What are your fail-safe vegetables and fruits to grow?

[applestar]

I’m talking about ones that come through and produce something for you to harvest even when you or the weather or the pest situation are not at best.


— Sure there are years when things don’t go as planned, but generally speaking, what are some of the easiest vegetables and fruits to grow in your experience?

- What are your worst and hardest to grow well?


* I’m sure regional soil and climate, micro-environment differences have a role to play, as well as pests and marauders.


— let’s see, I think for me, easiest are strawberries, blackberries, pole beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and C.moschata species winter squash (for the most part - needs longer growing season, though). Lettuce is easy as long as I keep them off the ground and grow them in containers. Oregano, parsley, cutting celery, garlic chives, mint, lemon balm... kale is not too bad Basil as long as they don’t get downy mildew.

- difficult for me are broccoli, cauliflower, peas, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, corn, C.pepo and C.maxima pumpkins and summer squash, Bush beans, garlic, onions, melons and watermelons, eggplants and peppers, okra, potatoes and sweet potatoes, spinach, beets, radish. dill, fennel. Raspberries, apples, pears, peaches. I might be getting the hang of growing carrots, but still iffy.

[pepperhead212]

Obviously, peppers are one of my easiest! lol The only problem with those is the pepper maggots that I get on the milder varieties, which I have to cover to prevent. Even after downsizing, I have more peppers than I need this year. Eggplants are another vegetable I always get a lot of from my old favorites, though some new ones I try don't do as well. Tomatoes do well, until excessive moisture causes disease, or high heat causes blossom drop on most plants. C. moschata squash are the only ones I can grow, due to SVB. Bottle gourds I have been growing for two years, and have gotten a lot of them, though I have to try new varieties, to spread out the production. Herbs have all been relatively easy for me, though some need brought inside, or otherwise protected from cold. Garlic is easy, and scallions are another I grow a lot of. Leaf lettuce, Swiss chard, and Asian greens do great for me, though most are cool weather crops. Kohlrabi is another favorite cool weather crop. Sugar snap and snow peas do OK in the fall, but not the spring, when it will get too hot too soon, most of the time. Pole beans are what I always grow, though this year I planted a few bush beans, only because it was so late in the season.

Melons are the ones I have had no luck with. I also had no luck with strawberries and blackberries, the times I tried those, due to varmints feeding on them. I used to grow broccoli, cauliflower, and kale, but they always took a lot longer to grow, and the early heat in the spring was not good, so I only grow the Asian brassicas now, which I get much more from. Okra I was unable to grow, until I began doing it in SIPs. All okra planted in the ground would die - most varieties before it would flower, so there was something in the ground. The ground is good and loamy, but has a lot of rough pieces, so carrots are not good here. Potatoes are easy, but attract bugs to others.

Bitter melons are one I have only grown 3 times, with various results. The first year, I got a huge number early on, from a generic "Chinese variety", the smooth ridged ones. But when the heat increased, the fruits would ripen (orange, and not edible) when they were very small - 3-4", and nothing changed when it got cooler. So I tried an Indian variety (spiked, instead of the smooth ridges), but that one was disease prone, much like many tomatoes. This year, another smooth variety waited until it was hot to produce, but not much, so they are like tomatoes, and many plants, for that matter. Just have to keep trying varieties, until something fits the area!

[TomatoNut95]

Everything I grow is difficult for me. Stupid clay. There are lots of things I've tried to grow in my raised bed, cauliflower, broccoli, but..... zilch. I guess my easiest things are peppers and tomatoes. Well, some tomatoes. The larger fruited types are hard. My Oxheart never did do. Cherries seem to be fairly easy. However, this year my black cherries experienced split. This year has been tough. I've also noticed that Brad Gates tomato variety from Baker Creek: Blue Beauty, Black Beauty, and Dark Galaxy are tough to do. Picky, those rare tomatoes.

As for a fall garden, I might try turnip greens again, as well as lettuce. I might try some carrots; I found a short type called Short N' Sweet. Oh, and I do have some radishes.

[gumbo2176]

In the spring/summer----cucumbers, Japanese Yard Long beans, soybeans for edamame, bush beans, eggplant, peppers(hot and bells), assorted herbs, okra, and as much as I try with squash, they don't do well for me with SVBs.

In the fall/winter----collard greens, kale, Swiss Chard, Brussel Sprouts, several varieties of leaf lettuces, broccoli, cabbage, onions, garlic, beets, turnips

[rainbowgardener]

I always tell people if you can only grow one thing in your garden, grow swiss chard. Nothing bothers it, not even the slugs which may be decimating the kale in the same bed and it just goes and goes and goes. Spinach bolts and is done as soon as it gets hot; chard keeps going thru spring frost, summer heat, fall frost....

