Peanuts Are Difficult To Grow Here

Q. I have a city garden plot. For several years I have grown the usual garden vegetables. This year I would like to add sweet corn and peanuts, but I do not know anything about growing them.

A. Corn is easy to grow if you choose early-maturing varieties. Plant corn in late April or early May where it will get full sun. Varieties such as Early Sunglow, Polar Vee, Legend, Jubilee and the extra sweet variety Kandy Korn are my favorites. Peanuts are a different matter. They need warm weather and a longer growing season, so they are seldom grown here. If you want to try, start the seed inside in the next two weeks. Set the started plants outside in late May or early June. Plant them on a raised bed (mounded soil), exposed to bright sun. The soil must be light, well-drained and deep so the peanuts can develop underground.

Q. How we can get rid of chickweed?

A. It can be grubbed out with a hoe, spaded into the soil or selectively treated with a herbicide. Or if there is nothing in the soil it can be sterilized with a product such as Vapam and planting can take place about three weeks later. Spaded into the soil, chickweed becomes a green manure, but this must be done before it goes to seed. Round-Up Lawn and Garden can be used selectively to control chickweed. Be careful not to get the solution on desirable plants, or you would kill them too.

Q. I am blind. Are there any vegetables I might be able to grow in

containers on an old redwood picnic table, as I am unable to get on my knees or bend over anymore?

A. There are any number of vegetables that are easy to grow in containers. The key will be to use larger containers, 2 feet or wider. Good vegetables to grow in containers are tomatoes, onions, lettuce, carrots, beets, radishes, spinach and peppers. Squash, pumpkins and cucumber are vining crops you can grow.

Q. Most of my rose canes are black. Are they dead? I have cut some back and they seem to be green and alive, but some canes are black on the outside and brown in the center.

A. This is freeze damage. Many roses are seriously damaged, and in some cases the bushes are dead. However, many are still alive, particularly if the bottom of the canes were mulched with soil, bark, straw or sawdust over winter. Cut the rose canes back to live wood. If they are dead (black and brown) to the graft, you might as well replace them.