure what kind it is. I bought the seeds at walmart and I remember the description said it would produce a head.

I put some peppermint essential oil in a spray bottle with some water and went out today and sprayed the potato plants. I have no idea how effective it will be, but I remembered reading something about mint plants and keeping pests away.

Maybe I will just freeze the rest of my watermelons seeds and wait til next year.

Thanks for the kind words!!

Newbiedigger

[redbrick]

Next time you plant lettuce, consider some of the heirloom leaf varieties. You wouldn't believe how many different varieties there are! My personal favorite used to be Royal Oakleaf, until I tried Amish Deertongue this year. It's a short, pointy-leaved Romaine type with crisp, buttery, crinkly leaves that are never (so far) bitter. Yum!

As to the melon seeds, I would put them in dry cold storage until next year, like you said. Then, when the soil has warmed enough, plant them and set a hardware cloth cover box over them until they're off and running. Make the box at least six by six by four or five inches tall, and push it down into the soil about an inch or so.

Or maybe you could make knock-down cold frames like mini greenouses, using old window sash. A lot of times you can find old sash along the roadside with a free sign on it. What a windfall! If you can find double-glazed sash, they'll be even better at maintaining a warmer micro-climate for you tropical babies.

I don't know if there are any mini-greenhouses in your area, but here, they're apparantly all the rage, as I'm seeing them pop up in flowerbeds all over the place. Me, I've got more important things to protect with mine, like extra-early Eggplant sets.

If you want a more traditional kind of cold frame, there are plans for one on another thread in the Forum. I'll get the exact thread title and topic for you.

[redbrick]

The thread title is: "Easy cold frame plans wanted" in General Diggings.

[Lavandula Girl]

Newbie - are you going to plant more lettuce? Successive plantings can give you lots of lettuce all summer, and since you don't put much in at once, you don't need to worry that you'll have way more than you can use at any given time. If you plant lettuce every 3 weeks or so, throughout the growing season, it'll do well. Find varieties that are slow bolters for the heat of summer, but you can grow lettuce til it frosts. Three weeks is an estimate - probably more often if the lettuce is a real staple at your house, and maybe every 4 weeks if you only eat an occasional salad. Also, this gives you an opportunity to grow your own baby lettuce mix!

[Lavandula Girl]

You might want to check Zebraman's thread in heirloom gardening called "seed dreams" - there's a source listed there for a 60-80 day watermelon that maybe you could still have success with in Ohio.

[sparrowgrass]

Try using Dipel (bacillius Thuringiensis) on your potatoes. It is not a poison, but disease spores that infect the bug larvae, but won't hurt people or animals. Works on those nasty green cabbage worms that eat cabbage, brocolli, cauliflower, too.

[cReAtIoN gRoAnS]

Start your melons in pots indoors and transplant them when they are still young. That way you can control the atmosphere around them. I usually stary mine earlier than most and have no problems...some say that melons do not take transplanting well but I have ripped them apart before with no bad effects.

Chad

[newbiedigger]

Thank you everyone for all of your comments. They will definitely be useful to me next time around! :D

Redbrick - I had heard that the deertongue lettuce was delicious and was thinking about trying it next year. I love lettuce and am not particularly happy with the type that I grew this year.


Newbiedigger

[johno]

Along creation groans' line of thinking, acouple of years ago I dug up a watermelon plant and potted it and brought it indoors just to test the fragile roots theory. It survived for many weeks but didn't make any watermelons. I think it died from short daylength. Anyway, if you are careful you probably will have success replanting melon seedlings...