Poor/odd garden this summer

Well as most of you know this has been a very bad year for gardens. My pepper plants are nice an tall as in almost 6 foot but the Jalapeno peppers seems to have stops producing but the sweet peppers are now setting flowers and I am seeing a good number of small peppers so maybe I'll still get some. My okra plants are dieing out the first planting that is but the 2nd are starting to produce. Tomato's are slowing way down also, but my KY. wonder bean are starting to produce like crazy. So how is your gardens doing???

Mine did not do good at all. It was cold and damp through late June then it turned really warm and extremely dry. Even with watering the plants never did well and I think it was the early part of the season that discouraged root development. The garden probably needed more of my time when I had to be in the field because of the wet spring. Stuff that was bedded or on deep loamy top soil did well around here. I've bedded some of the ground around here but it looks like it needs a whole lot more for these weird seasons. At least we got a few tomatoes and a little sweet corn and that is about it. I should find some ambition and try some late green beans.

My garden didn't do well this year. I think it was the drought we had. I usually have tomatoes until frost, but wont be that way this year. Beans were loaded with blossoms, but didn't get many green beans. I have some coming late and they may do better since we've been getting rain.
My peppers didn't bear very good. Hal
PS: In 2007 we had to attend a memorial service for my brother-in-law who died in Florida
and I took a big box of tomatoes along on the plane for both of my sister-in-laws. Some of those tomatoes were huge.

i didn't plant anything, but I've got some volunteer corn coming up. i don't think it's gona do squat

old,

The heat and drought got mine long ago. It's plowed under. I don't care for "greens" (turnips, lettuce, etc.) so I don't have a fall garden. Maybe next year.

Tom

SE South Dakota - lots of cucumbers, good sweet corn crop BUT my tomatoes do not set on any tomatoes. The plants are normal, blossomed nice and still blossoming, but nothing sets on. Any ideas why?

Some good, some bad. Worst carrots ever, best beets I ever raised. Melons doing great, lots of cukes & eggplant. You just never lknow!

I only put out canaloupes and they did fine. Had a lot of 10 pounders and one weighed in at 14 lbs. So I can't complain!! Where are you located? I'm 30 miles East of St. Louis, Mo.

Most look pretty good; tomatoes, corn, beans, and peppers all doing well. But the squash, cukes, and zucchini are dead or dying; bugs and disease got them.

It was so hot in July even the weeds didn't grow but they're taking off now that we have cooler nights and some rain.

I'm at the lake of the Ozarks in Missouri or is that misery Small town on the south west corner of the lake called Camdenton

Mixed reviews here on the NY/PA border. Garden was in late due to rainy spring, then things moved along nicely through July, then rains and cooler temps in August, slowed things right at the height of ripening time.

I didn't even get a garden in this year. Between its not drying up enough to get seed in the ground and my not deciding where to put it, it never quite happened. Sam

Tried starting plants indoors to get a head start, they died.

Tried again, they died.

Tried again, moved them outside when it warmed up a little, squirrels dug them out of the pots.

Warmed up so I planted my corn and green beans. Then it got cold and rainy again, half of the seeds rotted. Filled in the empty spots, half of those didn't come up either.

Every day I would lose a few cornstalks, some thing was chewing them off and leaving them lay. Pulling weeds one day the neighbors cat walks over and chewed one off right in front of me.

Ants thought the mounds for my pumpkins, cucumbers, and melons were a dry island for them. I had to replant seeds everyday after birds would dig the ants up.

Go out one day and half of the green beans were ate down to stems. I dusted them. The next day half of the remaining ones were uprooted, it took that many tries for the deer to decide that they all tasted yucky.

Then they ate all of my green tomatoes, so I put up an electric fence.

I had two pumpkin vines, each with a pumpkin about 2 feet in diameter. Pulled weeds around the base of the plants, next day the plants were all dried up and wilted.

Now coons are eating my corn. I don't want to do traps because I know there are skunks out there too. And I can't use poison because of neighbors pets. And I can't use guns because I'm in town.

And every time I go out in my yard the cranky old man next door lets his dogs out to bark at me. I might not even bother next year.

Considering the spring we had, April was cold, so was May, previous year was literally straight into summer from winter, which was nice but odd. This year reminded me of what winter and spring used to be like, or was more common, we actually had a spring !

Things got planted later than I like, root bound in the trays, working too many hours, not all that easy to get it done, but somehow I manage. Soil is marginal on this patch that was just lawn on top of clean, clay/gravel fill with lots of stones, but it produces and is getting better. Everything was stunted or in limbo, except the tomatoes, they always root in and grow. Cucumbers and squash, stunted, I side dressed them with dried blood/bonemeal, peppers even worse, doing nothing, then they take off, loaded with bell peppers,waiting for em to turn red, lettuce well you do what you can in the heat, herbs, basil, oregano, thyme, chives, always do fine, onions hit or miss, tough soil for em, have to put in some sand, potatoes are going well. Then everything finally took off, everything producing well. Rain has been regular here, we just had a soaker, earlier in the week, cherry tomatoes cracked, cucumbers leaves have mold now, but at least I fought off those horn caterpillars. All considering, this one little patch is producing vegetables. I can see a big difference in the last 2 weeks, plants are really filling out.

