Ambitious certified black thumb- I’m in over my head SOS pls send help

[campingshaws]

Well, just in case you didn’t get the gist of this thread from the title: I’m in over my head. Backstory: I’m not that great at gardening. This is my fourth year to try and I’ll keep trying for the rest of my life. Gardening is part of our programming for summer camp, where I try really hard to teach kids how things grow.

Or die, which is usually the actual case.

Last year I had an excellent crop of basil and marigolds. Everything else limped along all summer not thriving, but not dying. Progress!

So anyway, I have about a thousand things I want to grow so that kids can weed and water, harvest, and see stuff from the garden on the salad bar. I ordered new seeds yesterday and I have tons left from last year. I have two raised beds about 4x12 (will measure later) and unlimited acreage of sunny, sandy possibilities in zone 9. I should be invinceable! I’m also doing this all by myself so I can’t actually have a garden of unlimited acreage. My last frost date is Feb. 27th, so I’m basically already a month behind on starting seeds. I read the square-foot gardening book (2nd edition) but it never could tell me if my tomatoes were yellow from too much or not enough water.

If you’re a green thumb, I would LOVE to please be adopted. If you live in or around southwest Louisiana I invite you to come visit and tell me all the things I’m doing wrong. I can feed you all the most delicious foods because that’s what I’m actually good at.

 

[Shadyfarms]

Have you looked into companion planting? Some things like to grow beside other plants. Tomato and Basil grow better together. Other plants such as beans and tomatoes will kill each other. There are also certain trees that poison the ground for veggies (Black Walnuts). I live up in Canada so I cannot comment on your specific area. I would imagine it is much easier to grow stuff down there. Most veggies do not like wet feet though so make sure you don't have them growing in overly saturated soil.

 

[campingshaws]

Have you looked into companion planting? Some things like to grow beside other plants. Tomato and Basil grow better together. Other plants such as beans and tomatoes will kill each other. There are also certain trees that poison the ground for veggies (Black Walnuts). I live up in Canada so I cannot comment on your specific area. I would imagine it is much easier to grow stuff down there. Most veggies do not like wet feet though so make sure you don't have them growing in overly saturated soil.

Thanks for your comment!

Yes! I love companion planting. I tried in bed A:
Borage and strawberries (borage died, strawberries lived but didn’t produce)

Basil and tomatoes (basil did great, tomatoes did not at all).

Carrots with basil and tomatoes

And marigolds for everyone! (Marigolds grew and bloomed til we had a freak snow in early December.)

In bed B:
Radishes and green beans

Squash/zucchini and radishes and nasturtiums and carrots

Various peppers

Everything in bed B died a slow and miserable death.

Both raised beds are filled with sand and top 8” is miracle grow potting mix. Bed B is infested with ants that WILL. NOT. DIE.

 

[campingshaws]

A list of everything I have, including old seeds from 2014.

 

[Shadyfarms]

Can you describe the signs of them dying? Did the leaves go black and mushy? Did they dry and turn brown? Were there pests eating the leaves?

Ants are not a bad thing for veggies. They eat some of the pest bugs. They a problematic if you have aphids as they protect the little buggers to get the dew drops.

 

[campingshaws]

Can you describe the signs of them dying? Did the leaves go black and mushy? Did they dry and turn brown? Were there pests eating the leaves?

Ants are not a bad thing for veggies. They eat some of the pest bugs. They a problematic if you have aphids as they protect the little buggers to get the dew drops.

Tomatoes (bed A) would get yellowed, really small leaves, stems would yellow and go brown and shrivel up. I had 6-7 plants and got maybe three weird little tomatoes.

Everything else was bed B. They’re right next to each other and had the same soil/water but I think bed B gets a little less light.
Green beans got brown spots on the leaves, then turned yellow. They still put out tiny little yellow beans, but never grew more than about 8” tall.

Squash/zucchini were in hills but looked like they were actively trying to escape. They would spread around and had tons of blooms that wilted and fell off.

Sunflowers got about 3ft tall.

All peppers bloomed but never made anything. Also stayed really stunted.

 

[CapricornFarm]

I would add manure and or compost to your soil. Rabbit or goat manure can be added without composting. I bought a truckload of aged cow manure from the local dairy.

 

[campingshaws]

I would add manure and or compost to your soil. Rabbit or goat manure can be added without composting. I bought a truckload of aged cow manure from the local dairy.

I can’t use manure because I want to use the bounty in my DHH inspected kitchen. The health inspector asks when he visits, so I can’t do it and move on. :/ I also can’t use my fresh uninspected farm eggs in the kitchen or sell them from a camp building.

 

[Kusanar]

I read the square-foot gardening book (2nd edition) but it never could tell me if my tomatoes were yellow from too much or not enough water.

Lol, this one is actually fairly easy.... Plants tend to turn yellow due to lack of acid in the soil. I imagine your soil is too alkaline for the tomatoes. Get a good tomato or Rose fertilizer and give it to them, both are for acidic plants and will give them the boost they need.
(I have 2 associates degrees in horticulture, I'm a little rusty, but I can look up pretty much anything.)
Please take pictures of anything weird on the plants and post for us when you find the weird thing. It will help if you include the type of plant ( a lot of baby plants look the same and in a close up it's even harder to tell) and anything else you can think of to tell us.

As for water, your soil should feel like a well wrung out kitchen sponge unless it has just been watered. Dryer than that and it needs water, wetter and just stop watering and let it dry out. Tomatoes usually need a LOT of water though and are hard to keep watered, putting a slow water system in the bed with them would likely help keep them moist but not WET. I can give ideas for cheep/free ways to do this if you want.

 

[Shadyfarms]

The fact that flowers are not turning into fruit on the peppers + flowers dropping off your squash sounds like they are not getting pollinated. That used to happen to me when I lived in the city. I have 2 beehives where I live now and all flowers turn into fruit. The fact that they are stunted could be a couple of causes. 1) Not enough nutrients - Manure/Compost would help or some slow release fertilizer. 2) If you plant to early when the ground is cold it shocks the plants which they don't recover from. 3) You could have PH issues, have you tested the PH of your soil? 4) The bean issue sounds like a different problem. Here is a good website.

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/green-bean-plants-leaves-turning-brown-55129.html