My worst year EVER!

[Gardener123]

OK, the deer did some major damage by knocking down my fence, but aside from that, this was a TERRIBLE year for me..... which stinks on a few levels:

1. My seedlings were awesome
2. I did all the right stuff when planting
3. I continued to water and fertilize as needed....
4. A good year with rain

Such a bad year that it makes me want to do only half as much next year....

There is no question here..... just needed to vent.

[rainbowgardener]

So you were off to a good start and then apparently nothing did very well. Other than the deer, what happened? Diseases? Pests?

[imafan26]

Or was it such a good year, it can only go down hill from that! Which is it, don't leave us hanging, what happened?

[jal_ut]

Not a good year here either. Planted the usual May 5 then the first week of June we had killing frost. Replanted. Some of the late planting did not germinate, and that which did is running late. Likely get frozen before maturity. Oh well, that's gardening.

south702 by James_40 Lofthouse, on Flickr

[gumbo2176]

Same results here too in S.E. Louisiana. I did have a few good things happen in the mid to late spring with bush beans, soybeans, cucumbers and Japanese Yard Long beans, but that was about it. My pepper plants did grow much and I still have 3 in the garden that are not much bigger than when I planted them in mid March. I've never experienced plants with little to no growth in all that time. Needless to say, no peppers either. Even my holdover plants from last year didn't put out near as much as last year and also suffered little growth. I did have enough to make some pepper jelly, hot sauces and pickled peppers, but the quantity was way off.

Tomatoes went south real quick with all the rain, squash succumbed to SVB's after an initial harvest, bell peppers petered out quick and the eggplants mostly rotted on the plant before they were ready for picking.

I'm ready for fall weather and have my garden prepped and just waiting to pull some rows and put my plants and seeds in when it cools down a bit.

[ElizabethB]

Same here.

Horn worms, drought, monsoons, birds and my boxes are too shallow.

I have fall plants started but have not yet added boards to my table height boxes to make them deeper.

George is feeling better, bored and getting on my last nerve. I think we may need to make a trip to Lowe's tomorrow and get what we need to deepen my boxes.

As for getting the boards in place that will probably not happen for a few days. 100% rain prediction from Harvey.

[Gardener123]

Only thing I can think was that there was not a lot of sun. I had no issues with bugs or diseases. It was mid June before we had proper temperatures on a somewhat regular basis, but even then, they were often way too high or low.

ZERO peppers from my hot pepper plants.
Decent, but not great amounts of tomatoes
1 eggplant on my 1 plant
maybe 10 mild peppers over 5 - 6 plants.

The deer knocked down part of my six foot fence and ate - once again - my super hot pepper plants ( well, most of my plants ).... and I had a lot of super hot plants

I live in a cul de sac, and the deer tend to stay more towards our end, as we have the most trees. One day I counted 19 deer on my front lawn. With that said, the deer left my tomatoes alone, and I still did not get very many except for my San Marzanos.

[rainbowgardener]

The tomato issue does sound like not enough sun. You did mention "lots of trees." My previous location we had a lot of trees. I was trying to grow tomatoes on our backyard patio, but of course over the fourteen years we lived there, the trees around it kept getting bigger and the patio kept getting shadier. I did find out that tomato plants will grow in not enough sun (though maybe not thrive), but they will not produce (hardly any) tomatoes.

Since my front yard was sunnier, I put a veggie bed in the middle of my front lawn and got lots of tomatoes!

Nineteen deer in your yard is a plague. I don't know if there is some animal control department you can complain to...

[applestar]

In my location and probably yours as well Gardener123, I'm finding peppers and eggplants definitely do better/produce better in containers or SIP on the brick patio or sunniest spot, and in raised beds -- higher the better as long as there is plenty of moisture in the underlying soil. Hot peppers don't need as much sun as long as the location gets hot sun and is not waterlogged, but bell peppers need more sun and water, and eggplants like lots of sun and lots of heat and plenty of water.

Agree with rainbowgardener that tomatoes need premium sunny location, more than peppers, but can make do with less sun than melons, squash, corn, eggplants, etc.

[jal_ut]

"Nineteen deer in your yard is a plague. I don't know if there is some animal control department you can complain to..."

Wrist rocket and a bag of marbles!

[rainbowgardener]

ummm.... what is a wrist rocket?

