In article , Charlie wrote:

On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 10:49:55 -0700, Billy Rose
wrote:

In article , Charlie wrote:

The balance issue is true. This year our garden is seeing hardly any
baddies. I have had to pick a few cabbage loopers off the brussels
sprouts is all. The bush beans are clean, the zuchs are clean, the
cukes are clean. No flea beetles this year.....yet, and hopefully not!

Charlie, I thought that Brussels sprouts were a fall crop. What the hell
you doing planting them going into summer?

I just know I'm gonna hate the answer. Come on. Lay it on me.

Double cropping, old son. One crop in early as possible in the spring,
another in the ground late summer for fall harvest. I have sprouts as
large as a fingernail and growing well. We use them fairly small, not
the size of the monster frozen ones you get at market.

Usually get good results. This year I tightened up the spacing and so
far they appear to be handling the "crowding". They, like the bush
beans have formed a solid canopy, a living mulch, that keeps the ground
under shaded and moist and cooler.

Think biointensive. As one crop is harvested and done, it is replaced
with another. I'm learning the whatfors and howtos as we go along.

A surprisingly small amount of space can produce an amazing amount of
produce.

Lots of cool season crops can be planted on both ends of the growing
season. Serious cold snaps and frosts can be avoided with mulching and
row covers, etc.....though some tolerate, and may improve in flavor
with a light frost.

I have been seeking, and finding, varieties of, oh, say cukes and
melons, that are more heat and drought resistant. Planted some true
lemon cukes that are supposed to take the heat well, along with mexican
Sour Gherkins.

Oops, went a little over on that answer.


Charlie

Never!

Will the fall crop come from the same plants or do you start all over
again? I left one Brussels from last year to make seeds but it wont let
the pods dry out and keeps making more flowers. What am I gonna have to
do to get seed? Drive a stake through its' . . . ? Don't have one does
it? What's a feller to do?
--
Billy
Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)