Large Plants: hollow or not to hollow ?

[epicorchard]

Im a mound fan. It gets over 115 degrees during parts of the summer, so any type of in ground growing is prefreble to smarties. I have a large gothic greenhouse with 200g smarties, and those plants are stupid large. I think it has to do with the cooler temps. I'll get some pics up later this week.

 

[epicorchard]

dumb question, but how do you change to a custom avatar?

 

[AssSlinger]

Gotcha. Not sure how LST will help me thin out the centers. I noticed last year most of the inner shaded growth died off by harvest.

It will not thin out the centers but it will move away the outer growth to give the inside part more light and air circulation and thus remove the need to remove the inside section.

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I'm just getting there

 

[epicorchard]

got it. I do most of that during june, once they get real big, I run out of netting to train them out.

 

[AssSlinger]

I wish not having enough nets would be my problem...

 

[epicorchard]

certainly a good problem to have.

 

[growbigeasy]

I thin all my plants aggressively right before I put second cages on. Man....id be all over those mounds instead of smart-pots if I didnt have a platoon of super gophers on stand-by waiting to devour my plants. The ground collapses 3-4 inches in a lot of spots while im walking through my garden cause of all their tunnels.

Fisher your greenhouse and full season are top notch.

 

[epicorchard]

looks good. I went out today and started, but Its getting hard to reach through all my netting.

I have a gopher and mole problem, so I wrap my root balls in 1/2" aviary netting when I transplant. I used to lay wire down before i built the mounds, but I've found it only lasts for a couple years anyway.

 

[ssq.talker]

 

[mendo-local]

I've got gophers running all through my raised beds..... I mean literally gophers pushing up dirt everywhere. Never had 1 touch my weed. Am I really lucky or are you guys waaay paranoid. Maybe they have enough other stuff to eat?

 

[bugman52]

Is there a point where plants get too big to effectively prune out their shaded centers? Its 7/20 now, by the end of august i expect to be overwhelmed with new growth.

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those R monsters

 

[growbigeasy]

Youve been lucky. Ive seen them destroy 10 lb plants. I HATE GOPHERS.

 

[mendo-local]

Youve been lucky. Ive seen them destroy 10 lb plants. I HATE GOPHERS.

Does the plant die or start wilting all at once? Or do branches kind of die one at a time as they chew roots?

 

[growbigeasy]

Usually different sections start showing problems at first. But they can do quick work of a decent sized plant. Ive had half a plant die, me kill the gophers and the other good half flower just fine.

 

[CoastalKind]

Hey guys get cinch traps for the gophers. I was catching one or two gophers a week in the spring and only have a couple here and there now. You shouldn't have to search hard to find them at a local gardening, landscaping, farming, or animal feed store. Cinch traps work the best. Just dig up the exit mounds (the pile of dirt gophers make) and set the trap and stick it in there. They can't stand there tunnel being open and go to block it and then they are done for good. Gophers are territorial so killing on will keep that area gopher free for a couple of weeks at least. Eventually the gophers wont be so overwhelming on your farm. Also you build barn owl homes. They only need to be posted 8 to 10 feet tall. A barn owl will kill dozens of gophers in a year. You can find videos on how to properly set a cinch trap on you tube. You can find a pdf file on how to build a barn owl den from UC San Jose.

 

[mendo-local]

Doesn't make sense why they don't chomp on my plants. Or maybe they are eating roots slowly and not enough in one area for the plant to show??

 

[mapinguari]

mendo-local, it may be that you have moles instead of gophers. Moles tend to go after worms and such in the soil, while gophers like to chaw the roots themselves.

 

[greentreefarmer]

This is still my first year, but ive been working my way up and clearing out the centers in spurts. I believe in a balanced approach of allowing them to fill out and create bulk density before starting to prune the centers. I think ive been allowing the plants for the most part to sort of shade itself out and start showing inner branches getting stunted and then finish them off with the shears. The netting hasnt gotten much in the way because most of mine still arent even trellissed up yet. But I also dont quite have the size that you're already needing to tame. They have been building good core strength on their own though so I am happy with that. I'll let you know how it goes. Its a lot of experimenting for me right now.

Your garden looks real impressive by the way. Monster girls looking real happy. Kudos to you and happy harvests too

 

[greentreefarmer]

Also, in regards to the gophers, I've got a healthy population of them too. I knew I was going to be battling their pressures so I built wire baskets out of 1/4" gopher wire too. I see them all around and under my mounds but so far none inside. Happy with those.

 

[epicorchard]

Thank you all for the positive encouragement! Yea, I'm trying baskets this year out of 1/2" aviary netting. Looks like they might be failing on the test crop, definately losing some lower branches on large healthy plants.

Next year I'll grow directly in a pot built out of 1/2" welded wire lined with landscape fabric. Pretty sure I'm going to build pot/ trellis cage combos to minimize transplant stress and broken branches.