First, why is it bitter? The bitter taste comes from a compound called cucurbitacin. This is found in the plant leaves, roots, and to some degree the fruit. It is also in the peel. Therefore, to minimize spreading it all over the fruit part of the vegetable when you cut it. Make sure to wash you knife or peeler each time you make a pass at peeling and also start from the blossom end of the fruit and peel toward the stem. While this system may help, I have found that I still end up throwing away the cucumber because even a little bit is too much.

So here are some other considerations.

Make sure the plant is healthy and evenly watered. The sure way to a bitter cucumber is a stressed plant. I always use a mulch with my cucumbers and I would recommend this to help keep the plant drought resistant. Other simple practices such as proper fertilization and pest control are also essential.

Another possibility of growing bitter free cucumbers is to buy a burpless variety. Now keep in mind that many seed companies will use the term burpless, but that may just be more of a marketing term than actually being bitter-free. However, it has been my experience that burpless varieties have a less chance of being bitter than normal (non-burpless) varieties.

Don’t try and pickle a bitter cucumber since it will be bitter as a pickle too.

Hope that helps.

You can still get a free trial account, but it only allows you one vegetable to test with. Otherwise the service is $24.95 for a one year subscription. Since the season is pretty much over, we are adding an incentive for sign-ups for the rest of the year. You get a 2 year subscription for the price of one year or $24.95.

I hope all of those who used our service this year was successful and enjoying a great harvest. We have heard great things so far. Keep the good news coming.

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Thanks for all those that helped during beta testing. You have helped to make this product become highly useful.

First you will need a least a pound and a half of peppers. Pictured below is about that amount. (one picking from 3 plants).

Next you will need the following ingredients:

• 6 cups of vinegar
• 2 cups of water
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Salt
• Alum or “pickle crisp“

Cut up your peppers into 1 inch pieces or into rings. Combine your vinegar, water and garlic into a large saucepot. Bring to boil and then reduce hear and let simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove garlic. Pack peppers into hot jars (we use 1 pint jars) and leave at least 1/4 inch of space on the top. Pour your hot liquid over the peppers leaving the same 1/4 inch at the top. Remove any air bubbles. Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt per pint and the appropriate amount of Alum (about 1/4 teaspoon per pint) or “pickle crisp” which I think is better. Put the caps on and process for 10 minutes in boiling water canner. The tops should seal themselves after a while. It should make about 5 pints.

If you do this with hot peppers, make sure to wear gloves as they can irritate your skin.

You will notice the jalapeno peppers in the picture. These are “no heat” jalapenos and we like to combine them with the banana peppers. You can also add serrano peppers to this concoction. If you do only add about 1/4 pound. Let me know if you another method for banana peppers.

I am having a great harvest and we are going to use some for salads and salsas, but mostly we will store them by pickling them together and using for nachos or other dishes.

Here are a few keys to success with peppers that you might consider for next year if you struggled this year:

• Good complete fertilizer before you plant (16-16-8 with ironite) is what I used. You should check your soil and figure out what is best for you.
• Additional feedings 4 and 8 weeks after transplanting with, at least, ammonium sulfate (Nitrogen 20-0-0).
• Black plastic mulch to retain moisture and prevent weeds
• Water once a week deeply, but infrequently.

We started ours from seed indoors before transplanting them out into the garden allowing us to get the varieties we wanted and saved a bunch of money by not having to buy starts.

For the proper dates on when to plant peppers or for a customized planting guide for your area go to VegeNag.com and sign up for a free account.

All you do is hook up the hose, stick it in the ground, add the appropriate amount of fertilizer, in this case I added 1 tablespoon per tomato and melon plant, and then turn it on. Within 30 seconds all of the fertilizer is shot down to the roots.

A couple of things to know. First, this really only works for soluble fertilizers or you will jamb it up. Also, you should water your plants right after feeding them so that the feeding is not too concentrated. Right after doing this I watered my tomatoes and melons for about 3 hours on a drip system. Last, timing is everything. You shouldn’t do this whenever, there are specific, ideal times to fertilize. If I would have done this any later, I might ruin my harvest. Tomatoes and melons should be fertilized 4 weeks and 8 weeks after transplanting. Don’t do it any more than that.

Let VegeNag take the guesswork out of the proper timing and amount by subscribing to our automated email reminders complete with how to’s by signing up for a free account today at VegeNag.com

I just started to plant my fall vegetables. I planted broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts. In a couple of weeks I will be planting peas, carrots, lettuce, and spinach. Where I live, and this applies to most climates, Fall is the best time to harvest these cool season vegetables. By maturing in the cool Fall temperatures, the vegetables taste better, in my opinion, and the plant will not bolt or go to seed and ruin any further harvest. Most of the people I talk to don’t realize that you can plant for Fall harvest let alone that they actually can do better than the Spring.

