I have never accepted the "black thumb" theory. It is just a matter of a lack of knowledge. A good example would be watering your tomatoes every day. Try looking at your tomatoes in the morning. If they are not wilting in the early morning they should have plenty of water. Wilting in the afternoon is common and it is a response to daytime heat and not a lack of water. I don't do topsy turvy tomatoes because it is way too much trouble for me to consider. Remember to build and feed the soil and your plants will take care of themselves. The soil next to your porch is probably better than the soil in the sun. If you live in a housing addition or a newer home your yard is probably clay and needs organic matter to grow anything...even good lawn grass.
LOL. People always talk about how I have such a green thumb. I just tell them it is because they don't get to see all the plants I have murdered over the years
I appreciate the advice. For the front yard and porch tomatos I dug a very large hole for each plant and filled with potting soil heavily fertilized as yes, my front yard soil is lacking in organic good stuff. I was hoping since the sun was so strong up front that those would do well, but not so far.
I have done that too. It hasn't seemed to work out for me either. I think it just takes a while to build humus. I do better building a raised bed on top of the ground and filling it with compost and soil. Or use the existing soil for the raised bed mixed with a good, herbicide free manure. Earthworms will show up and mix the soil deep. And a mulch on top of the bed will lower water use and help keep the soil at an even temperature. Look up BTE gardening. Even though it is preachy , it works.
How long has it been since you planted? Tomatoes can take awhile to get going and then take off. I tend to plant mine very deep though so just the tops are sticking up. That is something that tomatoes do better with. Most other veg will be stunted or die if you do that. All the fuzz on the stems convert to roots on tomatoes.
I have gotten all of my hopefuls in the ground for my vegetable garden so we'll see. Last year was my first attempt and it didn't go so well, so hopefully this year for me will be better.
I started my tomatoes back in February and they are showing blooms already, my peppers are being to bloom also. I plant them deep.
It takes a while to get things going in the right direction. Don't give up. Gardening is all about patience.
I cringe looking at your beds. Nothing about your thumbs. Pine needles are snake magnets around here. Not necessarily venomous ones mind you, but it is still a little freaky when you reach down and a brown snake goes zipping past or over your hand. The last time I did pine needles, in the course of about ten minutes I had 6 little snake encounters and swore I will never use them again. Sad part is I have a row of lob lollies that produce a ton of needles. They are also pretty bad about ticks and ants which I am assuming is why they attract the snakes to begin with.
I have encountered no snakes and around here fire ants are everywhere. Anything that lays on the ground for more than a few days attracts fire ants. You could use sawdust for mulch or leaves. Just don't mix the sawdust with your soil unless you add a lot of nitrogen. And chop up the leaves. When it gets hot I don't like to weed my garden. I also don't like to spend money on stuff that I can make or gather at home. I love pine straw mulch. You may have gathered up a nest of snakes with your straw. I pick mine up with a pitchfork any snakes would drop out between the tines.
My garden is beside the row of lob lollies so I doubt that made any difference. I do use quite a bit of composted leaf mold which can sometimes draw in ticks, but not so much with the snakes and ants.
When you say you "mulch," do you mean just throwing that pine straw on top for weed control, or do you mean adding compost to the soil?
In backyard, I am trying melons in a compost bag, and melons in a barrel filled with pure compost and a little topsoil. Melons grow in my yard soil but never taste very good, though admittedly I wasn't good about feeding them. My big garden in the country is on an old dairy farming area (the whole county was given over to dairies for many years) and so the native soil has too much phosphorus, so raised beds out there are best. That said, I planted carrots, spinach and lettuce in February, in compost laid right onto hay/straw laid on the ground, with chicken manure fertilizer. I have never seen more beautiful spinach and lettuce. I will be pulling carrots in about a week, also planted in compost laid over native soil, and I have high hopes!
Also I have a half pound of habanero peppers and am about to make a habanero based pesticide with a little soap or Murphy's oil. My Tabasco sauce pesticide has worked fairly well, and I hope the habanero sauce works better. They are about ten times hotter than jalapenos, and we have noticed that bugs NEVER chew our jalapeño plants! A buddy of mine used Sevin and I know many others who do, with no apparent ill effect, but it just CAN'T be good for you.
I just use mulch on top of the soil. I also use compost on top of the soil and cover it with mulch. I no longer till anything. I push back the mulch and plant. Sometimes I pull the mulch back in the spring to get the soil to warm a little sooner. That exposes some of my biological tillers....the earthworms. They do all my tilling. Mixing mulch with your soil...unless it is compost or manure takes nitrogen from the soil to decompose. But if you put your carbon rich material on top it doesn't rob your plants of nitrogen. But it may rob the surface sprouting weeds.
Melons and anything sweet get the sweetness from the leaves. That is where the sugar is made. I do not use grow bags or garden in containers. I have plants in pots azaleas and such but that is just to keep them till they are set out. I root cuttings sometimes and pot them up. The problem I have with containers is that the soil temps vary too much and the roots have little room to grow. But that might be my ignorance. I have fount that putting my seedling in Styrofoam cups makes them grow better before I set them out. I think it is the insulating effect of the Styrofoam. I like planting in dirt the way nature does it.
Hi, I live in a 3rd-floor flat and have never had a garden, but I still take a healthy interest in agriculture and am a member of a survival forum because it's a fascinating subject.. These pics intrigue me, so can I ask how many people do you think a typical garden like this in a typical temperate climate could feed? And what about tiding them through the winter, can vegetables be stored or do they go off too quick?
I need to get some earthworms for country garden now that I've improved with compost. Think they'll stay there if I tell them to?
As Gabe Brown says, build it and they will come. No need to buy earthworms. Just get the soil ready...they will move in.
Interestingly, I saw no earthworms when turning the soil in February and March. I think the phosphorus killed them all. But we shall see.
I think a lack of organic matter in the soil is what causes a lack of earthworms. Even a worm has to eat. I didn't see any earthworms in my garden the first year. It was rock and clay. But after a few years I have quite a few. Remember the second number on the fertilizer bag is phosphorus. If you think you have too much there is no need to add more. But my pasture and half my garden is horse manure and bedding spread about 4 or more inches thick and stuff grows good in it. I just have a few too many goats and my grass never gets past the diaper stage.
Thanks. We'll see .... I prepared today a habanero-pepper-based pesticide I will try on my spinach in the morning, and tomatoes if needed. What do you use for bugs? P.s. For some reason, they have not been bothering my lettuce at all. That may be because my Tabasco sauce and orange oil and soap spray is working, but it is much less effective helping my spinach. The spinach isn't devastated or anything, but it's definitely getting more pest damage than the lettuce, and it's been receiving the same tabasco treatment as the lettuce. Interesting. Heh, wait'll they get a snootfull of that habanero sauce. Anyway, what do you use and how well does it work?
