Ignorance Is Bliss

stella1751 · Tue Aug 02, 2011 10:25 am

I wish I didn't know that I am having a bad garden year. Way back when, in those blissful days before I knew what was what and before I had encountered all the great minds on this forum, I wouldn't have had a clue

that my corn is only partially pollinating, if that;
that my watermelons are unlikely to produce a ripe melon before the first hard freeze;
that five of my HBC II's are experiencing slow growth, two of them likely because of a nitrogen deficiency;
that two of my tomato plants are dying, and now the disease appears to be spreading to the two at the other end of the bed;
that the stupid mistake I made while planting my strawberries, a mistake that is compromising crown development, may hurt their ability to over-winter;
that my pumpkins have begun developing powdery mildew, and the milk spray isn't working;
that my Habaneros will not recover from the hail in time to produce mature fruit;
that my last two batches of compost tea were probably anaerobic (sp), given that the pump just gave out on the current batch, belatedly alerting me to its pitiful performance on the last two; and
that one of my Super Chilies has begun to show signs of disease.

If I didn't know all of this, I would be ever so much more cheerful when I visit my garden. Instead, I wander from bed to bed, and I fret. Ignorance is bliss.

gumbo2176 · Tue Aug 02, 2011 11:40 am

If ignorance is bliss, I must be one happy camper.

SPierce · Tue Aug 02, 2011 11:58 am

*hugs* it seems we're both having a rough gardening year!

DoubleDogFarm · Tue Aug 02, 2011 1:09 pm

Ah, Yes!

It's no longer fun, when it's broken down to a gnat's gluteus maximus.

Time to let the ducks out and look over my troubled garden.

Eric

cherishedtiger · Tue Aug 02, 2011 1:17 pm

Is that why I am all smiles when I am in my garden... because I honestly have no clue whats going on!!!

Sorry to hear you are having such a rough season... I don't think you are the only one, weather has hurt quite a few gardens.

stella1751 · Tue Aug 02, 2011 1:54 pm

cherishedtiger wrote:Is that why I am all smiles when I am in my garden... because I honestly have no clue whats going on!!!
Sorry to hear you are having such a rough season... I don't think you are the only one, weather has hurt quite a few gardens.

I wish I could blame the weather for all of it. The knowledge I hate the most is my awareness that I am to blame for many of these problems. I got in a hurry planting those HBC II's and didn't take the time to thoroughly prep the bed. And not realizing that my pump was going out was just plain, well, stupid. Oh. Don't even get me started on my role in the strawberry debacle.

I can remember a time when I had a pretty laid-back attitude toward a plant that didn't achieve all it could be. I never analyzed why. Why it failed didn't matter. There were always other plants that were doing well. Losing one or hurting some isn't that big a deal when you haven't a clue what went wrong. Now, knowing that it's my fault, I fret every time I pass one that doesn't look as good as it should

Next year, I vow to be a more responsible gardener.

!potatoes! · Tue Aug 02, 2011 2:03 pm

in my experience, ignorance leads to exclamations of "&*#$^*, NOW what happened?!?!?"

Urban_Garden · Tue Aug 02, 2011 8:58 pm

No garden is perfect, and no gardener is perfect either.

However, as gardeners I don't think we are allowed to just give up.

My garden doesn't get enough light and it isn't nearly as nice as most of the gardens on here, but it produces something for me as a little "thank you" for growing it to begin with.

I was sort of giving up on my garden until one day I pulled up a carrot and out came not a pathetic little root but an actual carrot! That's when I knew I couldn't give up or get garden envy. My garden's soil is terrible, but slowly with time and investment, it is improving. I will reap the benefits down the road, regardless of how hard it is right now (or how depressing it is to have to pull up dead or diseased plants). I guess we learn with time, I'm learning stuff even now I never knew before! Trial and error I suppose.

Always remember the Garden motto! "Next year's garden will be better!"

smaxey843 · Tue Aug 02, 2011 9:05 pm

!potatoes! wrote:in my experience, ignorance leads to exclamations of "&*#$^*, NOW what happened?!?!?"

I said that today actually about peas lol.

soil · Tue Aug 02, 2011 10:08 pm

failures are my favorite learning experiences. if I didn't fail I wouldn't learn.

mmmfloorpie · Wed Aug 03, 2011 12:01 am

How do you tell if your watermelons won't be ripe till the first hard freeze?

Some of mine are about football size now... Will they be ready!?

stella1751 · Wed Aug 03, 2011 6:17 am

mmmfloorpie wrote:How do you tell if your watermelons won't be ripe till the first hard freeze?

Some of mine are about football size now... Will they be ready!?

