My Gardens Failed This Year

Here we go again. I wrote in a post, years ago, that nothing grows in my garden. Someone replied with the comment that said they had an uncle who had the same problem. The uncle passed and was buried, and even things on top of his grave didn't grow.

  Yes, I can grow weeds. They are prolific. But, I cannot seem to grow tomatoes, or anything in the squash family. Either the weather is too hot and kills the plants (97+ degrees outside) or the weather is freezing. If only the plants could understand that there is a window of time where the weather is accommodating to letting them produce!

  So, I grow these tomato plants and they are prolific. They are nice and big. They look promising. But I put a Tulsi (Holy Basil) plant in with them thinking that was a good idea, until someone in a gardening forum informed me that the Tulsi would keep my tomatoes from producing tomatoes. So, I took the Tulsi plant out and put it in a big pot.

   Well, the Tulsi plant is doing great. We really need Tulsi to make tea with. It is supposed to help with sleeping well. The plant is doing well, even though it keeps flowering.

Tulsi (Holy Basil) Plant

You can even see some of the tomato plants in the background of the picture. Sadly, they turned black and most of the leaved died. There is some life on the tops of 2 of the plants that are left. 

    Then I grew something called 'Kiwano', which is in the squash family. The fruit tastes like cucumbers and watermelon. So, finally got some to grow nicely. I didn't realize that they were orange when they were ripe, so I picked a couple of green ones. They also have spikes on them, so I was surprised when big chunks were taken out of them by some animal. I do have one left and am waiting for it to ripen, hoping no other animal finds it first. When I do get a ripe one, I will put it in yogurt. 

I lost many papayas due to the weather and wind blowing. Some of them broke off in the upper parts of the trunk, but the roots were intact, so, I have bent over papaya plants. They definitely are not very strong. 

I have one healthy pepper plant that produces paprika peppers. But the new ones I planted seem to have disappeared or died. 

All these things I am writing about will hopefully help someone in the future. At present, I am experimenting with different ideas. One of those ideas is to use Epsom Salts with the tomatoes and peppers. Also, I got a safe fungicide to use when needed. Also, I read where someone had problems growing tomatoes, and finally got help when they took crushed (in the blender) eggs shells and used them with the tomatoes. I will try that too. 

  The TowerGarden has only peppermint growing in it now. It is too hot to grow anything else that grows in it. The peppermint plant took over the whole TowerGarden and the roots got in the way of everything, so we had to take the thing apart at the top and clean some of it out. 

  I'm using chicken manure from my chickens and adding it to the compost pile in the big garden in the back. I just have to make sure that the dog doesn't get into it, for that is one of his favorite places to go when we let him out in the back! 

   When the results come in, I will have to update this. I will let you all know what works and what didn't work, if anything. This is all a learning process for us all.