My first ever garden was doing great until...

[RachELA]

(I need recommendations on my garden as a whole and on several topics, so this post provides the most holistic picture of my garden that I could. Therefore, it's super long and I hope that anyone who has the time will read and give me feedback.)

Hi, all! I'm very excited to join this group! My family and friends do not want to hear another word about gardening This year I started my first ever garden and this is the first forum I've ever joined as well. So I'm a newb at everything. I live in Kentucky (Zone 6b) and just bought a house that has a huge flat front and side yard, a steeply sloped back yard, and a flat-ish 1/4 acre field across a small stream. The property is surrounded by a community of cattle farmers. The soil is clay. I started researching gardening info last winter. In February I prepared a 10x15 garden area in the side yard that gets full sun from 9-930am until sunset. I used a no-till method, 2-4 inch layer of (big box store purchased "really good compost") compost, blood meal and bone meal, coffee grounds and I used craft paper and straw as a weed barrier. I purchased seeds from a local big box store and started tomato, pepper, eggplant, okra, leeks, watermelons etc. Outside of a small bout with fungus gnats, I felt pretty successful. In April I transitioned most of the seedlings to the garden and some to pots on the porch (2eggplant,1 okra,1 watermelon and I planted winter squash and tomatillos in pots outside. I also planted a variety of companion plants: zinnia, marigolds, basil, chives, oregano, calendula, sage, thyme, dill etc. I interplanted some onions, the chives, and leeks throughout as a repellant. I made some tomato supports with cattle panels and I planted some squash and the watermelons in "raised" bags of compost/soil mix with the bottoms cut out and covered with black landscape fabric. I feel like pretty much everything I did was an experiment. I have used only organic fertilizers and Neem oil/BT so far.

I have learned so much from this experience. Everything I've done has been from info/advice I've found on online resources (I don't know anyone else that gardens this way). And I've also ignored some advice that I now see the wisdom in as well. I think I've done a few things right and I've made a lot of mistakes. And this has taken so much more time than I ever imagined!!

Up to this point, my biggest setback was some vine borers that invaded the squashes/zucchini. I performed small surgeries on each of the plants and used BT to control and now hopefully prevent them from coming back. The watermelon plants had produced some fruit and one variety started growing well while the other lost all its fruit ( after they were the size of those small nerf footballs) to what seemed like blossom end rot. Then all the watermelon plants stopped flowering at all. (The flowers would dry out and fall off before blooming). This was also happening on the peppers. I also noticed that red aphids were multiplying quicker than I could pick them off my tomato plants and no ladybug larvae or lacewings were coming to the rescue so I broke down and sprayed them with Neem last week. I felt like those plants were just starting to bounce back when it all went south. Last week I did my normal weekly rotation of sprays: aspirin/baking soda mix on the tomatoes, BT on the squashes/zucchini and a milk spray on the whole garden. I also decided to spray the entire garden with neem oil (2tbs oil with 7-10 drops of dish soap) for the first time. The plants looked great the next day and then we had several days of bizarrely cold weather (50's at night and 60's during the day). First I noticed the tomato leaves were turning purple. I researched and chalked it up to a phos deficiency and hoped the cold weather would go away. Then we had a few days of still cool and super rainy weather. I repeated the neem oil spray over the weekend since it had rained so heavily and all but the purpling tomato leaves looked normal and maybe even better (there was one watermelon bloom). Then on Monday, a large majority of the tomato leaves had turned black and entire branches started dying, the squash and zucchini were wilting and had neon yellow spots all over the leaves. The watermelon leaves were also developing spots that I thought looked like a disease. I did a lot of research and have realized that verticillium wilt is likely what is plaguing the tomatoes, downy mildew on the squash/zucchini and anthracnose on the watermelon.

I'm really bummed. My garden went from looking like a lush jungle to looking like death. I have tons of questions. I really want to understand how all of these things happened at once, what I should do now (will I still get vegetables this season or should I pull everything and trash it), should I continue all of the sprays/maintenance I've been doing, and can I even have an organic garden again if these diseases are in the soil. I have researched until my eyes are crossed and while I can piece info together to try to figure it all out I think I need advice about my specific garden situation as a whole. I'm really grateful for any feedback.

