Fall veggies...not looking good :(

I am feeling rather depressed right now about my latest veggie garden endeavor. I was so excited about this, and now I just feel frustrated and confused. On October 9 I direct-sowed peas, lettuce, spinach, onions, carrots, shallots, leeks, cauliflower, and marigolds. Almost a month later now the peas are only about 2-3" tall and yellowing. One of the dozens of lettuce seeds I sowed is about 2" tall and same with the marigolds. Everything else has failed to sprout. I'm so confused! I have everything in raised beds, which I replenished with lots of compost and some organic potting soil before sowing. Should I have let the soil sit after I added the compost before planting? Should I have sown everything individually in containers and then transplanted? Should I have covered the raised bed with plastic to make sort of greenhouse until everything sprouted? I feel like I've been good about watering, so I just don't know. The only thing I can think of is that maybe some of the seeds were too old. Some were from 2008 and some 2007, but the shallots are from this year and they never sprouted. Please help!!

Hi. All the veggies you mentioned are cool season crops. My best guess is that your temps (and thus your soil temp) are too warm for the seeds to sprout. I prefer to direct sow my seeds into the garden. I will start tomatoes and peppers and broccoli as back ups, but usually end up giving them away. Some things, especially root crops, do not like to be transplanted and are best direct sown. If your temps are warm as I suspect, the greenhouse effect you speak of would have only made matters worse.

The yellowing could be a deficiency (probably not if your soil is righ in organic matter) or a sign of overwatering.

As far as seed viability, most seeds will remain viable (good) for a number of years if properly stored. There are a few exceptions to that rule where seeds do better if sown fresh. Veggie seeds in general are good 5-11 years plus in some cases. The older the seed, the less the germination rate in general, but you should get some sprouts still.

Don't be discouraged. I suspect your planting times were off. Maybe your agricultural extension has a planting calendar for your area you can reference?

Hope this helps...

Kelly

Even though I'm further south than you, we all had a very warm fall in Florida as a whole. Probably one extra month of summer. I'm planting my fall veggies a full month later than normal, so following Florida's Planting guide won't follow this fall. Never give up !!!!!!!

Thanks so much for the encouragement and advice! I feel confident to restart now :) I will let you know how it goes...

Definitely let us know!! Good luck!

Kelly-

When you said you start peppers and tomatoes and broccoli as back-up...I thought the first two were for spring and broccoli was for fall. Do you mean you start all three in fall or all three in spring? Or both? I guess it doesn't get cold where you are, right?

It gets cool, but we rarely ever have frost or close... Except I think it was in 2006 we had "The Big Freeze" and a lot of people lost a lot of plants. We had 2 or 3 nights in a row of freezing temps, but that is unusual for here... We can pretty much grow year round here. Some things will need protection from the cold or heat, but it's workable. Gardening here in the summer can be done, but it's tough - it's sooooooo hot. A lot of herbs do well, as do peppers, eggplant, sweet potatoes and okra (which I don't grow).

I start peppers and tomatoes for spring and broccoli and tomatoes for fall. With tomatoes you can get a second crop from your spring plants if you can keep them alive through the summer heat. Easier said than done sometimes and I usually just start new plants - lol. Peppers are another - they are perennial here if you can protect the plants through the winter. A lot of people even dig and pot the peppers, but again I usually just start new plants unless it's a real heavy hitting plant I want to try to keep. They also get pretty large and tend to shade the new, smaller plants. I still have peppers from spring that are going like gangbusters, but will probably harvest what's left this weekend and make way for something else. I garden in the square foot method in raised beds and live in the city, so garden real estate is at a premium - lol. If it's not producing or too much work it's gotta go...

You should have a pretty long growing season where you're at as well. Do you get very cold in the winter? I know people think Florida and they think hot, but not all places are, especially if you live near the coast I suppose . . .

You just wrote what I have been thinking. Lettuce sprouted, carrots, radishes and marigolds too, but for a month have stayed small in this heat. Peas are growing, but the plants are pretty sparse and only about 1 foot tall after one month in the ground. Beans and summer squash are going gangbusters though, and it looks like I might be able to pick beans and squash blooms this weekend.

The lettuce I planted was a mix and one type started to grow with this weeks rain. I thought I was watering enough, but maybe not with the heat I have had.

I think there is still hope. Hang in there.

When it is hot and breezy, I have to water my raised beds every other day. Especially if it is a shallow rooted crop. My beds will dry out to a depth of an inch or two in a day. My beds are filled with gin compost and is real airy. I am going to probably mix some rotted hay in mine this spring to help with moisture retention. Also am making plans to set up a drip irrigation system.

I found some stats on veggie seed viability...

http://blog.oregonlive.com/homesandgardens/2009/01/are_those_seeds_still_viable.html

passiflora07 - Thanks for the link. I often wonder just how old the seeds are in the packages we buy. What's often printed on them is "packed for ...." with the year.

If the people who package the seeds know how long they are good for, do they "repackage" the leftovers?

I sowed some Brussels sprouts seeds with 2007 as the packaged date, and not one of them came up.

Very good point, Honeybee....I didn't even think of that. I wonder how hard it would be to harvest all of my own seed from each crop every year to plant for the next year. Do you know what extra steps would be involved? I know for things like squash its just a matter of collecting and drying out the seed from inside the fruit, but what about for lettuce? I have not done any seed collecting from flowers before, so I don't quite know what I'm looking at...

Do you have a planting guide for your area that will tell you the ideal times to plant various veggies? If not, you might want to google "planting dates XXX county" (XXX=your county). That will help give you a ballpark range of dates. Could be you planted too early.

Don't think they won't germinate. When the conditions are right there is a good chance the ones you have already sown may sprout. Last year I had completely given up on my carrots, but 2 months after I sowed them they sprouted. This year the sprouted with in a couple weeks. They knew what they were doing, but I didn't.

stephanietx - I do have info on when to plant in my area. Univ of FL puts out the info for all the regions of Florida, which is very helpful. I've been talking to people in the Florida Gardening forum, and a few said that we are just having an unsually warm fall, so they are planting a month later than normal. I'm hoping that is all it is! I really want to succeed!

1lisac - That is some hopeful news! I was going to rip everything out and start over, but maybe I'll just leave it alone. I have two raised beds, and I only planted in one of them because I had to do some repairs on the second. The second bed is now ready to be planted, so maybe I'll just do that one tomorrow, leave the first alone and see what happens.