Help me with my garden

[warramra]

Can I get some help with my veggie garden this year... We have had a small garden for the last 6 years or so. It has just been a fun little hobby to do with the kids, but I really want to get a return this year. My problem is that we have a small raised be on the south side of the house. The first couple of years we got a decent amount of green peppers and cucumbers out of it, but not very successful with anything else. The last couple of years I have branched out to including tomatoes and squashes and have been really disappointed. On the tomato plants the leaves turn yellow and fall off starting at the bottom and moving up. Last year (the weather was horrible, dry at the beginning of summer and really wet late) my squash plants did almost nothing, they sent out male flowers but no females until fall. I picked my first zucchini fruit in October.

my other plants (cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes) all put out a lot of buds with very, very low yield.

I've been thinking it is a sun issue, as the lettuces I plant in the Spring do really well and last much longer than expected. But, the summer crops just do nothing. I have turned over soil on the north side of the house that we can now get plenty of summer sun (thanks to neighbors taking out their trees 2 years ago) and am going to try a summer garden on that side.

So, you master gardeners, do you think it may be sun (or lack of) affecting my last few years? Are there other issues we may need to consider before I get to planting this year?

I would like to be able to grow in the summer:
~ green bell peppers
~ yellow crookneck squash
~ zucchini squash
~ butternut squash
~ tomatoes
~ slicing cucumbers
~ other ????

Any help would be appreciated.

[redmaples]

my first thought is...how is the soil in your plot?
do you add organic materials such as leaves, straw, grass clippings, compost? if it is a relatively new plot you may have to build up the quality of your soil first.
i can't help much w/specific answers....some garden books can tell you whats gone wrong...why the leaves on your tomato plants are turning yellow for example. could be lack of something or too much of something.
as an organic gardener my focus has always been to build up the soil. i'm not successful w/ everything, but most things seem to do well.
i have a small pet rabbit who gives me fertilizer & cleaning out the chicken houses is also extra poo & straw.

if you can get your hands on any ruth stout books you can get some better advice. she advocates mulching & so do i.

beans are easy to grow & will benefit your soil by adding nitrogen back into it. it is a good crop to grow in a new plot. if you have a small plot grow pole beans.

i am not a master gardener...i go by intuition & experience...& a little formal learning

good luck with your planning & growing!

[thefrug]

the yellowing of the tomato leaves could have been from maybe no food or no water. did you see any signs of insects? like a web or spots? always build up the soil. always. manure, seasoned of any kind will help with the amount of food you'll get out of your efforts. Hit the library and ask them for help in finding books to get you going in the right direction. call your local extension office too. thats what they're there for. And they know about gardening in your specific area.

[dilligaf]

If you are using raised beds, you will need to fertilize them fairly often with something. Whether you use compost worm poop, chemicals the choice is yours, but the soil in the beds is most liely very deficient of nutrients if you have been just using the same bed year after year.

Raised beds do not retain water. They require watering most everyday.

[dogmatix]

Call your agricultural extension office, or check their website. They offer free advice on just these types of problems, plus a wealth of other gardening resources. They'll be more than willing to tell you what's wrong ad how to fix it. Happy gardening.

[lisettelovebug]

great advice. I want to do a nice garden this year if we are moved into our new home early enough (I can plant before then because we do own the land already).

I have a question. I want to plant berry bushes along the border of our land. Now, we have a lot of deer up there. How do I keep the deer and other animals from eating all the fruit? Also how do you keep other animals out of your veggies? Thanks for any help you can offer.

[Grainlady]

Our County Extension Office offers a Master Gardener coarse. Might be something you'd like to take advantage of.

I'm going to hang my tomato plants this year, in hopes of avoiding some of the disease conditions common in small gardens.

I grow cool-weather greens (lettuce, spinach, turnip tops, etc. in pots and planters. About the time they are done, it's time to plant them with 1/2-price annuals. When the annuals are looking ragged from the hot summer, I pull them out and plant a fall crop of greens. I can get a lot of produce from container gardening and choose smaller plant varieties.

I have to agree with having your soil tested and improving it, as well as regular feeding during the growing season. I use compost from my tumbling composter and what a difference that makes in the garden produce...

Google - how to keep critters out of the garden - and you'll find all kinds of ideas.

[suki]

Yep, start with testing the soil... free at your county extension agency.

The tomato problem sounds like disease and you may have a disease contaminated bed... meaning you need to plant something else there for a while. Crop rotation isn't just for big farms and there's a reason to rotate crops annually.

[Siebrie]

You can get free coffee grounds from your local starbucks, just ask. It's great for improving the soil.

Tomatoes and potatoes are nephews, so rotate them in the same way and wait 4 years before you plant either of them in the same soil again.

Start a compost heap in a corner of your garden and add all your green waste. After a year you can dig the bottom half of it into your garden.

[Contrary Housewife]

I have the same problems with my tomatoes. They really need a lot of fertilizer or compost in the bed each spring. Tomatoes will suck it up like nothing else.

The yellowing is caused by a couple things. If water splashes on the leaves from the ground they will yellow and fall off. I use a drip hose in the garden to prevent that. If the plants get big and the bottom leaves don't get sunlight they will yellow and fall off. This is usually not a problem by the time the plants are that big.

Last year I had a horrible mite infestation. You will see little black spots like pepper sprinkled on the plants and very fine webbing. The bugs are sucking your plants dry and killing them. They do not have the energy to produce fruit. You can get a chemical spray for your plants and try to save them, but you have to recognize it early. You don't want it to spread to your other plants.

As for the rest of it... you can't do much about the weather except compensate with more water or shade. For each variety that you plant, look up what kind of conditions it needs and how long it takes to mature to harvest. If something needs cool weather and takes 60 days to mature and you plant it in June you're not going to get anything -- the plant can't start to mature until the weather cools off (September?) and then it will take 60 days for fruit to develop.

Squash start with male flowers for a week or two and the the female flowers come. I had problems with mine, too, it was so wet all the young fruit rotted before it could develop. I think if you did not get female flowers it might have gotten too warm for them by the time the plants were ready. They will not produce once it gets hot. You need to start them as early as possible.

Look on the web and find some information about your gardening zone, and what your "last frost date". That will tell you what to plant and when.

[nanqt]

Grainlady,
How do you "hang tomatoes" ? I have never had much luck with tomatoes, maybe this method will help

Thank You