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gardening for beginners

What died in your new gardens? so far...

Michael Moreken

Posts: 208

Location: On the plateau in TN

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posted 8 months ago

Plenty of Jade beans, had a dozen come up but half got eaten by mice?
Fava beans all died. Planted in fall, maybe spring here better?
Not one ground nut (not peanuts) came up.
All the field peas in a company's winter mix, died of cold, but more likely fungus got them.
Two garlic plants came up with about 12 not coming up. I initially planted too deep, should have put them down about 2 inches in my zone.
A pound of perennial rye seed? never came up. ha ha got black slugs, plus slugs with shells roaming garden/lawn.
Saw bees busy pollinating weeds in my lawn.

Silver lining, whatever did not come up either fed something or composted.

Best Wishes,
Mike

Mike Barkley

gardener

Posts: 1423

Location: mountains of Tennessee

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posted 8 months ago

My earliest planted "test" peas died yesterday. Only because I dumped a big pile of well composted cow poo on them. Does that count? haha more updates soon because carrots hate me.

Argue for your limitations and they are yours forever.

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wayne fajkus

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Posts: 2815

Location: Central Texas zone 8a

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posted 8 months ago

I lost some tomatos cause i jumped the gun and planted too early.

Sometimes the answer is nothing

Bryant RedHawk

gardener

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Location: Arkansas - Zone 7B/8A stoney, sandy loam soil pH 6.5

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posted 8 months ago

Welcome to the new age of growing gardens/ farming, weather patterns are changing enough to affect traditional planting times and it is wreaking havoc with pollinators, fruit trees and everything else we grow.
I reckon we should be planting about 2 weeks later than what the good old farmer's almanac lists.

Our radishes just came up, our beans are in the ground as are beets and carrots, just put the seeds in last weekend. all are going well for a change.

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Michael Moreken

Posts: 208

Location: On the plateau in TN

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posted 8 months ago

I have to keep in mind effects of having black walnut on three sides of property for ~next five years.

Best Wishes,
Mike

Nicole Alderman

master steward

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posted 8 months ago

I haven't killed anything yet this year, though the year is young! In the past four years, I've killed these perennials:

all my ground nuts

20 walking onion plants (planted in grass and they were out competed and wet)

a whole row of 30+ sunchokes (yes, I can kill sunchokes),

an apple tree (snow pushed it over)

a sugar plum tree (planted it somewhere too wet)

a persimmon tree (don't know why)

a green tea bush (to hot/sunny?)

5+ plum trees that were suckers off of my mom's tree (overcrowded by other plants)

Two blueberry pushes, (because I kept trying to plant them too close to a rhubarb plant)

But, with all those deaths, I still have 11 blueberry bushes, 7 apple trees, 6+plum trees, 5 currents, 4 chestnut trees, 4 honeyberry bushes, 3 hazelnuts, 3 pawpaws, 2 pears, 2 peaches, 2 mulberries, and a few sunchokes. We live and learn, and get more plants!

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Tyler Ludens

master pollinator

Posts: 11515

Location: Central Texas USA Latitude 30 Zone 8

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posted 8 months ago

I suspect all my new Hardy Yams, Groundnuts, and Crosnes have gone to meet their maker.

Idle dreamer

Joseph Lofthouse

steward

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Location: Cache Valley, zone 4b, Irrigated, 9" rain in badlands.

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posted 8 months ago

The oats didn't survive the winter. What a blessing!!! They had become very weedy!

The earliest two plantings of fava beans from last fall didn't survive the winter. The third planting mostly survived, and is growing great. My goal is to save seeds from the oldest plants that can overwinter successfully. Selecting for cold tolerance.

The kales perished during the winter. The red cabbage really attracted the deer, so it perished.

Some varieties of wheat perished. Burbank Barley mostly perished, but a few plants survived, so they'll be transplanted to a bed for seed production.

The pheasant that has been gracing my field for the past two year perished. Looks like he was hit with a car. A number of Eurasian doves perished at the claws of the barn cats.

All 25 colonies of honey bees perished.

Spinach, oyster mushrooms, rye, onions, clary sage, sorrel, grasspeas, lentils, winter peas, garlic, and the trees are doing great.

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Tyler Ludens

master pollinator

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posted 8 months ago

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:
All 25 colonies of honey bees perished.

