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What is wrong with my peas?

Susan Mené

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posted 6 years ago

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I'm concerned about my peas. They started great, but are yellowing and dying. Is this a fungus? Too damp? Too cold? Jugolone? We have had a decent amounyt of rain
A little background, I built the planter myself last year. It is about 12" deep and is lined with garden bed fabric. It is around the corner from a black walnut tree, but does not share soil. Also, the healthiest plant is the one closest to the black walnut. Come to think of it, the bed did well with string beans last year, but everything else flopped.
Any advice? I've included pictures.
How did pioneers harvest anything. Critters and fungus and pests, oh my!

Thank you!

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Susan Mené

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posted 6 years ago

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Obviously, the sketch is not to scale!

Tereza Okava

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posted 6 years ago

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what's your weather been like? (my brother in CT said things had been cold and crummy. Peas are generally okay with cold and crummy, but if it goes from cold and crummy to bright sunlight and hot that might be enough to fry them).
I may be wrong but i thought juglone impeded growth, you have some decent growth on the one in the ground.

Susan Mené

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posted 6 years ago

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Juglone DEFINITELY impedes growth; I just threw it in there as a possibility even though they're pretty far from the black walnut. It has been wetter than usual with highs mostly in the 50', but it jumped to 70 twice.

Jen Fulkerson

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posted 6 years ago

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This isn't any help to you, but I would probably rule out the walnut tree. My walnut trees are English walnuts graphed onto a black walnut base. There is one directly behind my veggie garden, and the biggest walnut tree I have ever seen in my yard, maybe 100 feet from my garden. The leaves even end up in the garden at times, but I try to keep them to a minimum. My zone is 9b, so my peas are done, but I had beautiful very productive peas. Peas don't like hot, but 70 is not that bad. We had a heat spike in March and it was getting to upper 80's and even low 90's for a couple of weeks, and the peas didn't seem worse off because of it. So I would investigate water to much or to little, a deficiency in the soil, or some kind of pests or disease. Sorry not much help. Good luck and don't give up, the hard lessons are usually the most valuable.

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bruce Fine

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posted 6 years ago

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they don't look too green is my first observation, any and all healthy pea plants ive ever seen are a deep rich dark green color, my sugar snaps are just now sprouting and are a dark green color, might be lack of nitrogen. might want to get soil tested

Susan Mené

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posted 6 years ago

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Thank you for the input, Bruce. I was thinking odf testing the soil. Of course it is the only patch I didn't test.

Phil Gardener

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posted 6 years ago

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If you are using commercial compost/potting soil, I'd suspect a problem there. Lots of folks are experiencing herbicide contamination that comes through animal feed and peas in particular are very sensitive to these compounds.

Jen Fulkerson

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posted 6 years ago

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If your are buying soil, and or additives for your soil make sure it doesn't have biosolids in it. Biosolids are billed as organic (not certified organic) and that has some very nasty stuff in it. I'm kind of a to each his own kind of person, so it is rare for me to say "DON'T DO THIS/USE THIS" type of statement. I'm going to say it now. Biosolids should never be used! Ever, for any reason, anyone, not even my worst enemy.

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Susan Mené

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Ew...would biosolids be in organic products?

Susan Mené

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There was NO nitrogen in my soil. Added. Will head over to a soil thread to see what to change in the mix I made up.

Jen Fulkerson

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Unfortunately biosolids are sometimes labeled organic. They are organic, just toxic organic, not a chemical, even thought it contains many. It isn't OMRI certified, so you can look for that, or if it doesn't say OMRI on the bag, make sure to read the ingredient. knowledge is a double edged sword. On one hand I'm glad I know so I will know what biosolids are and avoid them(I can't believe they are allowed to sell that crap). On the other hand knowing they are giving or selling it very cheap to the farmers of America is deeply disturbing. ( in Europe they don't allow it. I guess our government doesn't mind poisoning us, or killing our ground soil as long as there is a profit in it.)
I am glad you discovered your problem. when you think of issues with peas, you don't tend to think of nitrogen as the issue, they are a nitrogen fixer, but even they need a little. Good luck to you.

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.” — Abraham Lincoln

Susan Mené

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Location: Suffolk County, Long Island NY, Zone: 7b (new 2023 map)

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Thank you for the info. I had what I thought was a lot of compost, but I ran out and bought some commercial. I will check the bag. I've already doubled my composting efforts from what I had last year at this time.
I thought the same thing about the nitrogen in peas. I now think it it contamination, as you suggested,, or some sort of bad fungus or bacteria in the soil. Time and detective work will tell.

R. Han

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posted 3 years ago

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Susan Mené wrote:ICome to think of it, the bed did well with string beans last year, but everything else flopped.

According to the internet, beans/peas don't do well in beds that had beans/peans in the previous year.
I have read individual reports that claim peas will grow happily in a bed that had peas the years before,
however this might have been the reason.

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