Other things that grow well and easily for me are all the herbs-- basil (I fortunately have never seen downy mildew), sage, oregano, thyme, lemon balm (which threatens to become a weed), bee balm, mint, lavender, etc.Snow peas are easy and are productive over a longer time than regular peas. Beans are pretty easy, once sprouted. I had some difficulty getting my second planting of beans to sprout, due to weather issues. Winter squash (but NOT summer squash). All the carrot family stuff including carrots, dill, fennel, etc. Dill pops up as volunteers all over the place. I let one carrot plant over winter and set seed this year (interesting, it got gigantic) to see if maybe I could get volunteer carrots next year. Strawberries are pretty easy and blueberries, but the birds get all the blueberries. Cabbage is amazingly easy and I can easily end up with way more cabbage than I know what to do with. Broccoli, in the same family, is not as easy, being more prone to the cabbage worms (oddly enough). I don't grow head lettuce, but the mixed leaf lettuces I grow are easy, even in the ground. Potatoes grow easily and come back as volunteers from the tiny ones that get left behind in the soil, when the plant is pulled. Peppers are easy, not at all prone to the diseases that afflict their cousins, tomatoes.

Not so easy... tomatoes. In our wet, humid climate they are so prone to septoria. I have worked harder at fighting it this year with baking soda solution and H2O2, but still I think I will pull all the plants and start over for fall season. Corn has worked better other years, but has totally failed this year. My third planting has tassels, but no sign of cobs... I have given up on summer squash after having failed at it repeatedly in Ohio and Georgia, due mainly to SVB's. Kale grows easily, but gets totally destroyed by the slugs.

Fruit trees are difficult. I never had them before we moved here and don't know enough about how to care for them. I naively thought I could stick a fruit tree in the ground and then just stand back and harvest. .... We had two peach trees and two apple trees. Last year only one of the peach trees produced fruit. This year that tree set flower and a whole bunch of baby peaches and died, but the other one produced a good harvest. Only one of the apple trees has ever borne, even though the other one is bigger and looks very healthy. The peaches and apples we get look ugly, but taste very good.

In general, my veggie garden was not quite as productive this year as last, partly just due to the difficulties with corn and tomatoes, which did well last year. Partly just the vagaries of weather. We seemed to go straight from too wet to too hot and dry.... But this is my fourth season of intensively gardening these beds. I am suspecting that even though I add compost and mulch as much as I can, their fertility may be getting a bit depleted, since I haven't used any other fertilizers. I may try to add other stuff this fall to replenish.

[gumbo2176]

I had 3 different fruit trees in my yard pre-Katrina and the floodwaters hung around for a couple weeks, taking out 2 of the 3 in the process, along with a mature Sweet Olive in my front yard. I still have the fig tree but lost the satsuma and Japanese plum trees I had that were really good producers for me. The year before Katrina hit in the fall of 04 I picked four 5 gallon buckets full of satsumas and since I was the only one that ate Japanese plums, I had my fill with them every year even with the small green head parrots that use to fly in almost daily to feast on some.

I have no idea why the fig tree survived, but it did and almost 2 years afterwards, in the summer of 07, I had my biggest harvest ever. I put up jars of fig preserves, dried a lot of them to snack on, used a lot of them in baking, ate a lot of them right off the tree and gave away as many as I kept to use.

[Gary350]

My best crop that almost never fail are, tomatoes, beans, corn, sweet potatoes, okra, melons, peppers, blackberries, potatoes, onions, garlic, squash, cucumbers. These plants grow them self there is nothing much to do until they die.

Red potatoes are hot weather plants they do excellent in TN and out produce white potatoes about 4 to 1.

White potatoes not enough cool weather for an excellent crop I got 60 lbs from about 300 plants this year.

Tomatoes do excellent until late July when blight usually kills 20 of the 24 plants by then we have already harvested 400 lbs & put 100 pints & quarts in the pantry. A few plants survive until Nov.

Beans, a 40 ft row is enough we put 40 pints of beans in the pantry.

Corn, 150 plants are enough we put 30 pints in the pantry and eat corn on cob every day for 2 weeks. Plants need 2 feedings of nitrogen at the correct time & correct amount or you don't get much corn.

Okra, 25 plants are more than enough they produce faster & faster soon you can't eat them fast enough.

Big Bertha sweet bell peppers out produce all other bell peppers 4 to 1 you only need 1 plant to harvest a dozen 4"x8" very large peppers.

Squash, yellow & zuchinni, usually do good long enough to make 4 to 7 squash before they die in July.

Lettuce, cabbage, peas, broccoli, carrots, kale, spinach, boc choy, Napa, never do well our spring & fall cool weather is too short we have 98 degree weather before plants have time to produce a crop.

Q-cumbers do very well but die late July in hot weather. 50 plants will give you very large fast harvest before plants die.

Melons & Cantaloupe grow great until Oct they love hot blistering full sun all day 3 plants will keep you busy eating a melon every day.