Oh no! :(

Idle dreamer

pusang halaw

pollinator

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Location: Manila

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posted 8 months ago

over much of march white flies took out all my capsicum sowed last december; also a bunch of tomatoes from the same period. the trees around me are white fly paradise.

yesterday afternoon intense direct sunlight took out 3 trays of capsicum seedlings that i watered yesterday morning.
(3rd tray not in photo)

earlier this week house sparrows and other birds decimated 2 trays of 'peppermint' seedlings.

Michael Moreken

Posts: 208

Location: On the plateau in TN

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posted 6 months ago

Was growing tomatoes in buckets upside down. One fell when the plastic handle broke in a thunder storm. So pinch of the flowers, the tomato stem was broke, so planted the tomato sideways into a bed and watered it in. After pinching off most of leaf stalks too.

Good news snapped off last 5% of stem and planted it, the yellow pear is doing great in all the recent rain on the huegal bed!

Best Wishes,
Mike

Joseph Lofthouse

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Location: Cache Valley, zone 4b, Irrigated, 9" rain in badlands.

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posted 6 months ago

I planted dry beans 4 weeks early, hoping that about half or more would die in a frost/cold tolerance trial. Alas, only about 10% of them died. I guess that's ok, since this is the third year in a row that I have treated them that way. Next year, I'll try to plant them 6 weeks early.

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Skandi Rogers

pollinator

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Location: Denmark 57N

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posted 6 months ago

I obviously don't push things enough. totally new field new soil type new moisture.. or lack thereof and I've killed a few lettuces and cabbages I think to cutworm and wind rock. probably around 20% of each planting.

Mike Barkley

gardener

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Location: mountains of Tennessee

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posted 6 months ago

Time to declare this Seminole pumpkin climbing tree a fail. Too little light for pumpkin. Too much other growth that seems to grow faster than it can be cut back. Critters that dig aren't helping much either. Hard to see the pale yellow pumpkins & the mound of soil at the base of some vertical sticks. Other pumpkins are 50 feet away with better sun & thriving.

Except for peppers & moringa (all old seeds) everything has done well here this year. Mostly in brand new garden spots. All from seed. Even the carrots & strawberries are cooperating so far. Now that our basic kitchen garden needs seem to be established we're progressing towards more perennials & trees & wildlife habitat.

Was not a good winter for bees here in TN either. Fortunate enough to have some survivors. Considering moving some into an old barn & other structures for future winters. There is a silver lining. It seems that my uncaptured swarms in the remote mountains survived winter on their own.

Seminole-pumpkin-tree-fail.jpg

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Tereza Okava

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Location: South of Capricorn

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posted 6 months ago

if i had to list everything that has died, i'd be here all day....

the most impressive was that recently cover crop/forage (black oats) I sowed didn't make it. Too much rain. I also sowed sorgum and peas, the peas came up but no sorgum. Also sprouted rice and sunflowers. Neither has come up.

Meg Mitchell

pollinator

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Location: Gulf Islands, Canada

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posted 6 months ago

The only annual plants where the entire batch has died so far is maybe the peppers. I don't think they're technically dead yet but the difference between them and the tomatoes is pretty funny. I started them at the same time. Odds of getting a pepper this year seem slim. Other than that my garden is doing pretty well this year. I had some issues with some of my perennials (leaf curl, fruit drop) and a couple of them have actually died (a fig, a kiwi and a hazelnut) but given the number of new perennials I've put in over the last year, I think I'm okay with that. Still going to get a lot more fruit this year than last. :)

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Kai Walker

Posts: 278

Location: South Central Kansas

posted 6 months ago

Michael Moreken wrote:Was growing tomatoes in buckets upside down. One fell when the plastic handle broke in a thunder storm. So pinch of the flowers, the tomato stem was broke, so planted the tomato sideways into a bed and watered it in. After pinching off most of leaf stalks too.

How well do the upside down tomato plants produce?

NON ASSUMPSIT. I am by no means an expert at anything. Just a lucky guesser.

Kai Walker

Posts: 278

Location: South Central Kansas

posted 6 months ago

Lost 3 tomato plants so far. Probably due to the heavy rains we had last month.

NON ASSUMPSIT. I am by no means an expert at anything. Just a lucky guesser.

elle sagenev

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Location: Zone 5 Wyoming

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posted 6 months ago

The night I planted my tomatoes something ate the top off of all of them.

Now it's moved on to the cabbages.

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Sonja Draven

pollinator

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Location: PNW

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posted 6 months ago

Great thread!

I planted three tiny berry bushes last fall. One appears to be dead but I am going to give it a little longer before I call it. I probably picked a poor location.

