When Plants Do Not Thrive
It's odd, but every year some things get better and others get worse
with respect to my backyard vegetable garden.
This is indeed a slow way to learn. So I ask your advice.
For the past two consecutive seasons, my tomatoes and cucumbers for some
reason have not flourished as I know they could/should have.
The transplants just kind of sit there -- and do nothing!
Sure, I get a flower or two here or there, but not the abundance of
fruit that I once had.
And that's the kicker -- when I started five years ago I did nothing but
turn over a patch of lawn and set the transplants in. They thrived.
Now that I'm a "gardener", they're suffering. Crikey! I must be reading
too many gardening books.
Nowadays, four and five years later, the tomato/cuke plants just sit
there. Sure I water them. But here in July they're not much bigger than
the transplants I set out in mid May.
They ain't dying but they ain't growing neither.
I've set up a watering system, amended soil with peat, lime, straw, or
other organic matter, but ....
The corn and beans are doing well -- better than they've ever done --
but the tomatoes, onions and cukes are languishing, the asparagus is
just as fern like as it has always been, and the lettuce/mustard patch
is just so-so. All plots of soil in this raised bed garden have been
handled/treated in the same way over the years -- a dose of 10-10-10 in
Spring, set out plants, grow plants, cover with grass/mulch in winter,
start over.
Zone 5b, NY, 20 miles due north of NYC. I see blooming fields all
around, just not mine.
Any suggestions?
J.
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