Trying gardening this year

[Jamie Calloway]

Hey Tech,
Yea my Bush beans looked pretty good, even started with white flowers but they have just kinda stopped growing. I will take a picture of the garden today and post it so you can see what I'm dealing with. Is it possible that a lot of the weeds came from seeds falling off the trees that were there earlier? My corn was doing great but after 2 months there still only about a foot and half tall, I don't think they are going to grow another 4 feet in a month.

 

[MaryMary]

One thing I was told to try was to lay newspapers down beside my raised rows to help keep the weeds down and then later it can be mulched into the garden. Not sure if this will work.

Newspaper will work. They recommend 2-3 layers of paper with a thin layer of another mulch on top. Basically, anything that smothers the light to the weeds.

Here is an article on mulching options in Georgia.
http://agr.georgia.gov/adding-mulch-to-vegetable-plants-increases-yields-saves-water.aspx


Here is a vegetable planting chart for Georgia that you may find helpful.
https://secure.caes.uga.edu/extension/publications/files/html/C963/C963VegeChart.pdf

Of there is anything else anyone would suggest, I am open to anything.

If you have the space available, could you start your plants in containers? (It wouldn't have to be anything fancy, the bottom half of a milk jug would work.) Just until the seedlings are an inch or two high? I do this with my flower seeds sometimes - that way I don't pull them, thinking they're weeds.

 

[Chuck]

Alright so I'm thinking of pulling up the garden, and need some advice. My corn and bush beans have not grown an inch in the last month and I am pretty sure they have been stunted. I also planted a ton of other vegetables which after almost 60 days have not sprouted at all. I know I had some major problems from the beginning but I'm not sure if one or all of the issues were the problem. So here is my plan.
First I am going to take a sample of my soul to take and have tested, of course I will add whatever I am lacking. I have already cut down the trees that were casting shade, the garden is getting a good 8 hours of sun now. One thing I was told to try was to lay newspapers down beside my raised rows to help keep the weeds down and then later it can be mulched into the garden. Not sure if this will work. I am hoping that the more I till up the ground the less weeds I will have. Is there anything I can put down that will kill the weeds but not hurt the veggies? Of there is anything else anyone would suggest, I am open to anything.
Thanks
Jamie Calloway

If beans and corn are not growing rapidly something is definitely wrong. What do all plants need to grow? That would be sunlight, nutrients and water. You have fixed the sunlight and you give them plenty of water. So it has to be nutrients. What and how much did you fertilize with? On a new bare patch of ground the soil has been used to maintaining its native trees and plants. Vegetables need a LOT more nutrition. I think you plants are stunted due to lack of food. They started off OK but as the grew they used up the available NPK and then stopped growing.
Weed seeds can last for years in the soil. Tilling only brings more old seeds up and plows fresh seed into the soil. I have never had much luck getting rid of weeds by tilling alone. When I started my garden out in the middle of nowhere I first solarized it and then dug it up and then solarized it again. Then I made my raised rows and solarized it again. All of this took a total of 2 yrs. My garden is 21 years old this year. I have plenty of surface weeds and grass all easily taken care of with a Hula-Hoe. I have not deeply turned over the soil or tilled it a single time since the beginning. I just add organic matter and fertilizer to the surface and lightly turn it into the soil.

 

[Jamie Calloway]

WOW! Thanks for all the great input everyone, I got to tell you when I see that little alert light up I get excited. So I am definitely going to lay down some newspaper along side my raised rows this time, and smother that with some small bark mulch. I think you are right Chuck I think they were stunted due to nutrition or lack there of. I am going to try and start up my mulching bin again. I did not put anything in the soil before I planted this year the soil looked so good I didn't think I needed anything, lesson learned. It sounds like I need to add some nitrogen to the soul but I know adding to much could burn everything up. Mary, thank you so much for the planting guide it's awesome and will be a huge help. More later.

