Friday 21 May 2010

Growling at the garden

We put a lot of effort into adding composts, manures, sands and removing stones for the vegetable plot. The onions that haven't been stolen by the birds are struggling, the leeks too, no peas and beans have germinated, nor my sweetpeas and runner beans even though they are planted elsewhere, some of the potatoes and all 6 tomato plants have been caught by the recent frost, 2 lettuce plants struggle whilst 4 have died, other lettuce grown from seed are performing poorly, the radish appear to be growing, the beetroot has not germinated.
Now I'm really annoyed that the 20 seeds of 4 different varieties of tomatoes that I planted individually and tenderly in special thumb pots ( not sure of exact name) had all germinated and now only two are left. One night as they were happy sitting on the floor of the warm verandah something nipped off their cotyledons! Later I found the culprit - a caterpillar type grub had somehow invaded the special seed soil I invested in! Gggggggrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Anyway I'm off to buy a soil tester kit to see what's wrong. It's the worst year ever!

2 comments:

*Ulrike* said...

Hmmmm, not sure if it your soil. I planted a lot back in April, and had only a few things come up. The ones I had in the greenhouse are outside now, just not planted, but they are not really growing. It's as if growth is on hold. Then again we have had crazy weather here this past winter, for the south anyway, so I guess it is a wait and see thing.

Susan said...

The main problem this year seems to be the extended cold. It's only just warmed up enough for much growth, and now it's dry! I've spoken to both professional and amateur veggie growers around here and they all reckon the cold has set things back at least a month.