Sweet potatoes grow very well they love hot blistering full sun all day each plant produces 25 to 30 lbs of potatoes.

Onions & Garlic do good but not a large crop like grocery store onions & garlic. Our cool spring & fall weather is too short & summer is too hot.

Herbs, hot weather plants do good, oregano, parsley, basil, thyme, marjoram, rosemary.

Cilantro, if I buy plants & get them planted early they grow large but July heat makes them bolt then we get coriander.

Blackberries grow great they love hot blistering hot sun all day 5' x 20' patch produces 8 gallons of berries. Plants reproduce and produce a crop every year for many years. My plants are wild & native to TN = Cumberland Black Raspberries.

Apple tree at the other house 28 years ago did very well 14 bushels of apples 1 year.

We have few, bugs, grass or weeds until about August garden is finished by then.

.

[digitS']

It's good to review this topic, even after about 40 gardening seasons in this location ...

Until this year I might have said that Buttercup squash was easy for me to grow . They had too much trouble with our yo-yo temperatures in June and July. Peppers and eggplant had as much trouble or more but they seldom have very good years.

Melons may be okay in 2019 but I have had to conscientiously search out early-maturing varieties. Oddly, cucumbers grow fine but there have been later-maturing varieties that just barely have crops of cukes before frost .

Soil in different gardens make a difference. Carrots did fine one place, not very good in my current, rocky garden. No root vegetable does very well. Somehow, this may also be true with a short-season edamame soybean that did well, just a few miles away.

Cool-season ends quickly and spinach bolts. Lettuce may do not same. Some of my chard is bolting this year but it does okay, except I may need to remove a few leaves because of leafminers.

Bok choy does well for quite awhile but I may have to keep the flea beetles off it. Kale has aphid problems but insecticidal soap or neem oil will take care of them (not so with cabbage and broccoli, some years). Onions have good years mostly, if I do not crowd interplanting and keep their N high.

Despite the winter squash 2019 problems, my dang pumpkins are going great guns as usual! Wish there were more uses for them. Summer squash does okay.

Peas early are usually just fine. I've never had much problem with green bush beans but spider mites may take them out if I try to keep plants for a second crop. Best to stagger sowings. Climbing beans may have some trouble with an early frost.

Shorter season sweet corn does well. I need to remember fertilizer needs and timing ...

Hmmm, those that do best? I suppose they reflect my appreciation (somewhat learned, perhaps) for the plants that "want" to grow in my garden .

Steve

[imafan26]

Chayote. It takes care of itself and will climb the trees if it is not stopped. Fruits in the cooler months. I can't give enough away then. The shoot tips are edible as well
Sweet potato leaves. It is a variety grown for leaves so it does not make tubers. Another plant that will form a massive ground cover and leaves are available year round.
Bitter melon. In summer it grows wild in my yard. The birds bring it and I don't plant it. In fact I pull it out because it is a wee. Fruit and leaves are edible and good for diabetes and blood pressure
Papaya. Fruits from seeds in about 7 months and keeps on producing for the rest of its' life. Green and ripe papaya are edible. Green papaya for papaya salad, half ripe papaya for pickles. I am allergic to the sap, so I have to make sure it does not get on my skin, but I can eat it just fine
Citrus fruits. Meyer lemon, calamondin, kaffir lime leaves.
Herbs: green onions, bay leaves, ginger, I have year round
Komatsuna and swiss chard. Lasts a long time with repeat harvests.
Long and wing beans. Will climb trees if they are not stopped.
I have a few wild tomatoes along with wild papaya the birds plant. They are stronger than anything I plant myself, but they aren't always where I want them to be.
Araimo. I grow them in pots otherwise they would be hard to completely dig up.
Upo squash. Grows in summer, needs 50 ft of fence or a large piece of ground in the sun, but gets along with reasonable amounts of water. Does not like rain.

[digitS']

I didn't think to include fruit!

First of all - tomatoes - even if it was determined to be a vegetable (by the Supreme Court, if I remember right ). Tomatoes generally do fine, although I won't grow many of the 80 day varieties and none that ripen later.

Raspberries may have aphid problems some years but not often. They spread like invasives ... almost. When I had strawberries they did well. The slugs were often a problem and a little difficult to deal with.

Apricots can almost thrive on their own here. They produce crops but benefit from irrigation. For 9 years, my house was just across an alley from a vacant lot. I planted a garden there. The abandoned apricot tree appreciated the water and produced abundantly.

Steve

[dveg]

All good ideas. I have to add an unusual one - Malabar spinach. It grows obscenely fast and productively throughout our fiercely hot summer, and self seeds. I never plant any in my Malabar bed. Once you start it, it's all just volunteers, every year. It climbs all by itself high on a trellis. No tying or twisting. Never seen any pests. I NEVER do any real gardening of it. I just pick, and water occasionally. In fact, it's pretty drought tolerant as well. So it's not only fail-safe, it's nearly zero work as well.

