Backyard Farming Forum
Bringing food production home

I've been away from gardening for nearly a decade and I just settled in middle Georgia and decided to get back in to raising my own vegetables. I'm not native to GA, so this is my first time growing anything in the south and I've got more problems than I've ever had in a garden before. I think a big part of the problem is the soil, which is mostly clay that I worked some compost in to but I wanted to ask some questions and see if anyone else had ideas for me.

My first problem is my potatoes, they were growing fine from the time I planted them in April until a couple days ago when they began turning yellow and wilting. This came as a surprise to me because they were actually growing quite well with bushy dark green tops.

Second is that almost everything in my garden is small and weak looking. My bush beans didn't form a bush at all, they just grew about 10-12" tall with only a handful of leaves (most of which are yellow) and began growing 2-3 pods per plant almost 30 days before they should have.

Next is my tomatoes and peppers. I bought these from a nursery at about 10" tall and planted them. All of them stayed the same size they were when I bought them and set 2-3 fruit per plant almost immediately. They don't show any signs of nutrient or disease problems but they just aren't growing bigger.

My corn has been a real headache. Half of the corn grew over six feet tall but has little or no ears on it while the other half (on the other end of the plot) stayed short, under five feet, and has little nubby ears at every leaf joint.

Finally, my cucumbers are growing really well, but I'm almost certain they're hybridized with crookneck squash because every cucumber in my garden is shaped like a squash with a bulb at one end and a bend in the other end. As if I really needed anything else to stress me out...

On a good note, my watermelons are doing almost too well. They're crawling over the fence in to the neighbors yard and they don't appear to have any intention of slowing down.

My single okra plant is doing well in the midst of everything else failing.

Last but not least, my "sacrificial" eggplants (planted with the potatoes to lure away beetles) are growing like champions. They're easily the strongest looking plants in my garden despite the thousands of holes in their leaves from the bugs. They're the only thing in my garden that shows signs of pest damage and somehow the strongest looking plants in the garden. I guess I'll have to start learning to enjoy eggplant at this rate.

I appreciate anyone who's made it this far reading about my problems. If anyone has any ideas please let me know. I'm debating just tilling everything under and calling it quits for the year, or maybe building a raised bed and filling it with bagged compost so I can try again with cool season crops in the fall.

Well the beans going to seed early could be a sign of plant stress with the plant trying to reproduce before it dies but It sound like all your plants are stressed. If you are sure you are giving them enough water the next thing I would test for is soil pH. Garden centres sell pH test kits.

_________________
___________________________________________________________________
Why did the chicken cross the road? ... To have her motives questioned.

I'll test pH as soon as I can. Since you mentioned it, I looked up soil pH tolerances and I think my soil might be very alkaline. The vegetables I have that can withstand the highest pH are the ones growing best in my garden and the ones that need the lowest are the ones doing the worst. Thanks for the advice, at the moment it seems like the most likely solution.