Failure Imminent (?)

My garden is... dismal. There was a friend of mine who owns a farm down the way that was supposed to come till up my current as well as 3 other new garden spaces for me, and he never did. He's been saying "Next weekend" for 6 weeks, after originally telling me no. He changed his mind by saying "I just got the tiller fixed, so I can come do it [ready?] next week."

So I've ripped up parts of the grass enough to plant some squash in there (which looks dismal). My plant starts were terrible. At 8 weeks old, my tomatoes were only 3 inches tall so I've planted a bunch from seed at the end of MAY in a growing season less than 3 months long. There are potatoes in, corn planted somewhere, some squash plants in the ground, peas up the trellises (old pull out couch frames) but not nearly enough, spinach that self seeded and some wanna be tomato and pepper plants. I've planted herbs from seed, radishes and beats, and there's a couple, already bitter, lettuce heads growing.

I'm so mad and disappointed in myself it's just stupid

Don't beat yourself up. There is a lot to get done in the springtime. You'll do better next year. Now find a large plant pot (like 1/2 barrel size) and go to the garden shop and find a couple of heritage tomato plants about 10 or 12" high and a couple of nice slicing or English cucumbers and put them in a sunny spot in a place where you will see them every day so you will be reminded to water them. Remember to remove all but the last 2 or 3 sets of leaves from the tomatoes and plant them up to the leaves deep. They'll grow faster and stronger that way. Be sure and put lots of manure in there. Horse or rabbit manure can be used fresh. Any other kind should be aged.

SucellusFarms wrote:Don't beat yourself up. There is a lot to get done in the springtime. You'll do better next year. Now find a large plant pot (like 1/2 barrel size) and go to the garden shop and find a couple of heritage tomato plants about 10 or 12" high and a couple of nice slicing or English cucumbers and put them in a sunny spot in a place where you will see them every day so you will be reminded to water them. Remember to remove all but the last 2 or 3 sets of leaves from the tomatoes and plant them up to the leaves deep. They'll grow faster and stronger that way. Be sure and put lots of manure in there. Horse or rabbit manure can be used fresh. Any other kind should be aged.

I didn't know horse manure could be used fresh! That is the BEST news as we have 7 of those fertilizer production machines here. Now poop scooping will have even more satisfaction! Very true about deep planting the tomato plants. They are "stem rooters" and it works great! I would also like to second the "Don't beat yourself up" part..... there are only so many hours in a day.

I do wait until the horse manure dries. Java has a run in shelter where the ground stays dry and she squashes the horse apples into dust. I fill any new raised beds with it.

I would be careful about using horse manure fresh, most of the literature I've read recommend aging it for a year. Rabbit manure is okay according to "the experts" for fresh use! The horse manure may depend on what their eating, a racehorse on a high performance diet may produce something a little more potent then old Joe who lives on grass hay.

Throw a second round of peas in if you don't have enough, Sweetened. Don't know if your suffering from the same cool, wet weather we are, but they like it cooler. Same with the lettuce, (though I've never had any luck getting it to grow and not be bitter as heck!) you could try a fall crop. I also seem to recall someone, maybe Hillbilly, recommending squashes be grown on a manure pile, the decomposing goodies keep the 'soil' warm, and the squashes love it. Don't give up just yet, sometimes the green things will surprise you!

Sweetened wrote:My garden is... dismal. There was a friend of mine who owns a farm down the way that was supposed to come till up my current as well as 3 other new garden spaces for me, and he never did. He's been saying "Next weekend" for 6 weeks, after originally telling me no. He changed his mind by saying "I just got the tiller fixed, so I can come do it [ready?] next week."

So I've ripped up parts of the grass enough to plant some squash in there (which looks dismal). My plant starts were terrible. At 8 weeks old, my tomatoes were only 3 inches tall so I've planted a bunch from seed at the end of MAY in a growing season less than 3 months long. There are potatoes in, corn planted somewhere, some squash plants in the ground, peas up the trellises (old pull out couch frames) but not nearly enough, spinach that self seeded and some wanna be tomato and pepper plants. I've planted herbs from seed, radishes and beats, and there's a couple, already bitter, lettuce heads growing.

I'm so mad and disappointed in myself it's just stupid

We just got our garden in today. Hopefully we get an ok haul this year. So much stuff to get done in the first year of farm set up!

The best I've done so far is 2 tomato plants and 2 pots of spinach and 2 pots of cucumbers. So I would say everybody has me beat hands down.

I do wish you luck though, sweetened.