What is wrong with my garden?

[akaydia]

Hi,
I am brand new to gardening. I planned my first garden this year. It didn't turn out so well. Here is a list of all the issues that I had. This was our hottest and wettest summer that I remember having in a while.

I used compost, garden soil, and mulch. Weekly treatments of copper solution, neem oil, and Epson salts.

Radishes
-didn't bulb

Swiss chard
-only a few leaves emerged and those were usually only 2-3 inches long. Stop growing after that

carrots
short and very hairy

tomatoes (Celebrity, roma, and big boy)
-leaves had Septoria
-very few tomatoes and flowers
-some tomatoes cracked after a large rainstorm

Peppers
only one pepper grew and it had a moldy spot.

Squash and zucchini plants
Roots and stem rotted- squash also rotted- plant died

Cucumbers
-were long, curly and yellow
-squash bugs invaded


Green and yellow beans
-crop turned out great
-green beans were a bit hairy but okay


spinach
-did not germinate

sweet potatoes
-have not been harvested yet.

 

[Beth_B]

Hmmm. Where do you live (general location and/or USDA growing zone)? And do you know how good/fertile your native soil is? My admittedly non-scientific guage is how well do weeds and other native or feral plants grow where I want to plant things. Where I live now, it's very lush and everything grows like crazy. In a previous house, grass and weeds were sparse and the soil was hard and crumbly. I had to resort to raised beds and containers for just about anything to grow, and amend like crazy.

Hot and rainy is often very hard on vegetable gardens since so many common veggies originate in drier climates. Sometimes we just have to cede to Mother Nature and adjust what we grow.

It's excellent that you are mulching, it took me many years to appreciate all the benefits of mulch!

A fast google suggests that weekly applications of copper is not at all a good thing for plants and the people that eat them. I use Neem oil too, and on the advice of another forum member here started using a spinosad-based insecticide (organic; brand I bought was Captian Jacks) and bug & caterpillar activity has pretty much ceased.

Anyway...I am thinking in your case start with your soil quality. I'm growing everything and more same as you and while heat and rain related things I can't control are an ongoing issue (blight, splitting tomatoes) in general everything grows and I've had a decent harvest this year. It did help that our spring and early summer was wicked dry.

 

[Chuck]

As @Beth_B said......................where do you live?

 

[akaydia]

Thanks for your responses!

Raleigh, North Carolina----growing zone 7


I haven't had my soil tested yet. I will have that done.

The Roma tomato plant did the best out of all the tomato plants. I find this strange as it was not heat tolerant.

 

[maj742]

After soil, I'd check the recommended planting times for each vegetable in your region. Some veggies only do well if planted early in cool weather, and are done by the time heat comes: peas, radish, spinach come to mind.
What was your soil last year - grass? Weeds? Someone else's garden? If it was newly turned over from grass or weeds I think it will be better next year. If it was someone else's garden last year, maybe they added unhealthy stuff to it that carried over to this year and caused problems for you.
I try to pick all colored tomatoes before rain, because, especially after a dry period, rain will cause tomatoes to suck up the water like a sponge, causing the skin to crack and split.
I would not add epsom salts more than 1 or 2 times a summer, or maybe not at all, depending on a soil test. Why add copper at all? Why add so much neem?
I only know about gardening in zone 5. Your area has a whole set of different problems and joys. Do you have a local governmental unit that dispenses gardening information? Up here (Wisconsin) we have the University Extension, for one. I am sorry you had such a disappointing start. I hope it gets easier and you have many future successes.

 

[maj742]

Here are some links that look promising:
https://gardening.ces.ncsu.edu/

http://www.trianglegardener.com/garden-tips/

http://www.wral.com/starting-a-basic-backyard-fruit-vegetable-garden/13445965/

 

[akaydia]

Thanks for your quick replies.

The Radishes, beans, peas, and swiss chard were planted in April.

The tomato plants I purchased at Wal-mart in May/June. Everything else was planted as seeds that weekend.

The garden used to a mulch pile. I have no clue where the mulch came from. I did find a door hinge and old nails in the mulch pile, so I guess it used to be old furniture.

I added neem oil to protect the garden from insects and fungus.

The copper solution was sprayed on the plants with Septoria spots or are near plants with Septoria spots.

Thanks for the links. I will check them out.

 

[RamblingChicken]

Re: "Weekly treatments of copper solution, neem oil, and Epson salts."

When I Google neem oil, I read that it shouldn't be used when conditions are too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet...if you don't have a specific reason for using it, I'd stop using it.

