Pitiful

I know you must be tired of hearing me whine about how awful my garden is this year, but I ain't playin'; it is pitiful.

NONE of the second planting of beans and peas came up.  None.  As I said in another post, it's as if the soil on that end of the garden has been poisoned, and maybe it has.  Last fall, we dumped loads of leaves (and a few pine needles) on that end of the garden.  After the fact, I learned that the decomposing leaves can rob the soil of essential nutrients.  Maybe that's the problem.  I don't know how to fix it, except to stop dumping leaves and maybe add some lime in the fall.

The tomatoes and the squash are stunted and yellowish.  The only plants that look halfway healthy are the okra and the cucumbers, both of which could probably grow and produce well in concrete.

Today I bought two 50-pound bags of 6-12-12 fertilizer.  (No, I don't intend to use it all at once, nor even all this year.  The second bag is for next spring.)  I fertilized the peas and butterbeans this evening.  Nanny said she thought that peas normally do not need fertilizing, but they sure need something. 

My no-till experiment seems to be failing.  Despite layers of newspaper and hay surrounding the tomatoes and squash, bermuda grass has seen the light and is creeping down the rows atop the hay.  It looks plumb snake-y. 

My only consolation is that most everyone I've talked to about gardens has said that their gardens look pitiful, too.  (Misery does love company.)  We're blaming it on the excessive rains we had in the spring, all the way through the month of June. 

Although I intend to continue to work this year's garden, such as it is, I have pretty much written off the idea of having any vegetables to put up unless some miracle occurs.

Thinking ahead to next year's crops, I have already asked The Husband to make it his project to plow and disc the entire garden this fall.  I will send off a soil sample to the Extension Service to see what nutrients the soil is missing as a result of this year's efforts and try to correct the problems we spawned this year.