I hope everyone has a better year next year, I always plant extra, have 2 other large gardens at the horse farm, I can't even begin to use all of that, so I like to share with whomever enjoys fresh vegetables.

Hard to see everything I crammed in here, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, squash, bell peppers, Jalapeno peppers, head lettuce, cucumbers, herbs, and a volunteer sunflower, (thanks chipmunks!) never saw one with multiple flowers, must be a harvest type for grain?

From my back step just now:





Late afternoon snack, it makes it all worth it, wish I could live like this all year, the nutrition really helps, every bit was just harvested from this patch, hopefully I can keep the lettuce going, been picking leaves off it, need some more greens next year. Even got a purple bell pepper in here, never had one before.

The bees are working the cukes.

May sound strange but if you plant marigolds and herbs like basal in and around your garden it helps with the bug problem and also the coon/deer problems. I have had coons on my porch but never lost any thing in the garden that O know of and never lost any corn

Ours burnt to a crisp. At least we got a lot of good stuff before it got so darn hot and so darn dry. Even though we have irrigation, it just wasn't enough to keep up with the heat. Gotta love Texas! Odd how the weeds took over just fine, even without water! I put up a temporary fence around it and turned a few goats out in it this morning before it got too hot. They worked some of it down, but I'll have to do that again several more times. Wish I could put them out there overnight, but every evening I hear the coyotes in the distance so it's not safe.

Wow, you should get a big A....or would that be E for effort!
If you have a live trap, you can still use it and don't worry about catching a skunk. They are easy to dispose of with no smell.
Throw a sheet, tarp or whatever over the cage if it has a skunk, then dip the cage, cover and all in a trash can full of water. Skunk drowns, then toss the carcas over the fence in your cranky old man neighbors yard!
BTW, the cover keeps them from spraying since they won't see you. It really works, done it.

Wow Billy, that looks really nice and being so close makes it very convienent. Hard to imagine in a few months that scene will probably be all white...

I'm pleased with my garden. The second patch of beans blossomed a couple of days ago. I'm starting to get good numbers of tomatoes, working on corn patch one, two and a bit of three, potatoes are about done and two zucchini have produced close to 60 fruits. Second plamting of pickles is coming along and baby limas are growing. These might be close with the frost. At least one sunflower is pushing 13' and several are in the 10-12-foot range. Acorn squash are running everywhere. I staked four rows of snowpeas this morning. Beets are about 2" for a fall crop and my chard is still producing. Picked one eggplant; I only plant it as a draw for potatoe bugs.

Larry

Had any rain? Try spraying them instead of just putting water on the ground.

My peppers got nipped by the dear the first night, so they got pulled. The peas just kind of wilted away, I am planning a second planting tomorrow. The tomatoes are looking good, but coming on slow. The tomatoes also are slow. The beans did good.

This is in East Central Iowa

The deer made me get closer to the house, still need a fence, so an old chain link fence from a pool demo job is loosely tied on the posts to keep em out, just roll it up when time to till.

I used to plant the strip of weeds to the right of the tree, time to mow and turn it again, was a garden for years.

We had enough white stuff last year, I'd like to skip it this year !

We don't have animal problems in this area (wild hogs, deer, and jackrabbits but they don't come in to where the gardens are and most gardens are fenced)...... Been a bad summer as far as moisture. One extreme to the next (mud or dust)....

Anyway, was mowing a little piece the other day covered with nettle. Noticed some places had been cut and fresh growing in. Guy comes along (owner) with a bag and gathers up a bunch. asked what he was doing with it and he said to chop it up, soak it in water til it gets ripe, and water the tomatoes with it (not more than 2-3 times per week). Said he has never found a better fertilizer and it keeps the slugs off the plants.

There is something to the flower/herb border I guess.......There is one field that I saw in our little area with a mixture of sunflowers, wildflowers, several herbs, and garden flowers in about a meter wide border around the field. Thought he was just prettying up the area and commented on it one day when I saw him. Said he never saws a track in his fields with that border and never lost anything except for people stealing his flowers and herbs........

Even better would be to put the live skunks in his yard. At least his dogs would have a real reason to bark.

I might try a border next year. I saw some flowers in one of the catalogs that is supposed to secrete an oil that irritates skin. And I have some left over chain link fence I could put around it after I'm done tilling. Every year the animal problem gets worse, they must be multiplying from being fed so well after I moved in.