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| I'm about to totally give up on my garden and just plant grass seed next year. The first few years it was great. Everything grew great. From then on things have been horrible. I have tried so many combination of things its pitiful. Some years the weather wasn't so great so i blamed it on that. This year the weather has been fine. This year i decided to plant kind of late. I decided to have my plants delivered & planted them in the last week of may. Most of my plants came from chileplants. Why? Because i've found that if you plant to early and it gets kind of cold sometimes that shocks the plant and they never recover. Like i said i've tried nearly everything. I've experimented with planting time, fertilizer , ect. Last year fall after we had a frost i tilled 12/12/12 into the soil. I then tilled another bag into the soil about a month before planting time. I feed with miracle grow plant food every other week. I don't have a compost container per se but i through all my leftover vegetable and plant material on top of the garden. I always throw my grass clippings on there too. Hopefully by the photos i'm going to past you get a sense whats happening. Whats wierd is most things are doing really bad (both tomatoes & peppers) but there are are a few things that are doing really good (sweet peppers & 2 poblano peppers). Whats wierd is i never had the much luck with sweet peppers in the past. Anyways you can tell from the leaves in the pictures that they are curling. Here are the pics: http://choclabs.mooo.com/garden1.jpg Again i'm quite frustrated at this point. I've spent a lot of money & time on this garden and am getting pretty sub par results. ncage |
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| Oh dear! I looked at the first two pictures (which are both the same) and it looks like herbicide damage to me. Either someone has been spraying chemicals, or the grass has been sprayed and the clippings have been polluted. There's not much to do except wait and see...... Linda
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- Posted by prairiemoon2 zone 6a/MA (My Page) on Thu, Jun 26, 14 at 11:39
| I think when you add a lot of links in your post that have to be copied and pasted to view, it makes it less likely people will have the time to actually look at your photos. I had the time, so I did that, but there were also a lot of duplicates. To me, it is always better to post the photo in your post by using Image File Upload feature, where you compose your post. Where it says 'choose a file'. You can do one photo per post and just post multiple times to get your photos on there. Like this…..and I see the photo is showing sideways. If you want to see it right side up, just click on the photo and it will load in another window that way. |
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- Posted by prairiemoon2 zone 6a/MA (My Page) on Thu, Jun 26, 14 at 11:40
| And another …. |
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- Posted by prairiemoon2 zone 6a/MA (My Page) on Thu, Jun 26, 14 at 11:41
| And another, is this one a pepper plant? |
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- Posted by prairiemoon2 zone 6a/MA (My Page) on Thu, Jun 26, 14 at 11:42
| Another pepper? |
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- Posted by prairiemoon2 zone 6a/MA (My Page) on Thu, Jun 26, 14 at 11:43
| A tomato plant? |
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- Posted by prairiemoon2 zone 6a/MA (My Page) on Thu, Jun 26, 14 at 11:44
| Last one…. |
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| I agree with herbicide damage. Are those your own grass clippings? Does anyone around you either spray weed killer or if there are farm fields nearby could there have been drift from spraying? |
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| Without going through all the photos other than the ones prairiemoon posted then I have to agree that there are definite signs of herbicide damage. I also have to wonder about your soil temperatures. Even this far south it has only been the past week that I could put down my mulch as the soil was still too cool. And I also wonder about the soil pH as it is the most likely cause of problems across the board in a garden. You can add all the nutrients you want but when the soil pH is heavily skewed the plants can't use them. Lastly, some of the pepper plants are showing signs of overly wet soil. Has there been lots of rain? Or are you very sure you aren't over-watering? I'd suggest getting a professional soil test from your county ag extension office. It is the only way to really know what is going on with your garden. Dave |
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- Posted by whitelacey 6 (My Page) on Thu, Jun 26, 14 at 11:54
| I second the herbicide damage. Or fertilizer burn. It sounds as though you may be over-feeding. Linda |
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- Posted by Donna.in.Sask 2b (My Page) on Thu, Jun 26, 14 at 12:01
| I'll add to what's already been mentioned: you are throwing all your kitchen scraps and grass clippings into your garden without letting it properly compost...that might be a problem along with the herbicide damage and other issues. |
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- Posted by missingtheobvious Blue Ridge 7a (My Page) on Thu, Jun 26, 14 at 12:02
| Definitely herbicide damage to the tomatoes. The twisted leaves are a classic sign of something containing 2,4-D (a broad-leaf weed killer usually used on lawns). http://ncsupdicblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/herbicide-injury-to-tomatoes.html |
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| I feel so badly for you but with the advice above, you may be able to salvage some plants. thx prairiemoon2 for uploading the pics so we can see. I wish you all the very best. Nerry |
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- Posted by prairiemoon2 zone 6a/MA (My Page) on Thu, Jun 26, 14 at 12:12
| Dave brings up some good points, as usual. :-) If you are in zone 5, I would not say that planting the end of May was too late. Especially this year, with the winter and early spring we’ve had. Tomatoes and peppers, sweet potatoes, they all want heat and sun, right? We still have a lot of that ahead in July and August. If you can get your soil checked and stop adding anything more until you find out what the soil test says, you may still be able to get your garden growing. I grow organically, so I don’t use synthetic fertilizers like 12-12-12 or Miracle Grow, so I don’t have experience with using those, but with synthetic fertilizers, there’s always the possibility you are adding too much. The soil test will determine the level of nutrients in the soil as well as the PH. I see you are adding grass clippings and I use those as well, but my own grass has not had anything applied to it and I do mix them with chopped brown leaves from the Fall. That is good organic matter, which your soil needs, if they have not been treated with any chemicals. Not sure about using the leftover plant material. If it was healthy leftovers and they were broken up into smaller pieces that could be okay. One thing that did catch my eye, is the crop growing next to your garden. Is that corn? Is it your own corn or a neighbor’s? Do you know if it has had any pesticide sprayed on it or is a lot of synthetic fertilizer being used on that too? |
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- Posted by sleevendog 5-6 (My Page) on Thu, Jun 26, 14 at 17:52
| Dave made a good point about soil temp...something i should consider, but i have had an unusual warm spring. Some tomatoes went in early and mulched. I doubt i should do that most years... Looks like the whole shebang is maybe a un-composted pile. Too dense, too heavy, needs air. I would probably rake it all to one end and cover it for next year...the top 4 inches...make a good compost 'end row'. Then rake up some mound rows to plant in. Not a bust year at all. Maybe just too much went in and is burning your roots. And soggy with such a dense mulch as grass tends to be. Un-composted kitchen scraps are wet and soggy for weeks....peppers may just got the lucky spot without much of that stuff? Don't give up...got a good plot for upcoming seasons and even this year if problem gets solved...just let is rest and don't add anything for some time me thinks? |
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