I planted a ton of fruit tree seeds and pits last year and so far, no sign of life. But again, it's early in the season so fingers crossed.

I just planted squash, cucumber and some mustard seeds along with flower seeds. Hope springs eternal!

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Jessa Hunt

Posts: 12

Location: Portlandish OR

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posted 6 months ago

Hm, so far a Pepper plant died of aphids on the growing tip, and the Shiso I planted next to it is ALMOST dead by my own hand after spraying with alcohol to try to control the aphids. I forgot to dilute properly. It's still trooping, so I hope for seeds if not delicious leaves for wraps. My crookneck squash isn't dead but it's not really growing either. Zuc-Zilla in the next pot over is demanding a trellis already, but the crookneck mound is like the size of half a basketball. Lots of buds, but... the leaves are still small and I worry.

I have terrible growing conditions on a tiny balcony shaded by a large tree. Got a grow light to put in the porch fixture and on cloudy days I put the squash pot up on a stand under the light to try and give it as much light as possible.

Everything else seems to be doing pretty well, considering! Only one and a half dead things, but it's early yet. If my cat gets out unsupervised, there will be certain casualties. She digs and pulls leaves off for fun.

John Weiland

pollinator

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Location: RRV of da Nort

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posted 6 months ago

"What died in your new gardens?"

Just my hopes, dreams, and wide-eyed inspiration for a verdant and flourishing summer.....

;-)

But mostly the kale seedlings,....which popped up with such anticipation for sun and showers, ----not flea beetles!
Can't wait to see what kind of performance the potato beetles have in store. Maybe they will evolve parthenogenesis in my garden this year.....dispensing with egg laying altogether like aphids.
Wouldn't THAT be a hoot! :-/ Maybe they taste like parching corn if heated sufficiently in oil and delicately sprinkled with seasoning salt..... Every year has its curve balls.

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Sonja Draven

pollinator

Posts: 369

Location: PNW

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posted 6 months ago

John Weiland wrote:"What died in your new gardens?"

Just my hopes, dreams, and wide-eyed inspiration for a verdant and flourishing summer.....

;-)

But mostly the kale seedlings,....which popped up with such anticipation for sun and showers, ----not flea beetles!
Can't wait to see what kind of performance the potato beetles have in store. Maybe they will evolve parthenogenesis in my garden this year.....dispensing with egg laying altogether like aphids.
Wouldn't THAT be a hoot! :-/ Maybe they taste like parching corn if heated sufficiently in oil and delicately sprinkled with seasoning salt..... Every year has its curve balls.

Thanks for the empathy laughter.

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." - William Morris

Morfydd St. Clair

Posts: 101

Location: Hamburg, Germany

posted 5 months ago

Between a late cold snap, slugs, and various cute and fluffy rodents, my annual bed killed:
--Peas
--Beans
--Peppers
--Cucumbers

I bought some Cyperus longus to go in my new pond and then failed to dig my new pond, so it is languishing in pots almost dead. The Corsican Mint is also still in pots, tiny pinpricks of green against dead brown foliage, but I firmly believe Corsican Mint has a deathwish anyway.

My Hablitzia tamnoides disappeared, as did all my lovage, old and new. Thanks, rabbits. Oh, and they ate my new Toona sinensis and skirret. I'm re-buying and they all get tree guards this time.

On the bright side, the Vanessa rosé grape I thought the cold snap had killed is coming back, as is the Rose of Sharon that randomly died winter before last and I had resigned to being a trellis for the muscat grape (which is doing great).

We had a super mild winter, then hard cold snaps in April, then it was a cold May, and then last weekend it was suddenly a bit too warm to comfortably garden (but we did anyway) and this week has been just miserably hot. It's weird seeing half my garden just peeking out from the ground and the other half already going to seed.

Joylynn Hardesty

steward

Posts: 2205

Location: Officially Zone 7b, according to personal obsevations I live in 7a, SW Tennessee

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posted 5 months ago

I planted a 50 foot row of english peas. The only sprouts I got were from a group of spilled seeds a couple feet away from the trellis. Which had been erected in an unusually timely manner. Something must have eaten well.

We had a week of early warmth. So I planted 4 beds, 25 feet long, 4 rows of green beans in each. The weather promptly cooled off so much that the kale I planted in another bed took 2 weeks to sprout. Normal is 3 days! Due to a combination of too wet, eaten seed, and maybe some munching beasties, only 10 feet of green beans survived. The kid was not pleased with his transplanting duties.

