Garden failed this year?

[Ridgerunner]

Disease is always a possibility, but tomatoes will not set on fruit if it does not cool off enough at night or if it gets too hot during the day. I'm not arguing that you don't need to watch for symptoms of disease. You do and take appropriate action if necessary. Sometimes pretty drastic action. But if you have been experiecing record setting heat like several of us have, it could be something other than a disease.

 

[Kassaundra]

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2 months of day temps around 110 and over night lows at 88 and no rain to speak of is what's wrong w/ my garden this year. But yes pests and disease can be an issue in either good or bad growing conditions.

We actually made the record books for the hottest average temp of all time of the entire USA since records have been kept, for the month of July.

 

[darkmatter]

My Garden seems to be doing alright, it was touch and go there during the record heat days. The green pole beans and tomatoes quit setting fruit during the heat, now with rain and slightly cooler temps (85-90 vs 100-105) things are setting again. A couple varieties of squash vines dried up, but the others have more then compensated. I've learned to plant several varieties of stuff because each growing season favors some over the others and you never know what is gonna work. A variety that did well one year doesn't always do well every year, the same with a garden method. I'm having good luck with vertical growth of vines on trellis/fences rather then ground mounds for many years now.

 

[Mattemma]

My beets did not grow this year.My ground cherry plants are so dinky too.

 

[torrelee]

I spent HOURS getting ready for my first garden (helped my momma growing up, but my first all by myself garden). 2 out of 8 pea vines survived and have been doing great, but the other six never did much of anything. All of my yukon gold potato vines bolted and then rotted, I got some potatoes out of it. Broccoli never grew more than 4 inches tall, cauliflower grew quick, and then most of it bolted while I was at work. Green Beans did well. My tomatoes... I have gotten three tomatoes out of nine plants, no others in sight. Still blooming, strange. I finally started getting strawberries, and have started getting some tiny cucumbers and zucchini. Seems awfully late in the season for just starting to see them, but hopefully they'll keep growing. I really want to put a hoop house on one end of my little garden, but need to convince the DBF!

 

[KenK]

I know California is a gardener's paradise but around here, the vegetables you mentioned do not get planted at the same time. What tomatoes and beans love, broccoli, potatoes and cauliflower can't tolerate. You might want to double check your planting times for your seasons.

 

[pdsavage]

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[Carols Clucks]

I have several gardening books just for my area of the state so I plant when they are supposed to go in. Mom is used to just "ah it is warm and spring so everything goes in now"

I pay attention to what veggies like growing next to and what they do not, companion planting.

If you are in SoCal, there is a fun used book that was put out by the LA Times Garden section called some thing like 52 weeks in the SoCal Garden.


For me it is time to get the cool weather veggies started or in, my sweet peas planted etc. Because "we" have a lot of yard on a hill top and side, I plant a convenient winter garden in the back yard and the big spring/summer garden in the lower hillside area.

Mom has always had trouble with carrots, this time she listened to what I suggested and let me prep the bed with extra sand and small gravel and cover the seeds with a board til they sprouted. What a surprise she has a ton of baby carrots!

 

[greeneggsandham]

Peas and beans did well so will plant more for the Fall. Tomatoes have tons of huge green ones on the plants just not turning red yet. Squash and zucchini are doing well. My eggplant and peppers are going crazy. I started my pepper plants inside in Feb and though they seem to take for ever to grow most of them are over 2 ft tall with at least 8 pepper to each plant. The eggplant has 6 to 8 of them on each plant. I've been frying them up and freezing them. Will have plenty of eggplant parm this winter.

 

[SillyChicken]

beans started out ok, then we went on vacation and the person watching the house didn't go near the garden. So the plants got stringy and dried up. nothing else produced, the tomato plants never even grew before something got in there (ground hog) and made a mess of things. no peas, we may have some carrots and beets, and hoping the potatoes did something although the plants never really grew......but on the bright side, we got a bumper crop of weeds. We my relocate the garden to a better area in the spring.