There's also such thing as copper toxicity, from too much copper.

I don't see a specific suggestion of harm coming from Epsom salts, but I don't see anyone recommending weekly application; the suggested application intervals are much larger than that.

So I'm concerned that your problems may be a result of the extremely frequent use of these treatments. I would stop using all of them for now, to eliminate them as variables.

But I'm also wondering:

- How much compost in proportion to garden soil?
- How did you prepare the planting area? (Digging, etc.)
- Did you use any fertilizer?
- What was your watering routine?
- How hot and how wet has it been?
- How's the weed situation?
- Was there anything different about the area where you grew the successful beans?
- How far apart did you plant the various seeds?

Squash and zucchini usually need pollinators, and the various treatments may have killed those. Spinach doesn't like it hot. For the others, I'm wondering about overcrowding, low fertility, or, again, damage from the treatments.

 

[atlmom5]

I understand the weather issues that @akaydia has/is going through. I live in Atlanta, Ga.( by the way, I'm from Raleigh, too) and it has been a brutal gardening season for many in this area. First we had an unusual cold spell in late April/ early May that killed off many of my bell pepper and eggplants. Out of the 24 eggplants that I planted, only six survived. That cold spell also impacted my tomato plants, too, but many of them survived, however, their growth was halted a bit.

After the cold spell, then we had pretty normal temperatures for the area until June and then the heat was on. We've had temperatures in the upper 90's for the majority of the summer, with no rain or minimum amounts here and there, and then in late July the temperatures are still in the upper 90's, very humid, but now there's a lot of heavy rain to go along with it.

These types of conditions have caused many gardeners to experience all kinds of problems in their gardens this season. I can say, it has been a wild rollercoaster ride, for sure, but hey...my herbs did just fine and my cucumbers did absolutely amazing the first part of the season, and the okras really took off when we started getting some rain. Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the weather doesn't change up real drastically anytime soon because I have eggplants finally! I also have a lot of tomatoes now, but I could pick them off, if I wanted to and let them ripen in the house.

 

[akaydia]

How much compost in proportion to garden soil?
- How did you prepare the planting area? (Digging, etc.)
I had some raised beds installed. I bought garden soil and added compost.

- Did you use any fertilizer?
I added compost and some nitrogen

- What was your watering routine?
Not much routine. I struggle to determine how much and how frequently to water my plants.

- How hot and how wet has it been?
over 90 during the peak of the summer

- How's the weed situation?
Good, I have been weeding more than weekly

- Was there anything different about the area where you grew the successful beans?
The beans were grown outside of the raised beds in regular unprepared dirt

- How far apart did you plant the various seeds?
I followed the package in regards to spacing. I did not thin them though.


A month ago I pulled up my summer garden and planted lettuce and Brussels sprouts seeds. The lettuce germinated but stopped growing after that. I remove falling leaves 2-3 times a week and it has been killing some of the seedlings so I haven't been thinning them. The Brussel sprouts had extremely low germination rates. However, they seem to be growing very well.


I used a soil testing kit, the results came back as ph of 7 and the other were inconclusive. I think that the kit is too old, as it was lent to me by a family member. I will buy a new testing kit today.

I also bought a moisture meter kit. There were some areas that did not germinate and it turns out that they were not getting enough water.
Sadly this moisture meter does not tell me if when I am overwatering.

Today I plan on thinning my lettuce.

 

[Pat]

Lots of good information given above. One other thing to be aware of that certain plants should not be planted next to each other. I know that sounds crazy but there are plants that will not grow if their neighbor is a certain plant. Also how old were the seeds, if too old will not germinate.

 

[remnant]

You clearly got to check some agronomic issues. For instance, check whether you are growing the correct breed in your target zone. It could be an issue to do with the presence of organic acids in the soil which bind plant nutrients reducing their bioavailability. Application of woodash and agricultural lime is a good place to start.

 

[akaydia]

I'm still waiting on the PNK results. pH came back as a 7.

I'll check companion planting.

I know that early summer I was watering too much and late summer too little.

I thinned out my seedlings. 1 per 6" for the lettuce.

 

[BeautifullyBree]

I don't actually have advice, but I just wanted to stop and say I feel your pain. I've tried so hard to have a good garden. To eat fresh home grown foods this year. However it didn't work out. I had the exact same problem with my squash and it was very disconcerting. I wish you better luck next year.

 

[akaydia]

Soil test came back. Nitrogen is severely depleted. K and P are adequate.