I know what you mean
I just got my garden in and most of the seed are just starting to come up.

I am planning my Fall garden now to try and recoop

I feel the same way. I'm not ripping out peas anymore, but everything just seems stunted this year.
Peppers are struggling.
Squash isn't producing reliably, or I keep getting fruit that isn't pollinated fully.
Tomatoes are still green as heck if there are any and I've ripped about three out myself because of possible diseases (I wasn't waiting around to see if they were going to spread, ya know).
And I planned and started everything from seed and babied them and the whole thing. There are only two plants out of hundreds out there that weren't started from seed and they are cukes. They are struggling too.
Everything is pretty green but when I see posts about people who are actually 'harvesting' anything I get a little grumpy!!!

Oh well....

Angie

I feel your pain, seems like the garden is growing at a snails pace this year, tomatoes are still like a foot tall,
watermelons did come up, but have been sitting at the 1st true leaves stage for more them a week, same with pumpkins.
I've got 1 pepper plant that going gang busters, its like 2 feet tall and producing peppers already, other pepper plants
are much farther behind.

Curcubits are the worst-off. They just won't grow. Cool-weather stuff not so bad now, although late getting to it.

Hi angiemomma (or should I just call you Grumpy ;-)
You guys are cracking me up ;-)
I am soooo blessed ! !
I am about a month and a half AHEAD of last years record breaking harvest.... so far it looks like everything is coming up wonderfully.

This years total harvest (so far) is 1530 lbs
Here is the breakdown:
15 lbs of Onions����..� 4-18-2011
46 lbs of Broccoli�����.4-18-2011
70 lbs of Swiss Chard �� 4-18-2011
6 lbs of Spinach�����.�4-27-2011
10 lbs of Broccoli����.�4-27-2011
46 lbs of Onions����.�.4-27-2011 (193 lbs total )
6 lbs of Beets�������..5-9-2011
27 lbs of Onions������.5-9-2011
45 lbs of Red Lettuce���.5-9-2011 (271 lbs total )
5 lbs of Broccoli ���.���5-20-2011
34 lbs of Onions������..5-24-2011
61 lbs of Lettuce������.5-24-2011
72 lbs of Swiss Chard���..5-24-2011 (443 lbs total )
18 lbs of Lettuce����.��5-26-2011
12 lbs of Spinach������.5-26-2011
18 lbs of Beets/Carrots��..5-26-2011
7 lbs of Radishes������..5-26-2011 (498 lbs total )
15 lbs of Radishes������.6-1-2011
25 lbs of Onions�������..6-1-2011
9 lbs of Broccoli��������.6-1-2011
106 lbs of Lettuce�������.6-1-2011 (653 lbs total )
6 lbs of Lettuce���������6-2-2011
7 lbs of Onions���������.6-2-2011
52 lbs of Onions������6-8-2011
61 lbs of Radishes����..6-8-2011
13 lbs of Swiss Chard���6-9-2011
8 lbs of...

WOW Jon!
What is the total Squarefeet of your garden, producing that type of poundage?

Hi Wild8,
I have 1250 square feet, we have a 6 month growing season ,Last year from 5-1-2010 to 10-27-2010 I harvested 5160 lbs that was donated to the FoodBank and my wife took 300 lbs of Butternut Squash into the Pantry, and of course we ate some and some of our friends got a little... so it was a great year, this year I hope to donate 8000 lbs to the FoodBank, I am soooo blessed ;-)

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I never post, but empathy for the OP has drawn me out. My garden is in exactly the same place!

The Oregon Sugar Pods I planted in early March just flowered last week and are finally producing. That's more than 3 months after I planted them! I've never experienced that before.

My bean plants are 6-12" depending on variety and my tomatoes are blooming and setting fruit, but they're all tiny and green. In past years I've had green beans and close-to-ripe tomatoes by July 4th. Even Early Girl and Sun Gold (my insurance plants) are looking green and tiny.

I finally put the squash and peppers out even though it's not really warm enough because if they don't get going now, they'll have no chance of finishing. They're pretty much sitting there looking cold and sad (I'm reading their body language ;-) ).

On the up side... my lettuce has never looked this good for this long! Salads (with lettuce, peas, and scallions) all around!

Hi HuckleberryNW,
You're killin' me, that was great ;-)
Your glass is half full ! !
"On the up side... my lettuce has never looked this good for this long! Salads (with lettuce, peas, and scallions) all around!"

Mine is slow too. I've been feeling for awhile that our seasons are about a month late.......so really, its just the end of May. ;)
I think we'll be okay if we have a long Fall.

Worst of both worlds here. It's been overall chilly and dark, which OUGHT to be great for lettuce and spinach, but they had to hit us with a few hot spells in the 90s, just to make sure it bolts.