[gumbo2176]

All good ideas. I have to add an unusual one - Malabar spinach. It grows obscenely fast and productively throughout our fiercely hot summer, and self seeds. I never plant any in my Malabar bed. Once you start it, it's all just volunteers, every year. It climbs all by itself high on a trellis. No tying or twisting. Never seen any pests. I NEVER do any real gardening of it. I just pick, and water occasionally. In fact, it's pretty drought tolerant as well. So it's not only fail-safe, it's nearly zero work as well.

Now that's a great heads up. I love spinach and as soon as it starts to warm up, mine is going the way of the Dodo bird and Passenger Pigeon. I'll have to give that a try when I plant in a couple weeks. I'm assuming it will grow well in the cooler months like regular spinach and overwinter in my area since I'm in New Orleans.

[imafan26]

Malabar spinach does grow wild, and it has pretty purple "berries", but it is too slimy for me. I would rather grow NZ hot weather spinach. It grows like crazy and it is less slimy as a spinach substitute.

Hot peppers grow well for me, but bells struggle. I prefer to grow the long sweet peppers like corno d' toro instead.

Tomatoes used to be good until I got TYLCV. So far only Charger and currant have been resistant. The cherry tomatoes like sungold, red cherry, sunsugar, sweet 100 used to be staple in the garden. Larger tomatoes are a little harder to grow. Mostly because if they are any good, I have to lock them up inside bird netting to keep the birds from eating them. I can only grow heat and disease resistant tomatoes. I did grow brandywind once, but it needed a lot of TLC.

I can't grow Genovese basil until they come up with a GMO version that preserves the taste. I don't know if anyone is working on that or not. I did have and Obsession basil this year that was resistant and looked similar to Genovese but it definitely did not taste the same. Holy basil (Tulsi) is resistant as well as the African basil and they are the only ones that I can grow now. Thai basil will last a little longer but eventually it will get hit with downy mildew as well.

Rosemary in the ground takes care of itself. The dragon fruit is becoming a monster and keeps trying to escape into the neighbor's yard. The bilimbi is starting to fruit now. It is another plant I don't really take care of. I just have to top it every year since it grows 10 feet a year. I have already started to pull off the branches (It is a brittle tree). It will take a couple of months to get the whole tree in the green can unless I make a trek to the composting facility to unload it myself. First, I would have to unload the car!

[applestar]

Oh oh! Mulberry tree and elderberries are self sufficient — they are eaten by birds so effort is needed to get to the fruits in time and harvest my share ahead of them, but not like the blueberries and raspberries. I think part of the problem with those is that I don’t have enough of them to share.

I might be able to say persimmon is also easy if I get another good harvest this year.


...I like that you are all “explaining” what make them easy or difficult. I'll try to do the same with my list when I get the chance.

[dveg]

Malabar spinach is hardly "slimy" for me. Not sure where it got that label. Maybe soil and or conditions can make it slimy? The leaves are a bit thicker than regular spinach (it isn't horticulturally, a spinach, BTW). I've tried NZ "hot weather" spinach. Ha ha. Hot weather, as in a New Zealand summer, right? It dies a quick death in real hot weather, as does regular spinach.

[imafan26]

I think it gets a lot hotter in some places than it does here. You probably also have dry heat. NZ spinach does grow wild in my warm humid climate and will go crazy if it gets regular water. Where I live it gets to be 91 degrees but at my elevation it does not go above 100 degrees. (It will go over 100 degrees down the hill at sea level and especially in towns surrounded by concrete and asphalt.) NZ spinach is usually planted where there is some shade from the afternoon sun. It is a spinach substitute. Regular spinach can only grow well Nov-Mar and the snails like them too.

TomatoNut: I have clay soil too. I have a weathered oxisol (specifically Wahiawa series). It is naturally high in aluminum and binds phosphorus and because it is weathered and washed by rain, it is poor in nutrition. However, it has good CEC capacity when it is amended with organic matter.


The organic matter, compost, needs to be constantly added since it breaks down, but it does buffer the soil pH and stores nutrients. By itself, it is not a good fertilizer, especially for the heavy feeders. In botany, heavy feeder refers to a plant type that requires more nutrients than other average plants. Common examples of heavy feeders include- but are not limited to- sunflowers, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, cantaloupes, pumpkins, gourds, winter squash, zucchini and all types of melons. Of this list, I regularly grow tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, gourds, corn, and cucumber.

I don't have a big yard and I can only rotate in time not space, so I have to heavily supplement the heavy feeders like corn with nitrogen. I also plant intensively so that places an additional burden on fertility. I do use synthetic fertilizer, but I also get soil tests every three years or so, so I know how much and what kind of fertilizer I need. I have only needed nitrogen in all my plots for the last 8 years. I only use complete fertilizers in pots. I add 4 inches of compost with each planting cycle. I get other nutrients when I add compost. It is unintentional and compost has stuff I really don't need or want.

