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What "easy" veggie are you bad at growing?

 
Heather Staas
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I've been gardening for a long time, and I cannot grow a BEET to save my life.  

I've tried growing them in the spring, the fall, multisowing, more compost, less compost,  sandier soil,  my yard,  the allotment plot...   a few scraggly leaves and then nothing.   They just sit there like that all year long.   I've tried a few varieties.

I'm not a waterer.   I expect plants to be able to grow with good mulch and rain for the most part, maybe that's it?  I water and tend seedlings to get them going, and if things are really dry for 7-10 days I'll break out the watering cans for the garden.  But I'm sure someone will tell me they do that too and beets grow fine for them?  

How do you grow big juicy beets with lots of foliage (I grow chard just fine!)?

What's your "one easy thing" that you just can't grow?  Maybe someone can help?

"The world is changed by your example, not your opinion." ~ Paulo Coelho

 
John C Daley
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They say that doing the same thing and expecting a different result will led to frustration.
Maybe just start watering the beets, they have shown you they cannot do it by themselves!

John Daley Bendigo, Australia The Enemy of progress is the hope of a perfect plan
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greg mosser
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beets are notoriously fickle about pH. they do ok in a pretty thin range between 6.5 and 7.5. too acidic or to alkaline, and they really struggle to take up nutrients. that’s probably where i’d be looking in your situation.


 
Stefanie Hollmichel
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Heather Staas wrote:
I've been gardening for a long time, and I cannot grow a BEET to save my life.  



Me too! I've tried early sowing, later sowing, different areas of my garden, different varieties, lots of water, whatever falls from the sky, different companion plantings, soaking the seeds before sowing. No luck!

I do feel like I came close to a breakthrough this year. I had a freebie seed packet of Detroit Red from a neighborhood event I attended the previous year. I direct sowed about 3 weeks before last frost in a garden bed I hadn't tried them in before. We had a cool, wet spring. I had more beets sprouts than I have ever had and they were growing and I was excited and then a couple weeks later we went from 60F one day to 95 the next two days and they all got scorched and died. I'm going to try one more time next spring and be prepared to create some sort of shade in case we have an early blast of heat.
 
Nikki Roche
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Beets are my problem crop, too. Many of the cool weather crops are an issue for me -- kohlrabi, turnip, broccoli, rutabaga, even radishes. I can't seem to get the timing right. The few times I've planted them at a good time, there was too much pest pressure or the soil wasn't like it needed to be. I keep trying, just because the one time I was able to grow beets (and radish, rutabaga, and kohlrabi), they turned out SO tasty compared to any others that I've eaten.

(Reminder to myself) God didn't say, "well said, well planned, and well thought out." He said, "well done."
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Su Ba
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I can’t grow summer squash without standing on my head stark naked on a full moon. Not worth the effort. It’s all because of powdery mildew and pickle worm. Super problems in my area.

It's never too late to start! I retired to homestead on the slopes of Mauna Loa, an active volcano. I relate snippets of my endeavor on my blog : www.kaufarmer.blogspot.com

 
G Freden
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Su Ba wrote: I can’t grow summer squash without standing on my head stark naked on a full moon. Not worth the effort. It’s all because of powdery mildew and pickle worm. Super problems in my area.



Me too Su, except I don't even have a good excuse for it;  friends and neighbours can grow zucchini and I just can't!  Once I gave an extra seedling from the same seed pack to my neighbour, and she grew monsters while I grew sad mildewy leaves.

Trying to achieve self-reliance on a tiny suburban plot: http://gardenofgaladriel.blogspot.com

 
Anne Miller
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When we had our homestead the only veggie that I had problems with were carrots.

I have read people saying to plant carrots since they are "easy", not easy for me.

Those carrots were deformed so I took them to the County Extension Agent who sent them to be analyzed since she/he didn't know what was wrong.  The report came back that it was a fungus.  I threw all of them away because I did not want to eat a fungus.

I tried carrots where we live now.  I planted a whole package and got one plant that something ate.  I think the wind blew most of the seeds away or they were carried off by harvester ants.

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

 
Matt McSpadden
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For me it is just about any root "vegetable" with the exception of potatoes and garlic. I can grow those two ok, but I can't get onions, carrots, beets, turnips or anything like that to grow.

"The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is." C.S. Lewis
"When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind." C.S. Lewis

 
L. Johnson
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I've had surprisingly little luck with cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley, onions, and until this year winter squash (I think I finally got the right variety for my plot).

On the flip side I hear many people say they have problems growing carrots and they are one of the easiest vegetables for me to grow - though I've decided they're not worth the garden space right now since they're once in and once out for several months...

一期一会

 
Nynke Muller
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I cannot grow mint. Everybody warns me that it will take over everything. I would love mint to take over everything (until it does probably). I have had many varieties in different spots. Of some of them, I can ocassionaly harvest. Some of them I have for years but won't grow and some just die. I even had a variety that once send out a runner, so I could at least see what that was like. But nothing is growing vigorously as I would like. I have wet ground in the winter and dryer in summer. I seldomly water. I have placed them on hills and just on flat ground; in full sun as well as shade. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong?
 
Stefanie Hollmichel
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I used to have the same problem with mint! Then a few years ago I planted some on the south side of my house where it is semi-shaded by my neighbor's fence and moderately dry. It seemed the plant had gone the way of all the others and I forgot about it. But apparently it was just in hiding amongst the daylilies in the same bed and the last couple years it has been getting bigger and even spreading a little. Only thing I can figure is that it likes the warmer semi-shade and my utter neglect of it
 
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