Gardening Methods and plants that are hard to grow

[ducks4you]

Ok, me first.
1) beets, hard to start inside and transplant and I never get enough harvest =/
2) cantaloupe
3) spinach--maybe I start it too late?
4) watermelon--never HAVE gotten a good crop
5) weeding--the grass grows like one of the plagues on Egypt!
6) thinning--I run out of time after I've weeded and mowed the lawn, etc.
7) growing BIG onions--I THINK I need to super-water these
I'm sure that there are more, just gotta think of them.
Anyone else want to join in?

 

[lillie]

Bell peppers. I can never get more than one puny scraggly pepper per plant.
Carrots. I have yet to have a carrot seed sprout for me.

 

[catjac1975]

Ok, me first.
1) beets, hard to start inside and transplant and I never get enough harvest =/
2) cantaloupe
3) spinach--maybe I start it too late?
4) watermelon--never HAVE gotten a good crop
5) weeding--the grass grows like one of the plagues on Egypt!
6) thinning--I run out of time after I've weeded and mowed the lawn, etc.
7) growing BIG onions--I THINK I need to super-water these
I'm sure that there are more, just gotta think of them.
Anyone else want to join in?

I never start them indoors. I never got a good beet until I used greensand.
Cantaloupe -keep trying different varieties until you get the one best for you-they like heat and are heavy feeders.
Spinach-cool weather crop=again try different varieties.
Melon-try a short season variety-like cantaloupe.
Weeding-I use grass clipping near the plants and a mantis tiller in open areas. If you can't get to weeding make a smaller garden, plant things a tiller width apart and use a small tiller in between. All is a waste of your time if you don't weed. It does not need to be perfect but the weeds will use all the nutrients. When the plants get big and lush they will shade out most weeds.
Try green sand for your onions, experiment with variety,they are heavy feeders, mulch with grass clippings-they are hardest to weed. You will never get an onion as big as grown in more southern states. You will never get a big onion with weed competition.

 

[catjac1975]

Bell peppers. I can never get more than one puny scraggly pepper per plant.
Carrots. I have yet to have a carrot seed sprout for me.

Peppers are a heat loving plant- you need a big plant to start with. What you buy in the nursery is not big enough. I start my peppers in Jan or Feb and grow a large plant to put out in spring . I am in zone 5 or 6. Your colder zone will be harder. Trying growing them with a plastic mulch to increase the temp of the soil. No weed competition.

I am stumped by the carrots not germinating. Try green sand. They are a cool weather crop. Try consecutive sowing to see if your planting at the wrong time. Plant a few radish seeds with the carrots to mark the row. Radish are quick -carrots are slow. Maybe you are not waiting long enough for germination. Try different varieties. Th new colorful carrot seeds do not germinate for me. Make sure you keep the soil moist until germination.
Barely cover the seed.

 

[lillie]

Thanks Catjac! Maybe I'll get my pepper seeds started this weekend then. I usually start them with the tomatoes, but I'll give this a try. I love bell peppers so it's always a huge disappointment when they don't produce anything. (OTOH, I always plant one jalapeno plant for a little spice in my salsa, and those go gangbusters for me...go figure!)

I think maybe my problem with the carrots is the soil drying out. This year I am going to run a drip irrigation line to my garden beds and hopefully that will help.

 

[catjac1975]

Thanks Catjac! Maybe I'll get my pepper seeds started this weekend then. I usually start them with the tomatoes, but I'll give this a try. I love bell peppers so it's always a huge disappointment when they don't produce anything. (OTOH, I always plant one jalapeno plant for a little spice in my salsa, and those go gangbusters for me...go figure!)

I think maybe my problem with the carrots is the soil drying out. This year I am going to run a drip irrigation line to my garden beds and hopefully that will help.

They just need a daily watering until they germinate-light watering.

 

[ducks4you]

Thanks about the green sand. I read one of my saved articles that says to cover them so the birds don't eat the seeds, and I think this has been a factor. I also read that sprinkling some rock salt around your sprouted beets helps bc it simulates ocean spray. Anybody heard of this?

 

[vfem]

If it helps I have issues with carrots too. I either don't keep them moist enough, or they are too deep... they like shallow. So I sprinkle and rake them into the soil gently. I then put hay over them to keep moisture in. They seem to prefer 1 or 2 of my beds only and won't sprout in the others at all! Maybe they prefer different soils from what I've added compost to over the years. Done them in buckets too and they did just fine.

I've never tried beets so I need to write all this down, I want to try them next year.

I start my peppers inside early too... I germinate them on a heat mat. They prefer temps in the 80's to really thrive. The earlier I start them, the better they turn out for me with production. I lost some last year to the tornados, so I got more later then planned and had a really sad harvest!

 

[ducks4you]

Just for the heck of it I saved frosted tomatoes, frosted sweet peppers and frosted jalepenos (and banana peppers) in 2 beds slated for tomatoes this year, to see what kind of volunteers I will get. This is what they look like NOW:

I started some nondescript Crimson Beefsteak seeds from a cheapo packet I bought recently into a take-home-leftovers strofoam container, last Wednesday. I planted it in coffee grounds. Here's a link to a thread on coffee grounds from another forum.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lab/msg022139567362.html
The feedback suggested that ONLY tomatoes will seed in this medium. I just threw the whole package of (20cents) seeds in it, so we'll see. THESE will be the first ones outside. They will be our expeditionary force sent out to "do or die".

 

[catjac1975]

The best carrots I ever grew-not quite baseball bats tender and sweet.
You need to choose the correct seed for your soil. Royal chantenay are wonderful long and sweet for me. But every soil and climate is different.

I dug a trench 1 foot deep and sifted the soil back into it. It was already composted, limed, peat added, etc.
I learned this from "Crocket's Victory Garden."
If you can get a copy of his old book it's helpful for planting time if you are in Massachusetts or have a similar zone.

He was not totally organic but did promote compost, and soil, soil, soil. It was a great book when I was a beginner-set up for times to do different gardening chores.