At the end of this growing season, plant green manure. Plow it under and let
it feed the soil... Something Leguminous, clover is my favorite. And rotate
your crops next season.

-Mariana
p.s. other cover crops that enhance the soil:

Winter Field Beans
Mustard
Lupin
Winter Tares



"J." wrote in message
...
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.