I rotate heavy feeders with scavenger plants like cabbages, they can live off the remnants of the fertilizer left by the corn. I could rotate with legumes, but I don't need a lot of those kinds of plants to get enough of a harvest. I green manure in the herb garden, but I don't do that at home. My home garden gets solarized instead.

[digitS']

Because of AppleStar's recent comment on the difficulties of growing melons in her New Jersey garden, I am encouraged to have a little more to say about melons here.

There is probably no home garden produce that I enjoy more than melons. This is likely a result of me growing up in a location hundreds of miles south of here in southern Oregon and having a mother with similar tastes . It's quite remarkable that when I think back on my early gardens that I was able to maintain my interest for so many years without ANY melon production. That began to change about 25 years ago.

The problem: it's probably the cool nighttime temperatures and differences between day and night here that interfere so much with my garden plants. Just 200 miles south and 1500 feet lower in elevation is an important melon growing area. Summer rainfall there is about the same as here, irrigation is essential. Traveling through fairly often has been inspiring but I was stymied by those cool nights which delayed growth and maturing of fruit.

I knew that some melon varieties were beyond my possibilities. Also, I have preferences and having some success with early-maturing Asian melons wasn't getting me where I wanted to be. I grew Minnesota Midget and was disappointed. A successful Charentais melon was a delight, then this hybrid was taken off the market.

Trying other Charentais varieties, even over several seasons, didn't work out ...Popular cantaloupes in the US were failures. "The White Mountain State" horticultural research at the University of New Hampshire offered some possibilities. Earliness!

I've grown Sweet Granite, Halona, Goddess, Passport, and Diplomat with good success. You know, melons take up a lot of space. Having several plants of several varieties can fill gardens! Hands-on research has to be limited. It appears that finding the right varieties was the key

Steve

[dveg]

Second cheer for melons. Tomatoes are overrated. I like tomatoes, but I'd much rather have a melon than a tomato! Melons also produce throughout the summer, unlike tomatoes, which give up when it gets hot. Melons really get going when it gets hot. The challenge for melons is animal pests, rather than fungus infections. Squirrels and possums also like melons better than they do tomatoes.

[TomatoNut95]

Are melons shallow rooted? I was thinking of growing one in a kiddie pool next year.

[applestar]

Thanks for the early cooler growing condition success melon variety list @digitS. ”finding the right varieties was the key” — I’m beginning to think this is true of every crop in the garden.

I might be having more luck with tomatoes because I’ve been growing 50+ varieties per season for a while now .... finally starting to slow down and sticking mostly to the returning favorites.

[dveg]

I've done a number of melon varieties, and been successful every time. But if you're in a marginal melon-growing climate, variety choice is going to be important.

[Taiji]

I'll keep my list short and sweet.

Red Norland potatoes. Early enough to beat first fall frost; early enough to beat most pests. (except in AZ I have to watch for blister beetles at all times)

Black Seeded Simpson lettuce. This year being cooler I'm getting it all season long. It's just not bolting. But it's good for me every year.

Stringless Green Pod beans. Always do well for me when other beans won't both in sprouting and being pretty prolific.

Here in the U P rhubarb is failsafe. Am still picking it even at this late date.

[Gary350]

I did not put high priority on melons this year because we had too many to eat last year and the year before that. Did you every try to eat a 30 lb water melon every day for a month along with an 8 lb cantaloupe every day too. After 2 weeks of that you never want to see another melon. LOL. This year I planted no cantaloupes and 3 watermelon plants in the shade. Melons don't like shade. I did not fertilizes with potassium this year so there were not many blossoms. Potassium makes blossoms I have had 28 melons per plant. We have 7 melons 1 is looking like it is about 30 lbs but still not ripe. We will be very disappointed if we don't get at lease 2 large ripe melons this year. I actually like a good ripe cantaloupe better than a ripe watermelon. Next year will be different. Yes melons have very long 15 foot roots but not in my garden it is solid rock flat as a parking lot 2 feet down. Maybe roots find cracks in the rocks to grow deeper. Plants are harder to control in full hot blistering 100 degree sun all day vines grow 30 ft long. Melons love it hot, the hotter it is the better they like it, just like okra & blackberries.

[rainbowgardener]

I dunno. I am growing okra for the first time this year, as well as growing winter squash. The hot (high 90's), sunny dry weather we have been having for a month now, every time I go out in my garden, everything is completely wilted, including the squash and okra. Same with peppers, which are also supposed to like heat. That is true, even though I put a lot of water on it the day before...

[dveg]

"Did you every try to eat a 30 lb water melon every day for a month along with an 8 lb cantaloupe every day too."

Better than fifty tomatoes.

[gumbo2176]

everything is completely wilted, including the squash and okra. Same with peppers, which are also supposed to like heat. ..

