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RE: Why the Best Time Ever to be a Gardener is NOW
Cucumbers can be tricky.
Have you tried egg shells for the tomatoes?
I talk a bit about that in THIS POST.
Let me know what you think.
Cucumbers can be tricky.
Have you tried egg shells for the tomatoes?
Let me know what you think.
I generally don't use any fertilizer for my garden... I don't see any serious lack of growth in the plant or the size of the tomato. The problem has appeared a few years ago: If I plant them, let's say end of April, and I have my first tomatoes around end-June / early-July, then after the first crop the plants start to do something weird where each branch starts to dry out and turn brown-dry from green-alive. It's like something is leeching the plants, branch by branch. I don't know if its insects, fungus, etc, but something is killing the plant.
It didn't use to be that way but I think after 2010-11 it fucked me up real bad. Tried it for two more seasons up to '13 and gave up. Same thing over and over. Just half crop or one crop, while in the past I was getting tomatoes up to ...December (sometimes Greek autumn can be pretty mild - and if temps don't drop too much, the plant survives).
When I place them on the balcony instead of the garden, the plant grows great, no disease etc etc, but there's no pollination of the plant (bees don't come over to the balcony?) - or it could be that it needs way more sun (I think this is more likely) because it's not producing tomatoes... the plant grows very big but there is no "fruit" on it. Peppers grow everywhere... balcony, garden, etc etc. At most I get some fungus gray-black spots that expand on them, but it's usually due to water being stagnant on them if I'm not doing it right / or proper hours so that they can dry out on their surfaces.
Wow, that is a terrible story and makes me sad just hearing about it. I thought that maybe they needed more Calcium (that's a common problem these days).
I have no clue what's going on with your plants, but hopefully if it is a fungus, it'll run it's course and run out of steem before too long.
Yeah I might try it again next year - after 4 years the garden might be clean from whatever it was affecting it.
It could be that you need to rotate crops more. A very general rule of thumb is
Root - Fruit - Green - Bean rotation each year. Each successive type of plant needs a different set of nutrients, but each also provides nutrients for the next. This is a nice little saying as a guideline, but it falls short of perfection. Still, it's better than the same crop in the same soil year after year. So you might grow lettuce or spinach next time, then some beans, then some potatoes or other tuber, then back to tomatoes. If you're not composting what's left of your plant after harvest, then make it a habit to chop and drop the remains right where they grew (cut them up into small pieces to mulch them). They'll add more nutrients to your soil and provide litter that protects the soil as well.
Look for complementary plantings too. What grows well with your tomatoes, that you like?
Solid advice. Most of my garden is trees, btw, so I only have a small patch of land for tomatoes, peppers, etc. I like watermelons too, but I haven't planted them in years.
In the winter I'm leaving it to "rotate" to whatever grows naturally (weeds, flowers, etc).
For the time being rotation should not be an issue (3rd year intact - it's left to grow wild weeds, I cut them down once per year and then let them to rot on top of the ground. It creates a nice dark-colored soil, where next years weeds and flowers are growing with even more vigor.
If I am to plant tomatoes next year I may do an experiment. I'll plant some there and some in another patch of land and see what happens.