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Showing 3901 - 3930 of 13823 comments
Pumpkin 01 Jan, Rhonda Taylor (Australia - temperate climate)
I always leave the skin of pumpkins on when cooking. I eat it along with the pumpkin, its delicious and is also where the nutrition is...especially on roasted! If you dont wish to eat the skin for whatever reason its easy to scrape the flesh off the skin when cooked.
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Pumpkin 01 Jan, John (Australia - temperate climate)
I have a 3x3 m patch of garden where I had potatoes. I've harvested all of these now. Would it be unwise to grow pumpkins there next?
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Pumpkin 01 Jan, Mike (Australia - temperate climate)
It says don't grow next to each other. I would think if you had no or little disease with the potatoes then you might have a successful pumpkin crop.
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Parsley (also curly leaf parsley or flat leaf (Italian) parsley) 31 Dec, Trudi (Australia - temperate climate)
Can you freeze parsley
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Parsley (also curly leaf parsley or flat leaf (Italian) parsley) 04 Jan, Mike (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Try doing it - put into a few bundles and say try using it after a week - a fortnight and a month.
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Parsley (also curly leaf parsley or flat leaf (Italian) parsley) 04 Jan, Lloyd (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Yes. Wash it first. Let it dry. Take the leaves off the stems. put it through a kitchen whiz. Store in airtight containers in the freezer. When required for soups etc,.scrape the parsley directly into the soup.
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Sweet corn (also corn,maize) 30 Dec, Karen (Australia - cool/mountain climate)
We are growing True Gold sweet corn - has anyone else had trouble with "exposed cobs" short husks ? I didn't think that the plants were exposed to any stress . Is this variety more susceptible to experiencing stress? Anyway some cobs look OK and I'll see what happens to the exposed ones.
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Sweet corn (also corn,maize) 04 Jan, Mike (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
A couple of the cobs of corn I just picked had some exposed corn at the top end. They were quite long cobs 9+ inches. Real strong healthy plants. Sometimes on the side shoots of the plant the cob ends up exposing and doesn't produce a real cob of corn.
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Cape Gooseberry (also Golden Berry, Inca Berry ) 30 Dec, Jason (New Zealand - cool/mountain climate)
My cape gooseberry has Black leaves all over and on the vey top they are green . Its currently fruiting seems to be growing well. Has direct sun light all day long .
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Cape Gooseberry (also Golden Berry, Inca Berry ) 29 Dec, Denise Gravatt (Australia - temperate climate)
Bushes growing well, replanted them 2 years ago in same garden. Plenty of foliage, healthy, but no fruit. Venus Bay, Victoria, Australia. Would appreciate your comments please
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Cape Gooseberry (also Golden Berry, Inca Berry ) 30 Dec, Mike (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Soil: The cape gooseberry will grow in any well drained soil but does best on sandy to gravelly loam. Very good crops are obtained on rather poor sandy ground. Irrigation: The plant needs consistent watering to set a good fruit crop, but can't take "wet feet". Sounds like Brad has it pretty much right - mulch and watering - not too much water thought - depends on how hot it is.
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Cape Gooseberry (also Golden Berry, Inca Berry ) 28 Dec, Brad (Australia - temperate climate)
Have a cape gooseberry going on 3 summers now. Not much fruit in first year, bucket load in 2nd summer, now bucket loads in 3rd summer. Red spider mites would attack it from about March through to start of winter, but we just cut it back to about 20cm from base and the spider mites disappear heading into the winter. Noticed about a month ago after the hot weather hit, that alot of new flowers would just fall off at the slightest touch. Put this down to lack of water, so we placed sugar cane mulch to about 6 inches thick and out to a radius of about a meter, then stretched shade cloth over the mulch and pegged down (to keep the blackbirds from destroying the mulch). Under the mulch cover we also placed weaper hose and had this going for a few hours each day, and problem soon resolved with loads more flowers and setting fruit.
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Cucumber 28 Dec, Tony (Australia - temperate climate)
Can you freeze Apple Cucumbers. As I have tons of them all growing at the same time
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Cucumber 01 Jan, Tanya (Australia - temperate climate)
No you cant freeze them, they go all horridable, mushy.