Surprised your okra is wilting due to heat and it being dry. Mine is now suffering for just the opposite reason with far too much moisture accumulated when we had daily rains that flooded that portion of my garden. Matter of fact, some of the plants farther up the row nearer my house are going great, but they were not sitting in standing water for days on end. The okra that was affected by the standing water look pitiful with no foliage and not making any more flowers.

I usually don't pull them until mid September, but I may just do that this weekend. Besides, I've given away the last 20 or so lbs. I've picked and really don't need any more for myself.

[applestar]

I just heard about one of the possible reasons I have problems growing Spinach, in addition to the pH and fertility issues.

I almost always try to grow Spinach in the Kitchen Garden and Patio Garden. This is because I have trouble with them so I want to keep a close eye on them, and if I sow the seeds in the NE side green (HaybaleRow, Sunflower House, Spiral Garden) or the SW side garden (VG beds), I may not be making the extra effort to go look at them and take care to make sure they sprout even when they take a long time. Also, when I try to start seeds and transplant, I have also found it difficult because they usually remain stunted and then try to bolt.

In today’s binge-watched Japanese video, the market farmer mentioned that you need to be very careful where you plant spinach and make sure that the Spinach bed is not exposed to artificial light during the night. SPINACH WILL BOLT.

Now he said street lights and house lights. That completely rules out the Kitchen Garden and Patio Garden where they are exposed to the kitchen lights as well as Green Room and Winter Wonderland plant lights spilling out between the window treatments. VG beds may also be too close to the street light. When I’m trying to start seeds in the Garage V8 Nursery, I am often trying to keep them from sub-freezing temperatures by keeping the lights on 24/7.... (duh).

The NE side garden is more-or-less safe from direct street light, but may be somewhat exposed due to the light reflecting on the neighbor’s light colored siding. The side garden is also brightly lit up when the neighbor’s narrow side garden and garage side door is lit up by their motion-activated security light, and this is where they keep their trash and recycle bins.

Oh well, Since I can’t see myself covering the Spinach bed every night with black row cover and then uncovering every morning (a method suggested by the farmer), I will just have to see how well this year’s Spinach manages. As it is, I am trying to use up all of the old seeds, so poor germination is expected, and only ONE has sprouted out of all the seeds I sowed so far in one of the Sunflower House raised rows .....

[TomatoNut95]

I think next year I'm exchange California Wonder bell for Big Bertha. If I continue making paprika from them, I'm gonna want them BIG. California Wonder just doesn't reach a good size most of the time. Big Bertha is awesome, and I've got really big 'biggies' back there. I may just stuff em....

[digitS']

... the market farmer mentioned that you need to be very careful where you plant spinach and make sure that the Spinach bed is not exposed to artificial light during the night. SPINACH WILL BOLT.

Now he said street lights and house lights. ...

I became discouraged by the tendency for spinach to bolt to seed a good number of years ago. I blamed the local climate. When I pointed this out (it may have been here on the HG forum) an astute gardener quoted some USDA statistics that showed that most US spinach seed comes from an area just a few hundred miles from my home and garden. Of course, I could point out that producing seed was my complaint. Our weather often goes from cool, wet and cloudy to hot and dry very suddenly, a few weeks into the frost-free season. There goes my spinach.

I never thought about outdoor lighting, AppleStar. As we hit 16 hours of daylight here at 48 degrees North latitude, it probably didn't help that I was trying to grow spinach most of those years about 30 yards from a street light.

My volunteer orach was at quite a few more yards from that light but it wasn't the extended season that I appreciated about orach. Orach was the earliest leafy green in my garden. Almost every one was a volunteer. I'd show up in March and there they were! Transplanted here and there, out of the way, they were lovely tender greens in no time. A favorite place for them was in the potato bed, between those emerging plants. A "mother plant" could always be saved in a fairly out of the way location for the following year's volunteers.

Orach is colorful and more tasty as a salad green than spinach and, I like spinach salads! It is almost indistinguishable from its cousin spinach, depending on the color of the orach, as a cooked leafy green.

Of course, that still left me on a quest for summer greens. That continues ... although I've made progress . I've re-discovered chard in recent years. I developed a dislike for chard as a kid - I didn't like the thick stems. Decades later, I tried Verde da Taglio chard and liked it. Recently, I have been growing different amaranth varieties and feel like I'm nearing a breakthrough there! Callaloo! Yeah, that's a Caribbean green, not a hallelujah - I'm not quite there , yet.

Steve

[imafan26]

Spinach has a short growing season, I have to choose varieties that are more heat tolerant and I still can only grow them from November-March. I would rather grow en choi (amaranth), perpetual spinach, NZ hot weather spinach, and swiss chard (especially now that I know how to keep it from tasting like dirt.) These are productive much longer and can be grown year round. Ung choi would also do well, but it grows best in water culture and like NZ spinach, you can't eat it fast enough.