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Tyler Ludens

master pollinator

Posts: 11515

Location: Central Texas USA Latitude 30 Zone 8

798

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posted 5 months ago

Tyler Ludens wrote:I suspect all my new Hardy Yams, Groundnuts, and Crosnes have gone to meet their maker.

I was wrong about them! Hardy Yams and Groundnuts mostly came up, and some (not very many) Crosnes.

What is dying with no possibility of redemption are the Strawberries. Nothing I could do would make them happy, so I am letting them pass away. Maybe not something I can ever grow here. But no big deal.

Idle dreamer

Judith Browning

Posts: 7118

Location: Arkansas Ozarks zone 7 alluvial,black,deep loam/clay with few rocks, wonderful creek bottom!

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posted 5 months ago

Every time I see the title of this thread I think of the dead smell at my garden gate that I've yet to discover 'what died in my new gardens'

I think it's likely a rat or bird that the cat left for us but everything is so lush I can't find it.

As far as plants go, nothing disastrous...just the usual replant the stuff that never came up...do a lot of chop and drop to find things. Something might be missing in there...big things for all I know at the moment as I'm behind cutting back foliage with all of this rain.

We did have two bare root apricot trees planted in november that never leafed out in the spring.
My figs all died back to the ground as usual...I didn't cover them. They are back now, so don't count...
I expected more passion flower vine to come back and am still waiting on the biggest patch to show up...I think it will.

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Skandi Rogers

pollinator

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Location: Denmark 57N

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posted 5 months ago

I spoke too soon, about 30% of the lettuces have died, half grown looking lovely and suddenly they wilt, when pulled up they have wireworm in the stems, ARGH.

Tereza Okava

gardener

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Location: South of Capricorn

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posted 5 months ago

Jessa Hunt wrote:the Shiso I planted next to it is ALMOST dead by my own hand .

I tried for YEARS to grow shiso after I came back from Japan. In the US and then here in Brazil. it was a ritual, every time I found shiso seeds I would plant them, and then nothing would happen. I`d find a seedling for $$$ in some store and plant it, and then some knucklehead would step on it or drop an anvil on it or the cat would crap on it and then scratch it out. Different continents, soils, weather, etc etc, no luck, cursed.
Finally my mother in law took pity on me and dragged me off to the home of a friend of hers, another little old lady with a crazy urban garden mostly in paint cans, who dug out a little shiso plant and put it in my hands cackling. I packed that plant back on home, planted it, and it always self seeds and tells me when the cold weather is coming, and I have always, always had shiso since. But for so long I thought it was only a mythical plant!!!

Tereza Okava

gardener

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Location: South of Capricorn

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posted 5 months ago

ah and yes, my prize choy is 4 inches tall and already bolting. Some little boring beetle thing has been drilling holes in it. I am traveling in a week and tempted to pull it all out- it would probably make one single meal. sigh.

Joseph Lofthouse

steward

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Location: Cache Valley, zone 4b, Irrigated, 9" rain in badlands.

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posted 5 months ago

The last two nights, the tomatoes died due to frost. Oh well. They were only the commercial varieties. The most precious, my own varieties, and the Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato project plants are still in the greenhouse.

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Kalaina Nielson

Posts: 37

Location: NE AZ

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posted 5 months ago

Misery loves company, and I feel like I have good company in this thread, so thank you for starting it.
The cutworms and the sow bugs have eaten a dozen tomato starts, a few beets and a half dozen of my squash. I already spotted a squash beetle which doesn't bode well for my season. Only lost a couple plants this year to the mice and rabbits, the terrier has done a good job keeping them out.

Jan White

pollinator

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Location: BC Interior, Zone 6-7

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posted 5 months ago

Mice and chipmunks were pretty tough on my fall-planted peas. In one bed, not a single one came up.

Only a few of my Hannan popbeans (Carol Deppe chickpeas) came up. Can't blame that on the rodents cause I had the bed covered in wire until they got going.

Cucumbers didn't come up, but that's normal for me. I obviously do something horribly wrong. I end up buying a few plants every year. I was hoping this year would be okay - I actually measured the soil temperature!

I absolutely cannot get my huauzontle going. I've planted four times now. There are a few little seedlings from my first planting that haven't changed size at all since they came up.

Evening primrose was a complete failure.

Thankfully, tomatoes and squash grow like weeds for me.