I don't know when your first hard freeze is or what type of watermelon you are growing, but I'll bet you will make it. My average first hard freeze is September 22, and I don't have any pollinated females yet. They are just now starting to flower. I've tried hand pollinating two of 'em but have had no success. They might make it. It's just not looking very promising right now

SPierce · Wed Aug 03, 2011 7:48 am

stella1751 wrote:
mmmfloorpie wrote:How do you tell if your watermelons won't be ripe till the first hard freeze?

Some of mine are about football size now... Will they be ready!?
I don't know when your first hard freeze is or what type of watermelon you are growing, but I'll bet you will make it. My average first hard freeze is September 22, and I don't have any pollinated females yet. They are just now starting to flower. I've tried hand pollinating two of 'em but have had no success. They might make it. It's just not looking very promising right now

Can you maybe build a miniature greenhouse around your watermelon, so they'll be sheltered until they ripen?

stella1751 · Wed Aug 03, 2011 9:10 am

SPierce wrote: Can you maybe build a miniature greenhouse around your watermelon, so they'll be sheltered until they ripen?

I might be able to cover them. They are in a raised bed that I haven't finished filling with soil, so they are recessed. Plus, we might have an extended fall. The last two years, I have been able to save my plants up to mid-October.

I've been trying to pollinate the first plants to give me female flowers, which were the Burpee Fordhooks. So far, though, I haven't had a male and a female at the same stage of maturity. Either the male is ready to go and the female only partially open or vice versa. The Fordhook is a larger melon at 14 pounds mature weight, so I would really need to have a viable female soon.

Yesterday, one of the Sugar Babies had a female flower. (Yay!). It's my understanding that these are a small melon, maybe four or five pounds. I'm betting that if I can get at least one going soon I will make it.

I'm mostly annoyed at myself because I started plants in plastic pots rather than peat pots, as is recommended. Supposedly, watermelons don't handle transplanting well, and disturbing their roots probably contributed to the weakened condition that made them die when we got the snow. I covered them, and IMO they should have survived the cold. They froze a little, but they still had a green leaf or two, and I've seen many a plant make it through that much damage.

Additionally, the soil was just too darned cold until the first week of July, and the seeds I planted to replace the frozen seedlings stalled for a long, long time. Someone mentioned aquariums earlier this year, saying they were great for starting watermelons early. You just flip them upside down, and they warm up the soil like nobody's business. I'm not giving up on watermelons. Next year, I'm going to try an aquarium.

One day, wait and see, I'm going to grow a Carolina Cross! Next year, though, I think I might try a Minnesota Midget so I can get something, anything

mmmfloorpie · Wed Aug 03, 2011 9:40 am

stella1751 wrote:
mmmfloorpie wrote:How do you tell if your watermelons won't be ripe till the first hard freeze?

Some of mine are about football size now... Will they be ready!?
I don't know when your first hard freeze is or what type of watermelon you are growing, but I'll bet you will make it. My average first hard freeze is September 22, and I don't have any pollinated females yet. They are just now starting to flower. I've tried hand pollinating two of 'em but have had no success. They might make it. It's just not looking very promising right now

Oh wow. We don't get a hard freeze until November or so.

gardenvt · Wed Aug 03, 2011 11:23 am

I'm with soil - everything that has gone wrong this year (or other years) is an opportunity to learn. My garden is not perfect this year but has given us a lot of good food to eat.

I grew some different varieties of tomatoes and the harvest is not like last year. Some of the tomatoes are not as stated. For example, I bought some Stupice seeds this year and the tomatoes are the right size - just orange. On the other hand, they have a taste very similiar to Sungold cherry tomatoes - the silver lining in that problem.

I thought the beets would never take off and we are enjoying them now. The broccoli may not produce much but that may be my fault for not feeding it more.

My tomatoes are all mislabeled and while I have figured out what some of them are, more than half remain a mystery. Still, they have produced well and the flavor doesn't change just because they are labeled wrong.

Every morning, I go out to the garden and I wonder what I will find. Suddenly, a new flush of tomatoes on a plant I thought we would lose. Beet greens that got beyond the onslaught of some small "bug." The rosemary cuttings growing prolifically. A surprise moonflower blooming in July. Lots of mini melons when there was only one yesterday (must have missed them, huh?). And the bees - after spraying Sevin (in the evening with calm wind) to get rid of the cucumber beetles, I am grateful that the bees are in abundance and hang out while I water.

My neighbor came over while I was watering this morning and was so admiring of the garden - both for the growth and the way it is layed out with raised beds and containers. He keeps asking me how I do it. So, when I think the garden isn't quite up to par, it is nice to hear someone else tell me how amazing it is.

A bit of gratitude will ease the dismay/disappointment of a less than perfect gardening year.

gardenbean · Wed Aug 03, 2011 12:40 pm

I honestly enjoy reading these types of the threads the most. Realizing that others share my frustrations and failures makes me feel more confident that I can learn from the mistakes and applied what I have learned for next year's garden.