View Single Post
Old January 23, 2013   #8
checkerkitty
Tomatovillian™
 
checkerkitty's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: San Antonio, TX
Posts: 239
Default

Thanks to everyone for your responses. I had a nice conversation this morning with a gentleman at one of our better nurseries. He recommended putting fresh dirt in the bed. For now, my plan is to replace the dirt. Going forward, I'm going to take a no-holes barred approach. I'll be working lots of organic matter in every season, I'll probably just do a spring garden and let the bed go fallow during the winter except for a cover crop like mustard, I'll be inspecting the roots more closely on every plant I pull up to catch problems when they start, I'll disinfect my garden tools when moving between garden areas, I'll use beneficial nematodes/mycos/Actinovate, I'm going to try grafting some N tolerant rootstock onto some of my extra seedlings, I'll be researching nematocides for future use, as needed, I'm expanding my bucket brigade container garden and I'm trying a couple of N tolerant varieties of tomatoes just to see how the flavor compares to the usual OP/heirlooms. I'm hoping that with a multipronged approach, I'll be able to use my gardening areas for quite a while.

It looks like Florida has a huge nematode problem! If I have to only garden in containers in the future, then that's the way it goes. I'm going to put up a fight first since they haven't hit my main garden. I'm interested in the marigolds as a cover crop/companion plant but it seems they attract spider mites. I don't need anymore help in that department! I've read some other threads here with product recommendations for fighting the little suckers so I've got more ways to fight.
checkerkitty is offline   Reply With Quote