Garden failed this year?

[EweSheep]

Well after a good growth earlier this spring, the tomatoes didn't red up, stayed orange for weeks and vines are rotting or drying up. Pickle plants didn't do too bad but vines yellowed faster than normal. No blossom rot.

The melons are doing good but taking longer to get red. Still in the pink stage for two weeks and the texture is more meally....fed it to the chickens. Vines are drying up but no where ready.

The garden was prepped with garden lime, eggshells, healthy dose of chicken manure, all roto tilled in the spring. Just beautiful dirt.

It's been a wasteful year for me.....its the first for me in that three years in that garden. I've been hearing folks having the same problem too.

Anyone having problems? the only thing that grows successfully are the weeds and foxtail grass.

 

[Gmsg01]

Moved my garden to a new spot this year, use a mixture of composted horse stall manure, vermiculite, and peat moss. Tomato plants are small, but nice, big, red tomatoes. Cukes spindly, just starting to beat. Red peppers are a wash our, same with cauliflower. But broccoli has done well, as have the green beans and snow peas. Early lettuce was good, spinach never performed, Swiss chard still awesome, beets wimpy. So I guess for us, it has been a somewhat successful year. If I get any eggplants (they are flowering), i will be very happy with the year.

 

[KenK]

Last year was like that for me. My garden did fairly well this year in spite of an unusually hot spring.

See about having a soil test done.

 

[Fred's Hens]

I would highly suggest you take soil samples and get them appraised as to the contents, minerals and ph of your soil. This is a service provided by your county extension office and it is low cost or free. Best to start there.

 

[sourland]

During periods of high rain, nitrogen tends to leach out of the soil. If your plants were yellowing in addition to the other things mentioned, they may be suffering from low nitrogen. Large quantities of non composted organic material (even chicken manure which is high in N) actually leach nitrogen out of the soil as they decompose.

 

[Two Creeks Farm]

Deff. do a soil sample

Ours went to crap thanks to the weather. Cool spring with too much rain, followed by a very fast run into summer with no rain. Ive had enough, there will be 10 tons of sand dumped soon to mix in with the soil as well as some other amendments. PH is fine, its the make up of the soil itself that doesnt work when we have a year like this. Oh well, we are in the mountains and we grow great shale LOL!

 

[booker81]

Agree with the soil sample....sounds like the goodies just leached out in the end.

I know our weather has been bonkers this year, but I made it through the no rain by watering a lot. Most of my garden various composted manures and leaves, but sits on a bed of mostly clay a few feet down.

Last year I didn't amend the soil much, and it was pretty sad. This year I went nuts with the chicken litter, and it's happy. I think it just doesn't hold over well year to year, and needs constant amendment.

I also didn't weed much this year, rather I hoed a lot and chopped the non-seeded weeds and whatnot back into the soil. I think it's helped a lot. the soil still feels good.

Sorry bout your garden

 

[EweSheep]

I will see about getting my garden tested out. We had alot of rain which the garden LOVED it and once we hit the drought with no measurable rain, the garden started to suffer and I would water every other day or every third day to keep it from overwatering. However the fence line got the best deal, overgrown vines, honeysuckle plants on their BEST year, flowers were doing very well.

I might just go ahead and mow, and pull out the sickly plants and let the melons grow. The random corn stalks growing quite rapidly on the garden here and there, will be using them for the chickens because they are of hybrid carry over from bird seeds or whole corn from last year compost.

My neighbors are having problems too but his was most insects or caterpillars. thank God for chickens, nothing would survive that would eat my plants!

Next year I will grow a smaller garden. I did reduce my garden by half and now I am going to use about half of that size for next year and keep it away from the fence line. It was rough trying to mow down the overgrown weeds.

Thought about moving the garden to another area to give this garden a rest.

 

[Citron_d'uccle]

I think that the 100°+ days since the end of June is to blame for the lousy gardens we have had so far.

I am a certified Texas Master Gardener with nearly 20 years experience growing organic vegetables, melons, beans and fruit. (I grow organic vegetables, melons etc. for market, I guess its my 'job' for lack of a better term.

Being that this is BYC and all, I highly recommend use of soiled bedding in the garden. It is a high nitrogen natural fertilizer. Every spring I prepare my beds with the following mix, covers 1000 square feet-

4-6 inches of decomposed black compost
20 pounds of organic fertilizer
40-80 pounds of lava sand
40-80 pounds of Texas greensand
10 pounds dry molasses
20-40 pounds of soft rock phosphate
5 pounds sulfur
1 pound horticultural grade corn meal gluten

I recommend this for use in our Texas clay soil. For a sandy, alkaline soil use the following-

4-6 inches of decomposed black compost
20 pounds of organic fertilizer
40-80 pounds of lava sand
50-100 pounds of high-calcium lime
5 pounds of horticultural grade sugar
20-40 pounds of soft rock phosphate

Again, weather plays a large part in the success of our garden. With our almost 75 days without rain combined with nearly 60 straight days of 100 °+ whether, our crops have not been too productive. Not a single tomato yet this year. Beans, melons, okra and peppers are doing real well. Cukes eggplant, corn, etc not good at all.

 

[Citron_d'uccle]

Also, you should amend your soil as described in the last post, till the soil to a depth of 8-12", and once you laid your rows they should never be walked on again. Good aeration is critical to plant development and soil compaction is a leading cause of poor growing plants. I like to make my rows 36"-48" wide with a two foot path between rows. This way you can work the rows from both sides. Hope this helps.