"James" wrote in message
ups.com...


Bendit wrote:
"Penelope Periwinkle" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 17:02:56 -0600, "Bendit"
wrote:

Hello. Quick question here. Scenario is new garden plot, "new" dirt
mix.

Vegetable plants in there will remain very small. Some will never grow
and
stay the same size for weeks. Some will even produce flowers, even if
the
plant size is small. On certain plants, the leaves will "disintegrate".

Any ideas? I am thinking improper nutrients in the soil, or soil too
acidic
or something like that. Any info appreciated. CHEERS!

What plants, what zone ar you in, what's your weather been like, are
you watering and how much, have you fertilized and what did you use?
Oh, and how many hours of sunlight does the garden get?


Penelope


Thank you for your time. Please allow me to answer your questions.

-Plants: carrots, tomatoes, hot pepper plants(worst looking plant),
nugget
hops, cascade hops, and other stuff I forget.

The tomatoes are flowering already, but the plants did not grow at all
since
planted from another pot. All my attempts at starting tomatoes from seeds
have failed also. The seedlings will stay very small and eventually
yellow
and die (or get blown away by the wind).

-Weather has been in the 90's the past 3 days. Before that, high 80s and
3
weeks ago it rained a lot (for 1.5 weeks). This has been refreshing since
we
are still in a drought here in Colorado (USA).

-Watering is scheduled on a daily basis using my sprinkler system. I
water
enough to cover the whole plots. I am pretty sure watering is fine
because
the soil seems wet enough to the touch. Which reminds me to tell you that
my
soil has a lot of clay. The radishes in one of my older plots seem to
like
that. This year my radishes are twice as big, but half the spicyness (if
that is a clue of some sort). Last year my hot peppers were small but hot
like you would not believe.

Ok, I realize this is a lot of information to dish out. My actual problem
(the one I asked here) is for a new garden plot I have started. Last
year, I
only had one plot and some vegetables did well in that new soil mixture,
some didn't. This year, the now one year old plot got natural compost
added
to it (I try to make my own). Which brings me to the next point.

-Sunlight: I live in Colorado (mountain time). Plot #1 gets full sun
pretty
much all day. One half of Plot #2 (new one) gets full sun only starting
at
around noon while the other half gets full sun starting at about 10:00am
I
would say.

-Fertilization: Nothing this year except natural compost mixed in plot
#1.
Plot #2 is new and has "planter's mix" in it, which is apparently half
compost and half good soil. Last year I fertilized my tomatoes with that
pink granule stuff you buy which is specific for tomatoes. I always use
half
the recommended dose and study the effects.

Gardening is harder than I thought. As if it wasn't hard enough, earwigs
are
destroying my romaine lettuce heads (which used to be doing good in
plot#1).
So last night, after dark I wore my headlamp and killed them by hand. One
by
one. I refuse to use chemicals. Funny the things I would do for good
organic
lettuce.

Again, thanks for your time!


PS: In this message, when I say "I" I really mean myself and my wonderful
wife. Except when I was killing the earwigs by hand, that was all me.

I bet it too much "compost" in your mix. Specially if the compost is
not fully done seedlings usually just grow on the seed nutrition and
then die of starvation.


Interesting theory. Thanks for your input. I'll look into it.