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Cucumber 30 Dec, Mike (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
They would probably end up all mushy. Try pickling them - look up internet for a pickling recipe . You only need a plant or two to feed a family - or stagger the planting times. Feed the neighbours or friends. I have just given away over half my sweet corn crop (30 plants) as I didn't think they would hold on too well (go starchy) in the current hot weather.
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Pumpkin 27 Dec, Phil Morton (Australia - temperate climate)
Are pumpkins short-day plants? Mine are spreading all over the yard, but there are still no flowers. I've forced early flowering of other short-day plants by covering them in black plastic every second evening and keeping it on the next morning to create a twelve hour night for them and it's worked well, chokos being a good example, but I can't find anything to suggest pumpkins react the same. If no one has the answer I suppose I'll just get myself some black plastic and try for myself, but with some 40'C days around I'm hesitant.
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Pumpkin 30 Dec, Mike (Australia - temperate climate)
I think you are on the wrong track with length of daylight hours. I have plants growing now. Just hand pollinated a dozen or so female flowers last week. My vines are 4m+ long. Maybe you have given them too much Nitrogen. 40c would probably cook them under black plastic.
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Pumpkin 07 Jan, Phil Morton (Australia - temperate climate)
Well I don't know if it was just coincidence and time for the pumpkins to start flowering anyway but after five nights of covering most of the pumpkins with just a light weed mat instead of black plastic, those covered now have 2-4 male flowers on each. No sign of female flowers though! The one I did not cover still has no flowers. I put the covers over at around 7.30 pm each evening and pulled them off anywhere from 8 am to 9.00 am the next morning giving them roughly only 11 hours of daylight.
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Pumpkin 24 Feb, Phil (Australia - temperate climate)
So I stopped a couple of days later with the black shade-cloth cover as described thinking I had triggered flowering, but those male flowers just died off and I did not seen another flower until yesterday, so six weeks later! Next season I'll try covering for at least two weeks if I can get a cool enough period and see what results.
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Capsicum (also Bell peppers, Sweet peppers) 26 Dec, (Australia - temperate climate)
hi why is my capsicums flowers but not fruiting?
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Capsicum (also Bell peppers, Sweet peppers) 28 Dec, Mike (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Check on the internet about capsicum pollination time. I have read that they require a certain temperature to pollinate. Something like 18-23 degrees, not say 15. I have just finished my crop - not the best because the plants were shaded by egg plants a lot. Try watering down at the root zone and not the bush.
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Zucchini (also Courgette/Marrow, Summer squash) 26 Dec, Steve (Australia - tropical climate)
All about the soil, my plants are the size of seven week old plants. Try a mix of compost, coir, perlite and tomato mix.
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Pumpkin 23 Dec, w watson (Australia - temperate climate)
my pumpkins are growing but reach small size then turn yellow and die
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Pumpkin 30 Dec, Bob (Australia - temperate climate)
It sounds like they are not pollinating. As soon as you see a female flower (the ones with the fruit behind them), pinch off a male flower and rub them together. Insects are meant to do it, but sometimes prefer to play on other plants, depending on what is growing nearby..
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Pumpkin 28 Dec, Mike (Australia - tropical climate)
You probably have no bees. Go on the internet and read how to hand pollinate pumpkin. Also read the postings here about hand pollination under pumpkin.
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Pumpkin 04 Jan, Mike (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
When hand pollinating use a couple of male flowers - make sure they have some pollen on them.
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Garlic 23 Dec, Andrea Cousins (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Is there a suitable variety of garlic that I can successfully grow in Kununurra, (Ord River Region), Western Australia?
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Garlic 28 Dec, Mike (Australia - tropical climate)
Go on the internet and see if there are any that are suitable for the tropics otherwise try any normal variety from a shop.
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Asparagus 23 Dec, Anton Burman (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Hi could you please advise how to prepare the beds for growing Asparagus and were to position them IE full sun, shade, part shade, we have a property in Williams W.A. Located 160 KL SSW of Perth, also any information on pest control would be great. Cheers Anton
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Asparagus 28 Dec, Mike (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Good well drained soil is best - you could make a hill or raised the soil a bit. Dig up the soil add some compost and or manure and let it break down into the soil before planting. Your planting time is next spring. Look on the internet "how to grow asparagus". There probably is some pests but I haven't had any in 2 years. Each winter cut off the deadish ferns and put on about 4-6" of horse poo or compost.
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Showing 3901 - 3930 of 13823 comments
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