Edit:
Oh, what I'm most peeved about is that work was too crazy for me to get peppers started early enough, and my ground cherries are only just now starting to come up.

Mandy Launchbury-Rainey

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posted 5 months ago

My winter wheat disappeared, my broad beans mostly eaten by rodents , planted again having soaked in chilli tea, eaten again, left the polytunnel shut in a freaky hot day, I have mentioned all of these before but the pain won't go away....

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Mike Barkley

gardener

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Location: mountains of Tennessee

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posted 5 months ago

There is some kind of tiny insect here that destroys almost every eggplant I try to grow. Tried to trick them with a different variety this year but no joy. Transplanted the seedlings just a week ago. Bugs have already found them. Not quite dead yet but almost. Sigh.

Argue for your limitations and they are yours forever.

Kit Hammes

Posts: 3

Location: Austin, TX (8a)

posted 5 months ago

All my squash have fallen to squash beetles or the vine borers this year, none of my peppers germinated (I had to buy starters), and I can't harvest a tomato before a bug or bird bores a giant hole in every fruit... :/ It's a rough first year for my garden.

Kali Hermitage

Posts: 62

Location: Unincorporated East Bay Area, CA

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posted 5 months ago

This has been a particularly weird spring in the Bay Area, CA. We had a crazy, wet, stormy May that wiped out some of the tomatoes I had planted, as well as the basil with them.

Then, out of the blue, we had triple digit temps for several days and the list of casualties is a long, depressing one...

My "B" avocado tree (Bonny) that had finally started to look like she would live :(
My "3 sisters" planting in my new raised, modified hugelbed. I have some faith that some of it may live, but it faces west with cement in front of the bed and it literally turned the area into an oven. Bad planning on my part. Next year I'll plant hot peppers or melon there!
My 2 new baby blueberry bushes
My male kiwi vine is trying to die (I'm just hopeful..)
Lots of lettuce

On the bright side, I have learned a LOT about all my little micro-climates and how they respond to extreme weather. This will really help planting in the future.

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Jay Angler

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posted 5 months ago

We've had crazy weather here also, but that's just meant that I didn't get things planted in the first place.

Of the 4 cabbages I did plant, 2 have so little left they won't make it and I'm not sure if it's slugs or pill bugs. I was hoping to add some bush beans to that bed, so they'll need some protection.

Important lesson - if at first you think it's dead, wait another month. I was *sure* my 3 jujuba and a very sad rescue apple tree had all died in the winter, but the jujuba gradually put out leaves near the base of the stem and are now looking quite survivable. The apple tree lost all it's upper branches, but is also putting out leaves from the lower "trunk" (about 2" diameter), so it may make it.
Today I will check on the two mulberry that almost bought the farm in the drought last summer when I was away dealing with a family emergency. I thought they hadn't made it through the winter, but later saw tiny bits of green on the stem. I will give them a little supplemental water this year because I've found that I should be able to wean them off once they've developed a decent root system. I read about a different tree which seemed to *need* to get the tops knocked back regularly until the roots were strong enough that the plant would grow well, and quickly (an oak maybe?) My experience with the mulberry is mirroring that. Stress it, but don't quite kill it. That said, the emergency mentioned above did in all the goji's I'd tried to root, and the goumi's and figs were struggling and didn't make it through the winter. I'd been told that figs were easy to root, but that's *not* been my experience at all, so clearly I'm doing something wrong. My property may just be short on both heat and sunlight for figs (at least that's my excuse!)

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Dustin Rhodes

pollinator

Posts: 388

Location: San Diego, California

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posted 5 months ago

Gophers got three pecan seedlings, and snails ate ALL cucumber seedlings and my only sprouted grocery store Chayote.
Soapberries, hickory nuts, thyme, and oregano didn't germinate.
visiting kids tore out two sunflowers, thinking they were weeds(this one irks me the most).

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Inge Leonora-den Ouden

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posted 5 months ago

There is so much I plant that doesn't make it ... Especially this year. I demolished the shed and turned that part of my back yard into a garden. But the soil there is not yet in good shape. It's only sand with a layer of mulch and some compost. I think over half of what I plant there dies in a few days. Almost no seedlings grow from seeds I sow there.
But still there is something growing there. As you can see in the photo there's a giant perennial kale. That plant had to leave its spot in the community garden and I replanted it in my back yard, where it flourishes ever since then (a few months ago).

photo: the 'new garden' in my back yard on May 26, 2019.

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