Having issues with my raised bed garden

[locavore]

I have 5 4x4 raised beds with a mix of garden soil, peat moss and compost (store-bought). My beans and eggplant are hardly growing at all (beans were about 2" long and never grew more than that) the pole beans haven't produced any beans at all. All squash/melon plants are growing very slowly and have only had male flowers. Eggplants have no fruit or flowers yet and are very very tiny despite being planted MONTHS ago. My striped tomato plant is producing tons of flowers and no fruit. The other tomato plants are doing okay. Potatoes, carrots and radishes did great. Peppers are not producing very well and the plants are staying pretty small (around 12").

I care for my garden every day... hand-pick bugs, etc. It's kind of dissapointing. I just went out to my friends garden that I helped her plant (after mine!) - it's in crappy soil with a load of manure mixed in. Everything she has is HUGE! Her broccoli plants are about 5x the size that mine were! All of her squash is huge and so are her tomato plants.

I have fertilized mine several times with miracle-gro (I was trying to go orgainc but I got desperate) as well with another phostphate fertilizer to try to balance everything out.

Next spring I will add gobs of home-produced compost, but is there anything I can do now to help?

 

[Reinbeau]

What has the weather been like where you live?

 

[locavore]

Sunny, 80's or 90's rain about 3x per week or so.

I'm in Knoxville, zone 7.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

my raised beds are doing poorly also!

i think i figured out that the soil i bought just plain sucks - it has too much sand in it and it doesnt hold the moisture at all.

i think we are in the same boat and i'm with you - much more compost next year!

 

[obsessed]

Locavore - I think soil property has a big part of your problems. I have built raised beds out of store bought soil from Home Depot and it was just crappy. Nothing grew at all and what did was definately stunted. I have since purchased a couple of yard from a local nursery. This soil is definately better but I am a rampant composter and I add a freakish amount of bunny poop. Your weather is also likely a cause especially for the eggplants. They just wont perform unless it is warm or hot.

The best thing to do is get a soil test through your local extension service and then go from there. Or at least buy a hole heaping pile of poop.


I must confess I adore poop.

 

[vfem]

Hmmm... I've had similar weather after a HUGE heavy rain spell... then it was nice... and then a few weeks with high heat and no rain. Long as everyone has been watered well its been doing GREAT in my raised beds. I am using 100% compost though... nothing else... other then adding a little compost around my tomatoes due to a disease they caught stressing them.

Maybe you need to add more fertilizers if you are sure the water is right... it sounds a lot like stunted growth!?

Try a lower fertlizer to get started.

 

[locavore]

Thanks everyone! I'm just going to have to amend the soil really well for next spring. Mushroom compost is really popular around here so I should be able to easily find that as well as my chicken poop compost that should be ready hopefully by the spring. I have waaaayyy too many chickens but at least that means a lot of poop!

Oh, I also have a neighbor that puts his manure pile right on our property line so I may just help myself to some of that

 

[patandchickens]

One thing to remember is that compost is not necessarily high in nutrients; and certainly not necessarily *balanced* in nutrients. Your best bet is to use homemade compost from very diverse ingredients; if you have to purchase compost (which is unlikely to be as good, nutrientwise, as homemade) the it is probably wise to buy several different types and mix them together to sort of average out their nutrient properties, you know?

Also make sure your beds are getting (and staying) moist enough -- raised beds dry out faster and fiercer than normal in-ground gardens, and chronic or occasional droughtiness can really put a dent in plants' production.

Finally, another factor that coudl be at work for the things that were put in as transplants is that if seedlings are "abused" (allowed to dry out, or grown way too cold, or not hardened off adequately, or planted in too-dry soil) they may never really get back properly in gear.

Good luck,

Pat

 

[herbsherbsflowers]

Use diluted fish emulsion to fertilize instead of miracle gro. It takes a couple of years to get your soil right when building new beds. Add lots of homemade compost, lots of leaves in the fall and winter and lots of grass clippings during the summer. I pick them up from the street where people leave them out for the city to pick up. If you keep piling that stuff in, and any manure that you can scrounge up, your plants will be strong and healthy. Don't give up on trying to do it organically. It will work, but it is not instant success.

 

[locavore]

Thanks for all the tips!!!