Confessions of a veggie garden failure

I started my first veggie garden last year and have to say it was a miserable failure.

The first thing is we had an unusual hot spell at the beginning of the season and NOTHING germinated. Plus I wasn't aware that they seem to need a LOT more water than flowers. When a few things did come up, it was too late and they never produced fruit before our first frost. Now I tried everything from seed, direct sown - didn't even have any tomato's come up. I had ONE pumpkin, that was it!

Am I going to have to water three times a day? Because that is what it seems like I'm going to have to do to keep them from drying out!

On the other hand, most the flowers I direct seeded were successful. And I only had to water them every third day!

What's your soil like? Is it really sandy and doesn't hold water well? You could try adding some organic material to it so that it would hold water better. Also, a trick I use is to get the ground nice and wet and then cover it with plastic to hold the moisture in until the seeds germinate. You have to watch pretty close though and get it off before the sun burns them. Also, if I'm having trouble with germination or I want to hurry it up I soak the seeds in water for a couple hours.

If none of this works for you, you can always buy some transplants from a nursery.

Jeff

I have pretty good soil (not sandy at all) but live in an arid place (no humidity) with brutal sun. I will get some transplants this year but I don't know if I can handle the constant watering (depending if we have drought conditions this year or not). I would like to have a vegetable garden this year but it seems like it is a lot more work than growing flowers. Is it?

I'm growing a lot of veggies, herbs and flowers and haven't noticed them to be a whole lot different in water needs. Maybe when they're forming fruit, but it doesn't sound like you got that far. It sounds like you just hit a bad spot when you were germinating.

Another good trick if you don't like to water so much is put a nice deep mulch of straw or wood chips on them once you have plants (Immediately if you put in transplants). The mulch holds what moisture there is and stops the ground evaporation. Plus it breaks down and adds nutrients to the soil. And it keeps you from having to weed so much.

This message was edited Mar 19, 2007 9:19 PM

That's a good idea, thank you!

Mobi, if you have to water three times a day, your soil isn't pretty good. Even in 100 degree weather with brutal sun and my very rocky well drained soil, I've never had to water three or even two times a day.

You planted tomato seeds directly in the garden if I understand your post correctly? You live in too cold of a zone to be able to grow tomatoes by direct seeding in the garden.

When did you plant your other seeds? You have to make sure you're giving the seeds what they need. Some need to be planted early, some later. Plant too early and they'll rot, plant too late and it could be too hot and/or dry or not leave enough time in your season to produce. Were they kept moist but not wet until they germinated? Perhaps you were watering too much. Could birds have made off with some of your seeds? Were they planted too deep or too shallow?

No vegetables aren't harder to grow than flowers. Actually, there are quite a few vegetables that are very easy to grow from seeds. It could be that your flower beds have better soil or don't drain as fast as your vegetable bed because they are more protected, get some shade, are protected from wind, have their roots shaded by other plants.

I have to say, for where I live my soil is pretty good - probably not as good as in other areas. We have a lot of clay in our soil but mine has been amended for years. I've never had ANYTHING rot - we just don't have the humidity for that, in fact we have to water our grass at night so the water doesn't evaporate too quickly. We also get fungus in our lawns caused from not enough water. (I know in the south you would never water at night because of fungus and mildew). You're probably right about not having a long enough season and I am going to try plants this year and birds are a strong possibility. I think my biggest problem is not watering enough at first and hardly anything germinated, but we also had a freaky spike in temperature last year and I couldn't keep the soil moist the way it needed to be. And it's hard to grow plants in full sun here. The altitude makes a big difference, even plants that need full sun need some shade here. I use to live in Michigan and gardening was easier there. The summers were hot but the humidity kept things going.

On the other hand, all the flower seed I planted, I just scattered on the ground, and had a great flower garden - , same sun and same water but the vegetable seeds didn't do anything. I had one pumpkin plant and one tomatillo plant come up (which came up too late to flower). It's also possible that I didn't get the right depth etc. I tried three different kinds of peppers, two types of tomatoes, two types tomatillos, carrots, pumpkin, watermelon and squash.

It gives me hope knowing that they aren't harder to grow than flowers, because I have done really well with flowers here. I've also had successful herb gardens.

Last year I had my first garden and we had bad weather as well.

I began with plants to avoid all the seed starting problems since I was only interested in a few favorites for my first attempt which I think was a big help.

I tried a variation of the old Ruth Stout method though I only had leafs to use for mulch.

The heavy mulch made a big difference. When everyone else was watering their plants every day and complaining about it, I didn't water at all. Yet I got all the tomatoes, squash and zuchinni I could use and give away.

This year I'm starting a lot from seed under lights inside and so far that is going well. I have trouble with my balance moving about on thick mulch so I've made paths through between rows and am curious to see how it works out. Have found it interesting that under the mulch ground is moist when only a short distance away it is dry.

Thanks! I'll try seedlings this year and lots of mulch!

Mobi,
I have very similar soil and weather to you, here in Northern New Mexico. I thought I had clay too until I took the Master Gardening class. I found out my soil is almost pure sand. Duh. There is a simple test you can make to find out what you really have, but interesting, adding lots of decomposed organic matter to the soil makes a huge difference in the need to water and in the growth of plants.
For a first garden, I suggest not starting with seeds, except large ones like beans. Buy plants. Plant them, mulch them, and water them. Around here you can even buy lettuce and spinach as plants. Then find out what to plant when. Spinach should be going in right now. the seeds are large so you wouldn't have to buy plants. Peas and lettuce should be in right now. If you like it grow arugula. It grows fast. Tomatoes really aren't that hard to grow either.
Then realize that veggies mostly need at least 6 hours of sun per day. If they are getting to much shade, they don't do well. Try pumpkins and butternut squash. Cucumbers. They should go in around the end of May in your area. Realize that lettuce goes to seed around the solstice as does arugula and spinach. ( sometimes). The others grow all summer and are picked in September or so. Onions are easy to grow also -- from seed, or better yet from plants which can be ordered or sometimes purchased locally.
Every year you get better.
Once you convince yourself you can grow things, then try seeding them.

look just because you 1st garden faild let that show you whats needed for the next one i am going to tell you tho its going to be a little harder why i dont know but it well be good for you to find out for youer self just keep at it youll see

One solution to your dryness problem is to switch to underground irrigation. Before planting, bury lengths of soaker hose in the ground. This gets the water directly to the roots and minimizes evaporation. Then mulch as others have suggested.

I am doing fall crops this time. I have mulch ready when the seeds come up and have put in a good irrigation system with a timer so it is watered 2x a day to start so that the soil stays moist until the seeds sprout. I also put water crystals in the soil to help with the moisture problem. We are having a hot hot summer and I have had to water the rest of the garden every other day. Everyone's lawn is turning brown and luckily all my xeriscape plants are doing great. I haven't given up yet! I even have a few tomato plants that have fruit on them!

Go Mobi go! And good luck!