[gumbo2176]

ummm.... what is a wrist rocket?

I'd venture to guess it's a very powerful slingshot.

[Gardener123]

ummm.... what is a wrist rocket?

I'd venture to guess it's a very powerful slingshot.

That is exactly what it is.

So, yes, my trees have gotten taller, but I still get a solid 7 - 9 hours of sun in the day during the summer...... I didn't have any plants with yellow leaves, but they have already started dying off.

I have a very nice, 3' high keyhole raised bed. I could probably put 20 pepper plants in it. I posted on it last season. It took 6 or 7 yards of dirt to fill, even with me burying a lot of stuff under the dirt / compost.

You know what worked pretty well? I bought those black felt like grow bags off of amazon.... I kept them inside my fence. The plants LOOK fantastic, but no peppers..... Those might have been my fault. I don't remember what I did with those all summer.

[applestar]

When someone says a fruiting or blooming plant looks "fantastic" but has no flowers or fruits, I tend to wonder if too much nitrogen fertilizer was used? Did they bloom?

If they did, then I could only surmise that were some pollination issues -- Heat, cold, pesticide use, etc.

[Gary350]

When someone says a fruiting or blooming plant looks "fantastic" but has no flowers or fruits, I tend to wonder if too much nitrogen fertilizer was used? Did they bloom? If they did, then I could only surmise that were some pollination issues -- Heat, cold, pesticide use, etc.

YES never give tomatoes nitrogen unless your soil has a nitrogen problem you get all plants and no tomatoes. I give my plants wood ash it is loaded with minerals and lime. I also give my tomato plants pellet lime. After July 4th it is too hot here for tomatoes they suffer really bad in 95 degree heat so I planted them so they get morning sun then full shade after lunch until dark under a large shade tree. We harvested about 650 lbs of tomatoes from 18 plants. If you think your tomato plants need nitrogen plant 2 or 3 bean seeds next to each tomato plant beans will give tomatoes all the nitrogen they need. I think we all had a strange year we had so much rain I had to plant tomatoes in the mud.

[jal_ut]

Just Google Wrist Rocket!

Have a nice day!

ss5511 by James_40 Lofthouse, on Flickr

[Gardener123]

When someone says a fruiting or blooming plant looks "fantastic" but has no flowers or fruits, I tend to wonder if too much nitrogen fertilizer was used? Did they bloom?

If they did, then I could only surmise that were some pollination issues -- Heat, cold, pesticide use, etc.

Nope, no blooms.... but honestly, I know that I didn't use nitrogen on those, nor any other fertilizer, most likely. They were likely out of sight, out of mind. My wife kept moving them all over the back yard depending on who was coming over and using the pool. She didn't want people seeing "those ugly black bags".

[Gardener123]

Actually, there was one bright spot.... each of my 2 San Marzano plants gave about 100 tomatoes. But that was the only positive. I started cleaning out my beds today and I found a bunch - maybe 10 - jalapenos laying on the ground.

[FinnMcOwl]

Sorry to hear that! That's something you need to expect when gardening or farming. There's a huge variance from year to year and sometimes your gonna get a bad harvest.

[jal_ut]

Oh I don't know..... I always fertilize my garden plot. The variety of the tomato has a lot to do with when it will form fruit. You need to find the varieties that will mature in your time frame. Here I get from 100 to 105 days between frosts, so the tomatoes have to be rather short term.

[jal_ut]

"I live in a cul de sac, and the deer tend to stay more towards our end, as we have the most trees. One day I counted 19 deer on my front lawn."

I don't know how things are there, but here the wild deer belong to the State and they issue hunting licenses to hunt them in season. I reckon if their deer are doing damage to my property I could call the DWR (Division of Wildlife Resources) and complain and ask them if they are going to take care of the deer or if they want me to do it? I would for sure call someone and gripe.

Here in the summer I put a radio in the corn patch tuned to the local talk station. It seems to scare off a lot of night marauders.

[Gardener123]

Oh I don't know..... I always fertilize my garden plot. The variety of the tomato has a lot to do with when it will form fruit. You need to find the varieties that will mature in your time frame. Here I get from 100 to 105 days between frosts, so the tomatoes have to be rather short term.

Most of my indeterminates produce until late September here. I planted mostly those.

