Vegetables Dying

[teyla15]

Two weeks ago I planted tomatoes, zucchini and a red pepper plant. They are either dying or dead. Can somebody tell me what this disease is?

 

[CrazyConure]

For the zucchini leaf underside: that is the first leaf (cotyledon). They are supposed to dry up and die after the true leaves come out.

I'm not sure about the tomatoes, but your soil does look pretty wet. Are you watering too frequently?

 

[teyla15]

I haven't had to water since I planted them, we've had a record setting rainfall this spring. This is the first time I've planted zucchini so I didn't know that. Thanks.

 

[headfullofbees]

Yes, too wet.
It's by far the most common error committed by novices, so don't beat yourself up about it.
The zucchini you may be lucky, but at least most of the roots will have rotted on the rest, so you could struggle on with weakling survivors, if you have any, or bite the bullet and replace them, which would be my advice.
Cut the watering by half, and if you're soil is still wet, halve again.

 

[teyla15]

I haven't watered since planting them. We've had a recorded rainfall here and expecting more today and tomorrow. I guess I'll wait and see what happens and replant them it they die.

 

[CrazyConure]

Tell me about it! It's been raining here nonstop as well. Luckily, I don't see any of my plants suffering from it. I'm hoping I don't get any cracked tomatoes.

 

[roadrunner]

Heavy mulch helps to mitigate the effects of heavy rains, as well as back-to-back rainy days; it keeps the soil from eroding, i.e. losing too much nutrients from runoff. I'm not saying you won't have any problems with too much rain, but it does help.

 

[CrazyConure]

Heavy mulch helps to mitigate the effects of heavy rains, as well as back-to-back rainy days; it keeps the soil from eroding, i.e. losing too much nutrients from runoff. I'm not saying you won't have any problems with too much rain, but it does help.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought mulch helped keep in the water and prevent evaporation. If that theory is correct, shouldn't we encourage evaporation when it rains too much to get some excess water out?

 

[Beth_B]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought mulch helped keep in the water and prevent evaporation. If that theory is correct, shouldn't we encourage evaporation when it rains too much to get some excess water out?

Now you've got me curious. Good question!

 

[Durgan]

First your garden area must have excellent drainage. If water puddles on your garden you are in trouble. With too much rain, eventually growth will be retarded, mulch or no mulch. Evaporation cannot repair too much water because of poor drainage. The mulch is to keep the top two or three inches damp. Dry top soil layer is dead soil, it does nothing for your plants.

Before the advent of mulching , people were constantly loosening the soil around plants, which of course took effort and disturbed roots. In other words self defeating. With mulching it is only necessary to gently pull or cut the weeds that inevitably appear.

My criteria as to adequate drainage is walking on the garden within say 6 to 8 hours the soil should not be waterlogged after the rain stops.

As an aside, there is no black magic to raised beds. Their main purpose is to insure the drainage is adequate.

 

[headfullofbees]

They also warm quicker in the spring, especially if you have heavy clay soil.
These are usually, but not always, advantages, as many brassicas prefer cool heavy soil, and some plants, like lettuces, run to seed very quickly in warm soil.

 

[roadrunner]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought mulch helped keep in the water and prevent evaporation. If that theory is correct, shouldn't we encourage evaporation when it rains too much to get some excess water out?

This brings up a good question on how to manage various types of soil. Maybe my recommendation wouldn't work for some, especially those with clay soil. I don't know what type of soil the OP deals with, so maybe my recommendation wasn't best for his/her situation.

However, for me, it's all about drainage. My natural soil without mulching is very, very sandy, and sand is nothing but small bits of rock, nothing organic. So no matter how much mulch I have it will not trap the moisture, simply because all the water drains away, so for water retention mulching is basically useless. However, what mulching does do is trap moisture within the mulch itself, although this is of no immediate use to the plant, because its roots are under ground, it is very useful for all the animal life and the microbial life and that's what takes that mulch and converts it into soil, i.e. nutrients that the plants need. Take away moisture and mulch does nothing, all life stops, it's just a pile of leaves (and all the other stuff I mulch).

In my very, very sandy soil you can see this break down of organic matter on the very top level of the sand, it has a black color and the more time that goes by the thicker the layer gets and it eventually starts becoming part of the sandy soil, this is referred to as Loam. This is the stuff that makes it possible for me to grow basically whatever I want.

There are some non-mulched areas of my yard, because I do grow some things that don't like heavily fertilized soil, such as aloe and purslane.... but because I have so much mulch in my yard the loamy stuff gets on top of the sand and turns it a black color, as opposed to the normal dull gray color of my sandy soil. However, after a heavy rain it is washed away and the soil turns back to a dull gray color, but if you look under my heavily mulched area it's even blacker than before the rain, because instead of being washed away, it is basically pushed further into the soil, creating a loamy soil deeper and deeper into the ground.

I typed way too much, I gotta go to the gym now and exercise other muscles, because I think my finger have had enough for today

 

[Beverly]

Do we know where in Canada the OP lives? It is a big country with lots of climate zones. Also should we know what kind of soil he/she has? Raised beds? Containers? I scanned the thread and could not find this information, i may have missed it