So what is the secret to Fall planting? In my opinion it is the timing. You want to direct seed into the garden early enough to take advantage of the warm summer to grow the vegetable quickly, yet you want it to mature right before the first frosts come. Therefore, take the days to maturity from your seed packet and subtract back from your first frost date in the Fall to establish your plant date. I always add about 2 additional weeks for a buffer. Therefore, if you have a 80 day broccoli then you would add 14 days for a total of 94 days. My first frost date is about Oct 15th so I would go back 94 days and then plant, so about July 10th.

Remember that the maturity dates are calculated from germination or transplant, therefore, you need to give yourself the additional days to germinate the seed to properly calculate the days. Since this doesn’t have to be exact and I already added a 2 week buffer I didn’t bother to put this in the calculation above, but you should know about it.

A better way to do this is just to get an account at VegeNag.com and it does all the work for you. Just say what you are planting and you will get an email when you are supposed to plant. The dates are also located on the planting guides for each respective vegetable after you have created an account.

Custom Planting guides at VegeNag.com

If you see this then you should immediately remove the bugs from the plant and kill them, then you need to look under each leave to see if they have laid any eggs, which they most likely have done. If you do see some, then wipe these eggs off too and kill them. You can also put a wood board near the plant to lure the bug away and then you can kill manually.  If you want an organic spray then I recommend BT  (Bacillus thuringiensis), or a brand name is Thuricide. This organic spray can be injected directly into the stem or applied regularly to control the bugs. Last, of course, is to apply an aggressive insecticide like Sevin. While I do not recommend spraying Sevin since you may kill beneficials, you may have success by applying the dust at the stems to help stop the problem.

If you have the problem one year, you can probably count on it every year. Click here for more information on squash bugs.

• Carrots
• Beets
• Melons
• Squash
• Beans
• Peas
• Cucumbers
• And more

This doesn’t mean you cannot start them indoors, it just means that they either do better with direct seed or there are not really any advantages to starting indoors.

When direct seeding you should plant in prepared soil to a depth of 2-3 times the diameter of your seed. Most people plant too deep, and then they wait forever to get their seeds up. Once your seeds are planted, water them immediately with a sprinkler or some other way of watering them without washing the freshly planted seeds out. You will want to water every day until the seeds are germinated. I usually run the sprinkler on top of the seeds everyday for 20 minutes or so to fill this requirement.

When you plant I advice to plant more seeds than you need. When planting rows, add seeds in a line and then thin out later instead of just planting one seed exactly where you want one plant to go. This will make sure that you get the plants germinated and allows you to pick the most vigorous plants while thinning out the smaller ones.

When planting seeds that you just need one plant for like squash, cucumber or melons, then plant in a mound by mounding up dirt where you want the plant to go and then planting 5-6 seeds in the mound. When they all come up, you pick the best two and then when they get a bit bigger, pick the best one.

The next consideration is soil temperature. If the soil is not warm enough the seed won’t germinate. Most seeds need the soil to be 60 degrees or more. Some can do less, but this is a good standard to go by. This means that there is really no point in planting, or at least expecting immediate germination, if the soil is not warm enough. If you need to get an early start you may consider row covers in order to help warm the soil.

Another consideration is soil texture. It is best to have a loamy or crumbly soil so that the plant can push through easily. While this is ideal, many plants are pretty tough when it come to pushing through. The best way to enhance your soil texture is to add soil amendments. I like to add compost or peat moss. Doing this also add nutrients to the soil.

The last thing to consider is fertilizer. You should fertilize your soil before planting. I have a video and blog post on the subject. Seeds can be planted immediately after fertilizing so you do not need to wait.

Good luck.

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Notice that the user’s frost free date is automatically displayed. This way, the user doesn’t have to figure out what their frost free date is, VegeNag displays it for them from the National Weather Service data for the respective zip code.

The best part, in my opinion, is farther down the page on the planting guide.

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All these “Key Planting Dates” are dynamically inserted based on the users location. No need to go figure this information out anymore. Better yet, it calculates it based on the specific plant, therefore, when you select something other than cabbage, in this case, you will get different dates.

I can’t tell you how excited I am for this new feature. I think it will help a ton of people. Click here to sign up for a free account.

So what do you think?