What is going on with my plants??

[Brandymae1]

I started this garden a little over a month ago and was hit pretty hard with pests. Horn worms, cabbage worms, leaf miners. I seem to have gotten rid of everything except a few leaf miners here and there. My plants havent seemed to bounce back though. A couple of the tomato plants seem to be doing better, the basil and onions and flowering plants are fine , but all the marigolds, a few tomatos and lettuces look horrible. I'm new at this, so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Ive attached a couple pics, any ideas of what could be wrong now? I also planted a small flower garden in the front yard and all the marigolds look like this as well. Thanks!!

* I put down some fertilizer a couple days ago and am hoping that may help.

[Meatburner]

Where are you located? That is very helpful information to put in your profile.

[Brandymae1]

South Florida. Sorry =)

[rainbowgardener]

The foundation of a good garden is good soil. What is your soil like? Throwing a little fertilizer on bad soil does not make it good soil. For your plants to do well, you need rich, loose soil with lots of organic material and healthy thriving soil life, from microbes up through earthworms. What is pictured looks rocky and weedy.

Next question would be how much sun does your garden get? The tomato plant looks very lanky, which can mean not enough sun.

The plants may have been damaged enough by the pests to slow them down, but it can go the other way as well. Your plants may have been hard hit by pests, because they were already not thriving and vulnerable. The weakest plants are the most vulnerable to diseases and pests.

[Brandymae1]

The soil is very rocky. =( The previous residents had some sort of a rock garden with tiny little pebbles. They are mixed pretty heavily into all the dirt on the property. Any way to offset it?

[rainbowgardener]

Personally, if you really want to have a good garden, I would take the time to dig up at least the top foot or so of soil, and put it through a screen, to get the rocks out. Doesn't need to be fine mesh, just enough to get everything that is bigger than small gravel size. Then add in some organics. That could be: good compost, well-aged composted manure, some peat moss or coconut coir, crunched up fall leaves or any combination of those or other good organic material. Preferably about 1:1 of garden dirt to organic amendments. Then add it all back to the garden area. Your garden will be MUCH better after that, I promise!

[Brandymae1]

This is a picture of the set up. The garden is in between two houses, so the plants only get a few hours of sun each day. About how many hours would you say they need?

[Brandymae1]

How do I did up the soil with out hurting the plants? should I dig around them or do I just need to start over?

[rainbowgardener]

I was thinking starting over. But a few hours sun is NOT a spot to grow tomatoes, which need minimum six hours of direct sun a day, better 8. I have tried growing tomatoes in less, since much of my yard is shady. You can get the plants to grow, but they will produce next to nothing in the way of tomatoes.

The lettuce and onions should be okay there. Other greens and cool weather crops, like spinach, swiss chard, cabbage, broccoli, would also probably do okay there. Just not fruiting stuff and stuff that likes full sun.

The tomato plants you have are likely so stressed and stunted at this point that even if you could move them now to a full sun/ good soil spot, it would take them months to recover, in which time you could have started over with a healthy plant. And marigolds are so quick and easy to start, not worth worrying about trying to save them.

If you have something healthy and worth saving, you can dig it up gently with soil around it and then replant after you have fixed your soil.

[Brandymae1]

Thanks for the help!

[imafan26]

If the soil is rocky, why not build a raised bed instead? You could even do a lot in containers. You do need to have at least 6 hours of sun for things like tomatoes, but I would not start them in November. Even where I live, while I can grow tomatoes, peppers and some squash now, they do better in warmer and drier weather and don't like to get cold. Florida can still have overnight freezes.

Now, I would grow in containers to get away from the rocky soil and to be able to move things inside in case of a freeze.
Kale is cold hardy and actually tastes better with a dusting of snow. Leafy greens do well in containers.

[Brandymae1]

I decided to do containers for new tomatoes and I'm just going to leave the others as is. Everything else, with the exception of the marigolds seem to be doing fine. Thanks!