Saturday, March 10, 2012

I have no idea what I am doing wrong, but I cannot get lettuce seeds to even sprout! I have planted twice, and not one sprout. Maybe there is a bug or the birds are eating the seeds, but I have never had the problem where not one of the 100% of the seeds I sowed did not sprout! I planted 6 varieties. This is getting really frustrating because lettuces should be easy and some of the things I grow are more difficult...I should be able to grow lettuce! Argghhhh...

I know I have caterpillars. I saw an odd mass scooting across the ground yesterday, it was a black and orange looking beetle carrying a small (1" long) caterpillar. This is going to mean trouble for my tomatoes! I have found  that any kind of cayenne pepper, chili powder, red pepper will keep the caterpillars from eating the leaves on my peas, but the tomatoes will be a bigger challenge. I will be working on a cayenne/red pepper "soup" that I can spray with a squirt bottle to try to deter them...and maybe spend the night in the garden so when I HEAR them chomping, I can find them and destroy them...

4 comments:

  1. Two possibilities for the lettuce problem. One is leaf cutting ants (personal experience with these black ants that would clip the young sprouts off at ground level and carry off everything in my garden in Yuma) once the sprouts were up and large though the damage wasn't even noticable. Look for ant trails near the garden they don't make mounds they just have burrows. The second reason may be the biochar addition. Lettuce is very sensitive to Alkaline and the addition of the char may have kicked your soil out of the range in which lettuce will sprout. The biochar effect is temporary though and should mellow after a few months according to research done by AZ State University Ext. in Yuma. Hope this helps.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Leaf cutting/harvesting ants or Biochar alkalinity may be the problem with the non sprouting lettuce. (not sure if my last comment was published or not sorry for the repetition if it was....happy gardening!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Two possibilities for the lettuce problem. One is leaf cutting ants (personal experience with these black ants that would clip the young sprouts off at ground level and carry off everything in my garden in Yuma) once the sprouts were up and large though the damage wasn't even noticable. Look for ant trails near the garden they don't make mounds they just have burrows. The second reason may be the biochar addition. Lettuce is very sensitive to Alkaline and the addition of the char may have kicked your soil out of the range in which lettuce will sprout. The biochar effect is temporary though and should mellow after a few months according to research done by AZ State University Ext. in Yuma. Hope this helps.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you Robby! (I have to approve comments to be posted, so I only posted the one!) You may be right about the ants! I didn't put the biochar near this part of my garden. But there are ants because of the artichokes, which seem to have a lot of attraction for bees and ants. I gave up on the lettuce...planted 4 pkgs. of seed and never got sprout! But I do have Kale and Swiss Chard. Now I am on to beans and okra!

    ReplyDelete