 

[Chuck]

WOW! Thanks for all the great input everyone, I got to tell you when I see that little alert light up I get excited. So I am definitely going to lay down some newspaper along side my raised rows this time, and smother that with some small bark mulch. I think you are right Chuck I think they were stunted due to nutrition or lack there of. I am going to try and start up my mulching bin again. I did not put anything in the soil before I planted this year the soil looked so good I didn't think I needed anything, lesson learned. It sounds like I need to add some nitrogen to the soul but I know adding to much could burn everything up. Mary, thank you so much for the planting guide it's awesome and will be a huge help. More later.

You cannot, it is just about impossible, to add too much organic fertilizer to your soil. You are a 4th generation farmer and I would bet you have never used anything but chemical fertilizers of which it is easy to burn your plants. It is a completely different ball game with a vegetable garden. Many large scale commercial farms are going organic here in Texas and even they are having a difficult time getting their heads around their fertilizing needs. It takes more organic fertilizer the first year than you would expect but the amount you need DECREASES each year after instead of INCREASING with the use of chemicals. I started out with 40# per 500 sq ft of growing area, not the entire sq ft of the garden. I now use, at the most , 80# for the entire garden per year. My garden, only the growing rows and beds, is about 3500 sq ft. with a total of about 1/4 acre. I have overwide walkways in order to get a wheelbarrow down the rows without smashing something. Compost and compost tea are excellent additives to the soil but they do not adequately give the plants or the soil enough NKP. They add NPK but what they mainly do is feed the soil microbes that enable the plant to uptake the NPK in the fertilizer. Read about compost and compost tea in the Organic Gardening forum on this site.

 

[Jamie Calloway]

Just wanted to tell you guys I have officially become addicted to this forum. Printed out several documents all the way from prefered soil temps to NPK values. I do have a suggestion though, I know some of the articles/documents have been stickied but would be cool to have all of them under one heading like documents/articles/useful information or research. Maybe there is something already like this, maybe I should go check first. Lol

 

[headfullofbees]

A word of advice:
If you use just bark chips, or better still woodchips, without the layer of paper, it will give better long-term help.
The reason? Well if you just smother the weed seeds, they'll just lie there, awaiting their chance to germinate.
A 2" woodchip layer, not only suppresses weeds, but because it sequesters nitrogen in a very thin layer, at the interface with your soil, it allows a lot of weed seeds to germinate, but they starve for want of nitrogen, whereas, if your crops are planted through this layer, they are not only unaffected by nitrogen depletion, but are fed by the woodchip decay and the worms feeding on that.
It's the method Durgan and I, and many others use, & it's excellent.

 

[headfullofbees]

https://www.gardening-forums.com/threads/31-may-2017-mulching.11753/

 

[Jamie Calloway]

Need ID help, this was in my pink hybrid tomato, doesn't look like a tomato though.

 

[Chuck]

Could be a tomatillo. A picture of the plant would be a big help

 

[Jamie Calloway]

Well crap Chuck, I think that's exactly what it is. Just saw a picture of the plant in Google and it's exactly the same even with the yellow flowers in it. So is this more or less a weed? I didn't order tomatillo's and they are right in line with the row where pink hybrid tomatoes are suppose to be. Here is a picture of what my plant looks like from Google.

 

[headfullofbees]

Could also be Cape Gooseberry/Ground Cherry (Physalis Edulous)
Both are edible, but crap, pull them up

 

[Chuck]

Well crap Chuck, I think that's exactly what it is. Just saw a picture of the plant in Google and it's exactly the same even with the yellow flowers in it. So is this more or less a weed? I didn't order tomatillo's and they are right in line with the row where pink hybrid tomatoes are suppose to be. Here is a picture of what my plant looks like from Google.
View attachment 21803

That is a tomatillo. They are a must in Mexican food like salsa's and for Salsa Verde. Not too much for anything else. They are called a husk tomato and are ripe when the green covering has turned brown. Go ahead and grow one I always do, but then I eat a lot of Mexican food.

 

[Jamie Calloway]

So is more likely that I got those seeds in my pack that I ordered, or are these growing wild?

 

[Chuck]

So is more likely that I got those seeds in my pack that I ordered, or are these growing wild?

You got them in the packet of seeds. Happens all the time. What really chaps me is when my tomato varieties are not what I bought. Many times there will be 2 different varieties in the same packet and I don't know who is who if one of the varieties does really well and I want to plant that variety again.