 

[Beverly]

Welcome to the forums @RachELA . You might want to take a look at the list of forums and start with your questions a few steps at a time. There are many knowledgeable people here who will be happy to help you with advice and information.

 

[Chuck]

Yes, as @Beverly said, lets start out at the beginning. When posting a picture is worth a thousand words. But first things first. Please describe in detail everything you did in regards to the actual building of the garden. You said "no till". Did you just layer the compost on top of unworked clay soil?

 

[alp]

Welcome to the forum.. You wrote so much and I'm so lazy.. Might be a good idea to put as much organic matter, horse manure and buy some big worms if you want no-till as clay can be hard work. As you are new to gardening, it might be a good idea to buy tons of good quality compost to give yourself a leg up. Or have several raised beds.

By the sound of it, your garden can be too dry and too hot.

 

[RachELA]

Yes, as @Beverly said, lets start out at the beginning. When posting a picture is worth a thousand words. But first things first. Please describe in detail everything you did in regards to the actual building of the garden. You said "no till". Did you just layer the compost on top of unworked clay soil?

Basically. I used a pitch fork to aerate by lifting the soil every 6 inches for the entire bed before layering compost amendments and weed barrier.

 

[RachELA]

Welcome to the forum.. You wrote so much and I'm so lazy.. Might be a good idea to put as much organic matter, horse manure and buy some big worms if you want no-till as clay can be hard work. As you are new to gardening, it might be a good idea to buy tons of good quality compost to give yourself a leg up. Or have several raised beds.

By the sound of it, your garden can be too dry and too hot.

Wow, I thought it was too wet and too cool. How did you make the too dry and too hot assessment? I feel like I'm not understanding some basic principle or something. Would you mind to explain further?

 

[Chuck]

Basically. I used a pitch fork to aerate by lifting the soil every 6 inches for the entire bed before layering compost amendments and weed barrier.

The reason I asked is that you said you had clay soil. In clay soil if you do not really loosen up the soil when it rains a lot the soil cannot drain properly and you get root rot, which is why your tomato leaves turned black. Clay soil holds moisture and if not properly amended you will be forever plagued by fungal issues as shown by your tomatoes Before next spring I would dig/till up the entire garden to a depth of at least a foot and add copious amounts of organic material. Manure, leaves, grass clippings, straw etc. The cold weather was a big shock to heat loving plants and was probably the main reason for purpling leaves and loss of blooms. And your watermelons did have BER. Next year add 1/2 cup of epsom salts around the base of every plant you have and that should take care of BER if your soil is alkaline. Also you must fertilize. Just compost by itself isn't near enough nutrients. You must have adequate NPK . Blood meal is a very fast acting nitrogen source but not long lasting. Bone meal is very slow and long acting and a great source for phosphorus. These two things are great amendments but do not replace a good NPK organic fertilizer. It is getting so late in the year now that you may as well pull up everything that is not producing. I don't know when you average date of first frost is but I would imagine that it is too close to plant any fall crops except cole crops.

 

[mg guy]

Kentucky has such a variety of soil conditions, (My dad lives at cave run lake.) I'd be tempted to contact an extension agent in your area for some soil testing, if you can.

 

[alp]

Wow, I thought it was too wet and too cool. How did you make the too dry and too hot assessment? I feel like I'm not understanding some basic principle or something. Would you mind to explain further?

Wow, I thought it was too wet and too cool. How did you make the too dry and too hot assessment? I feel like I'm not understanding some basic principle or something. Would you mind to explain further?

in the side yard that gets full sun from 9-930am until sunset.

How many hours are you talking about? Sunset at what time? And what is your summer temperature in the afternoon please?

My front garden is like this - very very hot. I myself prefer to turn the soil over. I have a flower patch and this year, I turned over the soil and found tons of rubbles, big broken slab, tons of bricks .. Apparently, it is a dumping area for the previous owner. I grew things on them the year before. It was only until I dug further this year that I found all the junk underneath. My soil is also clay.

You could dig various 1 foot or 8 to 10 inch deep holes all over your bed and pour water into them to see how fast it disappears. From the speed the water disappears, you can find out about the drainage of your patch. My clay is totally like cement. Even when I chucked the clay clods on the hard ground, they wouldn't break. It's that bad. And the baking from the setting and afternoon sun in dry Essex do not help.