Misery loves company - I'm glad I'm not the only one. Thought maybe I should have gotten the tomatoes and peppers out earlier to take advantage of the 2-day heat wave beginning of the month, but then they probably would have drowned. More rain last night - Weather.com doesn't show it (maybe it was wee hours of AM?). At least the temps are coming up.

My lettuce is about done, had been doing well (Romaine and Bibb, not so much the Red Wave) up til the weekend. Had to buy some yesterday.

Jon, your pictures are amazing - not only a bountiful feast for the Pantry, but a feast for the eyes too! And all you use is compost? Must be literally TONS of the stuff (I've seen your bins)!

Well, I just looked at the extended forecast - 80's/low 90's for the next week - sun too! Maybe Mother Nature saw this post...lol.

Well - here in "sunny" Ca., the blessings are mixed. OK - so you win some, lose some. With all of our winter rains, the cool "stuff" loved it - probably washed all of the alkaline salts out. So had lots of lettuce, cabbage, bok choy, etc.,

BUT - now here it is almost 4th of July, and the toms are only half producing - start out OK, then gone, except cherry types. Of course, the peppers - usually don't like it until August anyway. However, on a bright note, I see the peppers that I left in from last year, are filling the gap. It has been suggested that peppers be left to become perennial - which I haven't done before. Now I'm beginning to see some wisdom there. Perhaps they just need a longer growing season. Maybe, I'll save myself some extra work, keep them as perennials and give them their own space this fall.

Perhaps the old tomato "heirlooms" can't take it anymore - too many years of in-breeding.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

It's been very slow compared to last year. I've been scrambling to replant beds that couldn't be bothered to germinate during the long, cold, wet spring. I've developed a taste for slightly bitter lettuce because I refuse to pull plants that are still adolescents. I think that the cool nights have actually improved their flavor since the heat waves a few weeks ago. And my peas are bouncing back. The tomatoes, which just sat for weeks, have finally started putting on a little growth. Pepper plants are small and pale. So I think it will be a party at which everybody arrives late -- and hopefully the cops won't show up before it really gets going.

Posted by bumble_doodle Z5 CT (My Page) on
Tue, Jun 28, 11 at 11:28

I have three good size tomato plants but they only have a couple of marble sized fruit... The bush beans are only about 8 inches tall and the squash and melons are struggling. I'm really hoping it starts to warm up and dry out around here....we're a month behind!

Hey, you're ahead of me, and I'm ahead of where I usually am this time of year! Living in California doesn't always mean balmy weather. I'm at about 1000' above sea level in a climate where the 45 degree low we recently had was entirely normal. This year I'm trying black plastic mulch, and I have this to say about it: it WORKS. But all that means is that I'll have tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and melons (I hope) before the season ends. I look at all these gardeners who get snow in the winter harvesting so many more heat-loving veggies than I ever will, and all I can say is: Heyyyy, unfair!

I live in farmland and the corn in the fields are really behind too. Usually by this time they should be several feet taller.

Last year, my 4th of July tomato had ripe fruit by the 4th of July. Not in 2011!

Here in NH corn should be knee high by 4th of July and I don't think anyone has corn that tall yet. Our neighbor farmer got his field corn in but had to delay the spray truck because the field was too wet. He said along the CT river in western NH was horrible, fields were still littered with flood debris/downed trees.

I had a couple of spinach plants that overwintered and did great but the same variety in a different bed never did well and another variety bolted early. I planted each on either side of garlic and wonder if garlic, a heavy feeder, sucked up the nutrients. But I also heard spinach woes from a market gardener.

Despite cold, wet weather, my first row of beans is blossoming. It was a short, experimental row under a low tunnel made of garden fabric. Other people report bean seed rotted. I'm going to plant more early beans next year. The tunnel can cover three 10' rows. This year is also sheltered broccoli seedlings purchased at the farm and feed store, summer turnip and kale. The broccoli is forming heads now.

I foolishly did not put garden fabric over squash plantings and they were hit with striped cucumber beetles. They are surviving but not happy.

Sugar snap peas are doing well but I didn't check my records from last year. I know they were planted at least a week later than last year.

Jon, your photos are fabulous. Your community is blessed to have you contribute fresh vegetables.

My peas never came up (I assume they rotted - planted Mother's Day). But maybe there is hope for the broccoli if yours is heading.

Cukes are stuck at 1 true leaf - look strange with 1 serrated leaf and 2 oval. Squash is just starting to come up - though I planted (early, 48-50 days varieties) seed just a week ago.