Regular spinach would need to be grown under insect netting for me since they are susceptible to so many insect pests and it still won't guarantee that the snails won't get them.

The University of Hawaii conducted seed trials of summer spinach this year. The winner was... Swiss Chard. The best of the more traditional spinach varieties was a variety called Olympia. The common Bloomsdale Long Standing was clearly at the back of the pack.

I have planted corvair and melody spinach with decent results, but they still only did well with the day temperatures less than 75 degrees.


https://gms.ctahr.hawaii.edu/gs/handler ... &dt=3&g=12

https://www.harrisseeds.com/products/00 ... EYEALw_wcB

I guess I should add bitter melon to the fail safe list of vegetables. Except, I don't really plant it. The birds bring it and it drops seed. It is actually a weed in my yard.

[PaulF]

I consider myself lucky since the list of what grows well for me is very long and what does not do well is short: We can grow anything but I cannot seem to do any melon, watermelon or muskmelon. Angers me to no end since I like them so much.

[Vanisle_BC]

I’m talking about ones that come through and produce something for you to harvest even when you or the weather or the pest situation are not at best.

For me that would HAVE to be garlic, with tomatoes a close second. I recognize they can both be subject to blight but so far that's never happened to my garlic, and only once to the tomatoes.

What are your worst and hardest to grow well?

That's a bit tougher. If we mean the never-try-that-again unusual/exotic, I've given up on Scorzonera. But several other ordinary veggies are iffy in different years; cauliflower for instance; and even 'sturdy' reliable things like rutabaga may produce a bed of runts the size of baby carrots - sometimes mocking me with a single gigantic specimen right in the middle - ????

[applestar]

OK, this isn’t exactly On Topic, but I feel like the information might help to EXPLAIN those inexplicable failures we sometimes encounter.

I want to stick to organic or generally plant-based fertilizers, and sometimes, I’ve dabbled with trying different ingredients. One plant based material that is supposed to be great fertilizer is seedmeals — usually a by-product of pressing for oils, and often used/sold at pretty reasonable prices as animal/poultry/fish feed. The seeds can be soybean, cottonseed, rapeseed, etc. neem cake too.

Well, it turns out that any one of these can be toxic for at least 7 days to plant growth, especially seedlings, if used directly. It’s best to blend these into a biologically active mix that will break them down first in a compost, bokashi, etc fermentation cycle.

Based on footnotes added to several product descriptions as well as details in articles about various seedmeal/cakes, NEVER add these directly to a seed starting OR uppotting mix — apparently, that is a sure way to cause germination/seedling failure.

[Vanisle_BC]

Applestar, re. your comments about seedmeal: Good topic maybe deserving its own thread? (By the way my own experience doesn't seem to support the idea of seedmeal toxicity .)

[MsDDC]

Well, tomatoes. I asked my roommate to water the summer garden while I was out of town for a week in July. He could have said no and I would have found someone else to do it (I wouldn't have been mad, at all! I provide neighbors and friends with the fruits of my garden, so I'm *sure* I could find a few people to volunteer to keep the produce coming). Instead he said yes...and then didn't water. It didn't rain for the first 5 out of 6 days I was out of town, with temps in the 90's. The tomatoes still produced a ton. A few cracked, but it was a barely noticeable setback.

Blackberries. Once they're established, it's set it, throw some bird netting over them if you actually want to eat the fruit, and forget it. I regularly forgot to turn the hose their direction during this hot, dry summer and early autumn, and they still need pruned (and stood up...this weekend all that will happen). They were first year from splits from a local friend (*maybe* 12" tall when put in the ground this March) this year, and still spit out a couple dozen berries (2 starts).

Greens of all manner in the cooler seasons. I didn't properly thin my "gourmet blend" lettuce this spring, and let the weeds go for too long, and I still got plants so big I couldn't eat all of it, in just a single small 4' row. I let the spinach go too far into the warm season, but until the flower buds started to appear, it was edible. I grow some greens indoors year-round, and they don't seem to mind limited natural light or being stomped on by my dog when he wants to see what's going on outside the front window.

I, up to this point, have not had problems with the veggies you said were difficult to grow. Maybe it was beginner's luck (though I have some healthy looking plants for fall again), but my broccoli, cauliflower, and romanesco did incredibly well despite my incompetence in growing them. Each broccoli (actually aspabroc broccolini) produced about 2.5 pounds, I was able to let the cauli go to almost 4 pounds and still get tight curds, and the romanesco was beautiful and about normal (a pound or so) size.

I cannot get bell peppers to produce...well, peppers. I get lovely leaves and no peppers. I've grown every variety I can try, from seed and plant; spaced them as recommended and put them so their leaves were touching like my mom said you had to...bupkis. They sometimes flower, but nothing more. Oh, wait, one time I got a single, quarter-sized pepper. That was even sadder. Keep in mind, they're in the same soil, with the same sun and water, as the tomatoes that are feeding 10 people off 4 plants (no matter how badly they're tortured).

