Dee Milani

Thanks for the tip!  

We've had a strange year here too.  Wet spring then a heat wave with no rain for a month, wild fires etc.  Now its raining four times a week.  My poor plants don't know what to do with themselves!

Morning All!

I had a rough start to my growing season this year after a poor soil choice.  (I just moved and had to re-start all my gardens).  Anyway, I managed to salvage everything and it looks like I will have a decent if somewhat late harvest.  The only thing I can't seem to get going is my squash.  I have spaghetti squash and two varieties of zucchini.  All of them have an abundance of male flowers but not a single female!  

This has never happened to me before, is there any way I can kick start these plants and get some ladies in the house?

Thanks!

I'm beginning to feel foolish for complaining about the rabbits in my neighbourhood.  I have never had more than the odd bite here or there from birds or chipmunks with my mesh top to my raised beds as you see below. (Ignore my crappy looking plants- I'm dealing with a bad soil purchase).

Now, I am only starting fruit tree this year, I may eat my words when I get there!

Hi Charlie,

My issues began before the straw.  It was just some straw a farmer friend of mine gave me.  It ended up being full of seeds so I tossed most of it in the compost pile.  Figures, the only thing that seemed happy in my garden was the one thing I didn't want to grow!

THANK YOU!!!

One last question- promise.

The Epsom salts...would this be instead of green sand if I can't find it or in addition to the green sand?  Also- can I use the stuff I get in the grocery store or is there different grades or the like?

Hi Again!

My city does give away municipal compost for free, so it is certainly an option.  I just always worry about what might be in it.....should I not worry to much about that?  In theory it should just contain whatever people put in their yard waste bins and green bins but is there a concern with dog feces or anything like that?  I imagine it is thoroughly hot composted but....

Thanks so much for all the amazing guidance.  In your opinion, if I get right at all of what you suggested, can I still salvage this growing season?

Hi There thanks for the reply!

It is a raised bed to which I added soil from a landscaping company which claimed to be "PH balanced premium garden soil"  Tosh.  

I've used triple mix in the past for new beds and have never had this issue, so I'm annoyed by the poor quality soil I paid good money for.

I didn't add anything to it and didn't till it at all.  It rested all of a week before I started planting, which I'm sure wasn't ideal.  

This is a new house, so I haven't got my compost pile up and cracking yet.  Would garden centre compost be ok?  

I can get rock dust, but I've never heard of green sand, will have to investigate that.  For those two, could I add them to the top of the bed and let seepage do the work for me or would I till that in?  

Again, thank you for taking the time to help!

Good Morning!

I have several varieties of peppers that I planted in a brand new raised bed. The peppers were seedlings from a reputable urban farm in my city.

All of them are stunted, some are turning purple in leaf and stem and most are dropping leaves.  In fact, everything in these new beds seem a little stunted this year.  I purchased what I thought was a high quality soil but when I did a soil test it appeared perhaps low in nitrogen and phosphorous. (the test was a cheap one- hard to read results)

I have fertilized with diluted urine and liberated some hummus from the wood lot behind my house in an effort to get things moving but my peppers are truly sad looking and there are only a few tomato plants in the new bed that seem to be doing OK.

Any thoughts on what else I could do to get things moving?  I've never had this issue before, so I'm a little at a loss.

Thank you!!