I just do not water things enough.
Here is a picture of my harvest and then I will explain:
Those stubby little carrots are the result of my square foot gardening experiment.
Though they are small, at least I did get them to grow! Sadly carrots did not do well in the Georgia clay last year (i.e. they all died in the hot summer).
I have only just harvested them (now October). They have been in the soil since I planted back in March/April!!!
They did not really start to grow well until the summer cooled a little. I guess I could have watered them more...
The italian peppers are nice and the Banana peppers are good. The Bell peppers are a little small.
The cantaloups are very small. They started growing well at the end of the summer - and then stopped since it got cooler. Not good. I made the decision to pull them off the plant, and hopefully I will get a few mouth-fulls of the fruit. They should not have killer bacteria disease...
Tomatoes... well you can see that there is one there in the pic.
I had a really bad time with them this year. They did not really 'take off'. They seemed to do better in the Georgia clay than the boxes with "good" earth in there. I may buy many of the same type of plant next year and put one in the ground and one in the box and compare performance...
Probably need to get this book:
How-Grow-World-Record-Tomatoes
I will order next time I get stuff from Amazon.
I got these 'tomato hornworms' on my tomatoes at one point. I had 3 of them!!! They are the size of a finger - but oddly they are hard to spot in tomatoes. They can eat most of a tomato plant in a day!
I found one and observed it for a while (boy can they eat!!) and then threw it in the garbage. The next day I spotted the 'grenade' shaped poo near some other tomato plants (which also looked badly attacked). After looking really close I found two more! I cut these in half, but the damage was done. What a pain!
The tomato plants were just getting over the hot summer - when bam! a hornworm gets them. Should have used more Seven Dust I guess.
As it is pretty much 'game over' in my garden - I will list what I have learnt this year with the new 'Square Foot Gardening Method'
1. This square foot gardening method would work so much better in the northern states that have more regular rain (maybe Washington state?). It would probably do well in Canada and Britain also. Basically if I don't sort out a constant supply of water - it is pretty much pointless. I am going to have to get a drip irrigation system on a timer or something to give a regular water supply (I forget too easily). I can always add my rain water when I remember. The soil is like a sponge, as it is supposed to be - but it takes A LOT of water to get to the roots. I watered one square for a while thinking it was ok. I went to plant my seed - and it was all dry underneath. The soil is supposed to be the perfect soil - but it really makes it difficult to keep moist. We are probably talking many gallons of water a day to keep things wet (especially in the HOT sumer).
2. Georgia gets SO hot in the summer that it does something odd to the plants. It sort of stops some of them growing and kills some off (especially peas). Probably need to experiment with shade and more water. Some things actually seem to do better in the clay - so I need to identify those plants and just 'bung them in the ground' All this will come by experience...
3. Pests! I had Rabbits, small beetles, worms, ants, Squirrels, caterpillars, and I think I saw mice out there earlier. It really makes it difficult when you find your Squarefoot garden is now just a large ant nest. It did not seem to effect the growth of the plants - but we are talking thousands and thousands of ants in one of the tomato plant boxes. I did my best to kill them - but they may well have just moved somewhere else. Squirrels I could shoot with a pellet Gun (If I got the guts and the money for a gun). Rabbits are more tricky. I never see them - and when I do they are usually into the next doors garden and beyond. I probably need to look into protecting my garden a little more from pests - which is more expense and work and bother...
Probably means a wire fence all the way around.
Here is a list of the plants I started back in April and since - and how they did:
Broccoli: Terrible. Didn't even see one good head. Got attacked by something and then it got hot and it went to seed right away. Not sure if I will bother again - maybe as an experiment I will plant seeds in Feb/March to see what happens. They need to be full sized before the summer kicks in and kills them.
Cabbage: Same as Broccoli.
Bush Beans: Now these are something that grew well (see pic below). They needed no special treatment - they just grew well. When they wilted I just watered them. The sad thing was that when they really got going the beans came all at once and we could not eat them all in time. Some went moldy in the fridge...
Need to do better at eating them next year... Maybe plant them in two week intervals so it 'staggers' the harvest by a couple of weeks.
Pole beans: Bad! I especially made a new trellis for these things and the rabbits (or something) ate the vine at the bottom. This killed the plant on the trellis. Total disaster. Need to fence these off next year.
Peas: These did really well - when suddenly we went on vacation in New York. We came back and summer had kicked in and killed the plants. The peas were ruined also - kinda went hard and tasted bad. Real shame as the peas were so nice - you could eat them raw off the plant. I need to plant these earlier to avoid the 'summer blast' killing them too early.
Cucumber: One plant died (probably due to lack of water) and the other plant done really well. We had so much cucumber that we could not keep up with it and some went moldy in the fridge. How sad! You cannot freeze them either.
Coriander: This was doing quite well (for the first time in my gardening history) - but then as soon as the summer came early - the plant went to seed right away. Hardly any leaves - just seeds. Tried another batch - but the summer was too hot and dry.
Water Mellon: A plant grew - but I got no melons. Poor performance. Will try again next year - hopefully with a water system...
Strawberries: These did OK. I got quite a few strawberries off the four plants I had initially - but again the summer sun scorched the leaves and they struggled to produce any more fruit - or leaves as a matter of fact. They started a growth spurt recently with the cooler weather and the plants have been sending out runners and planting more plants all over the place. Once established I will put these new plants in other squares. Probably need to protect these plants in the winter.
Sweet Corn: I obviously did not water these plants enough. They did not even grow above my waist. Much more water and fertilizer needed. Not sure if I will bother next year. Rabbits or mice chewed the bottoms - so some of the plants fell over. Even the ones that survived this died eventually anyway - so not a good crop... needs more work...
Onions: These were VERY small. I went for the red type. In the square foot method you are supposed to put 16 in a square foot. It seems a little cramped. The onions did not grow much either. They were nice still. The hot summer seemed to have baked some of them - so started to go moldy. I need to make sure they are covered properly.
This is one I would like to compare to 'standard' clay soil method gardening.
Carrots: Took a long time to grow - and even then they were stubby. Not sure what to do here. Will try again as a main crop and make sure they are watered!
Echinacea: Some of these plants are still alive I think. Maybe they will last the winter and grow next year.
Lavenda: I put some seeds in a hanging basket as I did not have much success in the clay. They did pretty good - then the summer dryness killed the plants.
Tomato: See above. I need to experiment further. I will buy heirloom plants this time as they did really well when I first started this gardening malarky.
The Kiwi plants: I really wanted these to grow. I have been trying to take special care of these. The summer seems to have burnt the leaves off. One plant made it to the top and then all the leaves fell off. It may have been attacked. Not sure really. It came back and the same thing happened! It has now recovered and is about a few feet high. Doh!
The other plant (at the front) was scorched - then it started to grow back. It made it to the top - but the leaves look withered. Some leaves have fallen off. Not sure what is going on here - but it did make it!
I hope these will do better next year (and survive the winter!!).
I did not try sweet potato or Peanuts. I bet these crops do well down in the south... (Jimmy Carter did well out of the Peanuts anyway..).
It is time to plant garlic for a summer harvest.
We may even get our first frost soon (maybe around the 20th of Oct).
So - is it worth the hassle? Not sure yet. I guess if I get good at it then it will be worth while. At the moment it seems cheeper and less work to just go to the shops and buy the stuff! The stuff in the shops are usually bigger also...
It certainly teaches patience (my fruit trees will not produce fruit for another year or two!!).
It also teaches you that you have a lot of pests and disease out there ready to kill everything you worked so hard to get growing...
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