[Gardener123]

"I live in a cul de sac, and the deer tend to stay more towards our end, as we have the most trees. One day I counted 19 deer on my front lawn."

I don't know how things are there, but here the wild deer belong to the State and they issue hunting licenses to hunt them in season. I reckon if their deer are doing damage to my property I could call the DWR (Division of Wildlife Resources) and complain and ask them if they are going to take care of the deer or if they want me to do it? I would for sure call someone and gripe.

Here in the summer I put a radio in the corn patch tuned to the local talk station. It seems to scare off a lot of night marauders.

We can hunt. I used to hunt. But we live very close to lots of woods, and a small state park. I think we have to live with it.... besides, we have people who would be REALLY UPSET to see the deer gone - including my wife. My brother is really a great archer. He could probably take 5 a day if it was legal.

[rainbowgardener]

I think deer are beautiful animals too. But nineteen deer is a plague. It is way beyond the natural carrying capacity of the land they are on. So they are either going to destroy a lot of people's gardens or they are going to starve (or a bit of both). We have caused the imbalance by removing all the predators, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, etc.

Even someone tender hearted like your wife should not want to see a bunch of deer starving. Someone needs to do something about this problem!

[Gardener123]

I think deer are beautiful animals too. But nineteen deer is a plague. It is way beyond the natural carrying capacity of the land they are on. So they are either going to destroy a lot of people's gardens or they are going to starve (or a bit of both). We have caused the imbalance by removing all the predators, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, etc.

Even someone tender hearted like your wife should not want to see a bunch of deer starving. Someone needs to do something about this problem!

Well, this is a guess, but 19 deer might be all of them, on 9+ acres. They seem to do very well. We get the occasional coyote sighting. We have lots of foxes, but I doubt they do anything but scavage. The people in our neighborhood who take their veggie gardens seriously, have serious 8' high fences. I built a 6' fence that they did not jump over, but knocked it down.

So, next year, if my back permits, I will make it much more secure.

[jal_ut]

If you are going to be a gardener or farmer, you gotta protect what is growing from the wild critters. In these parts if there is critters making damage, you just load the gun and go take care of it. If you are not willing to do that, perhaps you best trade in your garden trowel for a pair of binoculars?

[SQWIB]

If you are going to be a gardener or farmer, you gotta protect what is growing from the wild critters. In these parts if there is critters making damage, you just load the gun and go take care of it. If you are not willing to do that, perhaps you best trade in your garden trowel for a pair of binoculars?

Yeah, I can see me unloading on a bunch of critters and ending up in jail.
I used to have cats messing in the beds and killing all the birds in their nest, finding the maggot infested birds a few days later.
I actually confronted the neighbor that owned the cat and he told me that his cat Was a free spirit.
So I started shooting them with a paintball gun hoping the neighbors would confront me, then I could fix the problem.
Had a groundhog one year that decimated my tomatoes, didn't get one tomato. Didn't think blowing him away would be a good idea, being a city dweller.
So should I get rid of my garden trowel and order some binoculars?

[Gardener123]

If you are going to be a gardener or farmer, you gotta protect what is growing from the wild critters. In these parts if there is critters making damage, you just load the gun and go take care of it. If you are not willing to do that, perhaps you best trade in your garden trowel for a pair of binoculars?

Something tells me that living in Northern Utah is far different than the Philly suburbs.

[jal_ut]

My tomatoes always get some nitrogen. I fertilize in the spring before planting. Used to use Ammonium Nitrate, but can't get that these days. Seems the "Goofy Gang" wanted to make bombs with it. So whatever mix the local farm store has on hand is what I get now. Manures are good for fall application, but I do not like to use them for Spring or Summer. About tomatoes, they are day length sensitive and flower when the days are of the right length. Hence we can have short day varieties and long day varieties. Also hear of some day neutral types. So choose carefully to get something that will do what you want it to do.

[jal_ut]

Quote: "I actually confronted the neighbor that owned the cat and he told me that his cat Was a free spirit.
So I started shooting them with a paintball gun hoping the neighbors would confront me, then I could fix the problem."

You need this: https://www.crosman.com/airguns/air-rifl ... c-2100-177

This is not a firearm, so is not under firearm restrictions. It will take out a cat at 20 yards. Definitely take out all kinds of birds. I don't reckon it will take out a deer, but a good shot in the rear would definitely get it to moving.