Dill is my nemesis. I LOVE dill, and have a ton of recipes that use it, but I cannot get it to produce good fronds. Inside, outside, ground, container, warm, cool...doesn't care, it's *going* to be leggy and then bolt.

[TomatoNut95]

@MsDDC, temperatures and humidity can affect the production of stuff, especially tomatoes and peppers. It'll cause blossom drop or poor pollination set of the blossoms. Also, what do you fertilize with? Too much nitrogen can cause good foliage, and low production. If you use Miracle-Gro like I do, I'd use Bloom Booster instead of the regular. It'll help encourage branching and bloom production. You can also purchase bottles of blossom set hormone spray.

[Gary350]

everything is completely wilted, including the squash and okra. Same with peppers, which are also supposed to like heat. ..

Surprised your okra is wilting due to heat and it being dry..

I am not surprised okra wilted in raised beds. I tried raised beds several times they get very dry in TN hot blistering 98 degree summer heat with almost no rain for 3 months. We should all do our best to match what we grow with our own weather conditions & soil to get best results. I have given up growing cool weather crops like spinach our spring & fall are too short, summer is too hot & dry. Melons, sweet potatoes, okra, love TN hot dry weather there is nothing much to do the hotter & dryer it gets the better these crops do. If you live where it is hot & dry plant turnip greens a month before first frost you can't tell its not spinach & bug are no problem. Next year I'm not growing anything that is border line, maybe it will grow, maybe it won't. I consider, melons, okra, peppers, zookeene, Qcomeber, squash, to be luxury items, I plant a few but not many this is not something that goes in pantry or freezer.

[MsDDC]

@tomatonut

I...only kind of fertilize. I drop a few bags of LeafGro on each bed twice a year (after two successive planting seasons, about half the recommended amount so that I don't end up with too much nitrogen). That's worked out fine for tomatoes, summer squash (until they died because my roommate didn't water they were huge and producing well), brassicas, greens, and roots, as well as flowerbeds. I didn't bother with peppers (or many other things) this year because I was short on time (loooong story of a pretty awful couple of years, not related to gardening except that it made me late with everything), but I previously tried them in containers (topsoil base, Miracle Grow veggie soil middle, and a little LeafGro on top) and a community garden plot treated similarly. The tomatoes do well, I grew eggplants one year that did wonderfully...but peppers in the same family I get no love. Maybe they'll do better in the ground next year. I'm also going to plant some new varieties next year...see if that helps. If nothing else, the "ornamental" mini peppers produced beautifully in a container one year, and they're cute and tasty, so I can go back to those, especially since I have room to grow several now.

The soil should have moderate to modest nitrogen when planted because of greens being planted in the same area prior to the summer garden (that was also true of the container and community garden). I tried testing with a home kit, but the results were all over the place (did a couple of tests of the same soil sample and got wildly different results), and I'm not sure I'm willing to invest more in figuring out the real nutrient profile of my soil when almost everything does well. Literally my only other "issue" is that DC's base soil is a dense clay, so I have to loosen it really well for roots or they'll grow in funky shapes (but still come out fine, really...I tested out a few last fall and they looked so weird but tasted really good, and did great this spring when I really loosened up the soil before planting them).

[TomatoNut95]

I hear ya on that clay soil. I live in East Texas and soil around here is spotty. One area will have nice, loose sand and other places have concrete clay. I, unfortunately, have the concrete clay. Impossible to dig in when dry. Not easy to do when wet either since it sticks to your shovel. I feel so jealous when someone tells me their soil is sandy and they can plant anything their heart desires. But I can only grow what will fit in my raised bed or in a pot, which is costly in potting soils. Miracle-Gro is so expensive, but it's the main thing that is offered around here. Lowes carries a brand called Sta-Green that is cheap, but fertility in it is low. Stuff starts turning pale and yellow not long after being planted in it. Bags of garden sand are not even offered around here. Landscaping sand and sterilized play sand is, but not Greensand like I have wanted. My raised bed is composted of Sta-Green and Miracle-Gro Garden soils, peat moss(big boo-boo) leaf mulch scraped out of a family members backyard, Scotts Topsoil and Humas and Manure. I'm hoping to switch to organic(OMRI listed soils) instead of using all those man-made chemicals in regular Miracle-Gro to see if it makes a difference in my gardening.

[MsDDC]

I looked up LeafGro after saying I use it, and it turns out it's actually produced in Maryland, specifically the counties abutting DC. So it's probably not available everywhere. I LOVE it since it's organic and pretty cheap here (around $5/40 pound bag and I use 12 bags a year for 200 square feet of veggies, plus a couple more for the flowerbeds). They actually use leaves collected by the local governments that would otherwise be landfilled, and then add in grass clippings in the spring. Pretty cool!