Garden

[Twins Mom]

I am deflated about garden progress.  Two tomato plants having leaves curl and turn. The few tomatoes are either bitten by squirrel or rotting.  The beautiful small tomato variety is growing nicely with blooms but I spyed rusty colored dust on a couple of leaves.  Can this be infected too?  But my zinnias are growing!  So much early effort and pride gone....

[4kitties]

@Twins Mom 

I understand completely.  I decided this year to try two tomato plants.  I planted them in two BIG pots on our deck and bought nice tomato cages for them. They thrived and are huge now.  But all of a sudden my tops were eaten. 

 Huge green tomato worms...... 😤😤😤😤😤😤😤 Mr 4kitties picked them off and I am hoping they will be okay. I do not want to put pesticides on them as that was my whole plan to have nice  tomatoes with no bad stuff on them.

On the good side, my big pots of petunias are gorgeous and no pests on them!

[lovesallanimals]

---

@Twins Mom wrote:

I am deflated about garden progress.  Two tomato plants having leaves curl and turn. The few tomatoes are either bitten by squirrel or rotting.  The beautiful small tomato variety is growing nicely with blooms but I spyed rusty colored dust on a couple of leaves.  Can this be infected too?  But my zinnias are growing!  So much early effort and pride gone....

---

Twins Mom -  There is a great website called Tomato Qeek.  He writes all about growing tomatoes, problems, etc.  Great website.  This year as it was so hot I thought my tomatoes would surely die.  But I have had a great crop.  I make sure to water every day when it is so hot and we have not had too much rain.  I also added a teaspoon of bone meal in the planting hole before adding my plant (prevents black bottom rot).  Used organic soil specifically for tomatoes and other vegies and organic compost.  Best tomatoes I have had in three years.  I also sprinkled some lime for tomatoes when they started showing tomatoes.  

[Twins Mom]

@lovesallanimals 

Thank you for info. 

[gardenman]

In anything you do, there are ups and downs. As a lifelong gardener, there have been years where it seemed like everything went wrong. Then there are years where it seems like everything goes right. You just never know. You try to learn from both experiences and hope for the best.

Gardening is an exercise in optimism. You plant a seed or small plant and hope it grows. Then you hope something doesn't come along and eat it. Then you hope it bears fruit. Then finally, you either harvest the result or mourn the outcome. There are no guarantees. You can do the same thing four times in a row and get four different results. Just try to learn from the successes and failures and hope for the best. 

[Scooby Doo]

Oh I feel your pain.  This year I tried something new.  I watched youtube about growing veggies in 10 gallon bags.  I tried it because the zucchini plant took up too much of my flower bed before.  Huge flop.  I planted two bags, the grasshoppers ate up one and the other plant is barely growing.  Then I planted a melon plant in an 18 gallon plastic tub.  It has vines but no fruit.  I put 2 cucumbers in the same kind of tub and it is growing, but when I picked a cuke yesterday for my salad it was partially cooked due to our over 100 temps.  I have 5 tomato plants and they are slowwwww growing.  Today I finally found two tomatoes about the size of a marble.  It's so hot that the blossoms don't set.  

The grasshoppers are bad this year.  They ate up my zinnias, marigolds, and now want my orange petunias.   This is my most worse gardening year that I can remember.

[CJC]

I'm a flower gardener, not a food grower.....Publix is my food garden.😄 That said, I tried growing two big planters of strawberries this year and have yet to harvest a single berry. Plants are beautiful and covered in flowers, but as soon as berries begin to form the birds and chipmunks grab them. Netting helps with birds but those chipmunks get through any barrier. So much for my adventure as a farmer.

[Biftu]

I too am deflated.  This is the first year I have tried growing tomatoes and peppers.  Things were moving along nicely.  Small tomatoes and peppers started growing then all of a sudden they were all eaten by either bunnies or deer, not sure.  I was excited about the progress, now totally discouraged.  Maybe I should have put chicken wire around them but that is another expense and project.

[Sakuya]

I saw a sign posted yesterday that they will be spraying for mosquitoes. Well, that spray will land on planted vegetables, the grass the dogs walk on, the vegetation animals eat, and will get rid of not just mosquitoes but other bugs birds and other wildlife eat.

I have not tried to grow tomatoes yet, but I thought a hot summer meant more tomatoes.

[gardenman]

---

@Sakuya wrote:
I saw a sign posted yesterday that they will be spraying for mosquitoes. Well, that spray will land on planted vegetables, the grass the dogs walk on, the vegetation animals eat, and will get rid of not just mosquitoes but other bugs birds and other wildlife eat.

I have not tried to grow tomatoes yet, but I thought a hot summer meant more tomatoes.

---

My generation grew up running in the fog/mist of the mosquito spraying trucks. The trucks would slowly circle the Little League/Babe Ruth fields with us kids chasing after it breathing in the pesticide mist/fog. I have no idea what the pesticide used back then was, but modern mosquito control measures often use a special blend of BT that's a harmless bacteria to humans. I wouldn't worry about it too much these days. I wouldn't recommend running in the mist and breathing it in like we did back then, but it's likely to be a safer mosquito control system these days.