Viewing post #1464956 by dyzzypyxxy

You are viewing a single post made by dyzzypyxxy in the thread called Need help with many many things!.
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Jun 4, 2017 4:22 PM CST
Name: Elaine
Sarasota, Fl
The one constant in life is change
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On the pictures of your whole bed, I think maybe your plants are suffering from not enough soil depth. Did you till up the soil there, before you put in your raised bed? Soil that's been under grass for years is usually pretty compacted, and also nutrient deficient.

Then, it looks like your soil has subsided a lot since you filled up the bed, since there are inches of wood frame showing inside the bed there. So, your plants maybe surviving on about 4inches of good soil. Add that to the fact that you only fertilized once, back in February, they're surely starving.

The strawberry and tomato plants aren't too bad, but still are pretty small for having been in there for over 3 months. The berry bushes really aren't putting on nearly enough growth. I'd get busy and source out a truck load of compost, and fill that bed right up to the brim again. The tomato plant you can fill soil up around its stem and it will grow roots from the stem. The other plants you'll have to carefully lift them, fill a pile of soil under them and settle them in again.

Our landfill here makes excellent compost and it's free for the taking. Lots of other places have composting programs too, maybe check with your County Extension service to see where you can get some.

That Epsoma fertilizer is fine for regular garden use, but for veggies the analysis 3-4-4 is very low. You probably need to use about twice as much as the package recommends. Also in summer the fert disperses or is used up much faster. Hot weather, big plants, lots of watering all contribute to the faster use of fertilizer. So I'd be putting some of that around my plants about every 2 weeks from now until the weather cools off. When you go to buy some more, get a vegetable fert with a higher analysis, like 10-10-10 or 14-14-14. It's going to cost a bit more but you'll use less of it, so it's totally worth it.
Elaine

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." –Winston Churchill

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