Pepper plants aren't doing much at all, esp. the Sweet Bananas (b/c of peat pots? I tore the bottoms off) and the King of the North (which never got more than a couple inches tall in the greenhouse - hot peppers doing much better though don't look like they've grown at all in the 2.5 weeks they've been out in the garden).

The peppers in the pots on my porch look better than the ones in the ground - maybe b/c I took them in during downpours, though I haven't fertilized them.

But the Glacier tomatoes are starting to set fruit!

Well, I am not always grumpy, but yah....it's makin' me a little grumpy.

We had torrential rain that almost pasted a whole row of bush beans to the ground yesterday. No beans on them yet so it was just the weight of water that did it. That is basically unheard of here---I don't ever remember that kind of rain in this area at this time of year before. And I live in ag country here in Hollister. I can't imagine what the farmers in the area must be going through. I am pretty sure there was wide spread panic over the garlic they are pulling up in Gilroy and 'trying' to dry in the fields as we speak. Gilroy is the garlic capital of the world I've been told but I dunno.

I'm not so much grumpy I don't think...er Jon...as I am baffled. And sort of hoping that this isn't going to stay this way long term. Or at least if it is, then at least give me a model to work with, ya know? If July in Zone 8b California is going to be too early to plant beans then I need to know this ahead of time. :) Planting another crop of snap peas would have been a much better idea...

Angie

...who is heading out the door with the neem soon to prevent the mildew the rain has started on my poor stubby squash plants.

I shouldn't say this, but the gardens here are great....field crops are mostly behind.

Hi angiemomma,
You poor girl, I do feel for you ;-)

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Oh, BTW, I got 1 fruit off a 4th of July my cousin started in Feb and I transplanted a week ago with 2 fruit already on it (had been in 3 gal pot since Mem. Day)! Just let it break, then ripen on the counter. Other one isn't breaking yet and the plant looks like it might have EB so I might pll it once the other one breaks. A 2nd plant has 2 small fruit on it.

I guess I can say I had a ripe tomato by 4th of July, though it's small and wasn't vine-ripened!

My neighbor's plants look so much better - and she started them in the house in April, I started mine in the greenhouse in March. Then again, she's fertilized 2x with MG already this month...

Jon, do you have a blog or anywhere that you write down what you do, and how you manage to do so much. Your produce always looks fantastic and yes, you are blessed, but so are those to whom you provide food. I would like to know more.

I've made a few hundred tee-shirts and dresses for charity, but I could never grow that much food. Carol

Hi soonergrandmom,
No...Too Lazy ;-)
I use this site as my blog, it probably aggravates some here, but most members give me the necessary grace to proceed. These are some very nice people on this forum, very gracious and very very patient.... with me ;-)
I started gardening 3 years ago and everything I know about gardening,I learned in this forum, I am truly truly blessed.

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I know this is off subject, but honestly, Jon Hughes needs a tv show. Amazing produce, generous donations, and a good attitude to boot.

you're killing me jon, lol!! but i'm really happy for u, no really, lol!!

so yes, like grumpy... (and you CAN call me grumpy, lol!) and everyone else, i'm in the same boat, and i'm grumpy and sad.
first i started late because of all the cold rain, so i didn't get my stuff in til mid/end of april - and i started everything from seed except my tomatoes.

i've got two types of carrots (king midas and french babette) which take forever anyway; sweet bell peps, and some miniatures; french fillet green beans (bush); zuc's, emerald, yellow straight neck, and a mixed variety (diff shapes and various striped/green colors); 5 diff types of tomatoes - yellow pear, roma, super sweet 100, San Francisco Fog, and sweet 100 grape); spinach; various baby lettuces - mesculin, red leaf, romaine, and bibb. but the romaine and spinach is probably just waiting to bolt on me!

my peps are so pitifully sad looking; the zuc's have TONS of female fruit, but no males are blooming, so i can't even hand pollinate; and my tom's are beautiful and blooming, but out of 5 plants, only 1 actually has a few little green tomatoes (the sweet 100).

depressing.... lol!

~ angela

Hi ladybugsmom192,
It'll get better, we have approx. 120 more growing days and most are sure to be hot (too hot ;-)
All of your veggies, (which sounds very numerous) are about to start coming "unstuck" and we are all going to have a bumper crop, I'm sure of it ;-)
BTW, I just calculated how much more produce I am going to need to grow in the next 120 days and I need a little over 54 pounds every day to reach my new goal of 8000 lbs for the FoodBank, so I am telling you what I just told myself, it is going to be a wonderful year ;-)

One more member for the grumpy group here! Perused the garden last night and discovered five out of my six 1-inch cantaloupe seedlings are no longer amongst the living. :(

Ok, Jon! OK OK OK. I'm not grumpy, seriously. Just confused here. Just sayin'. I'm in need of routine.

What you do is outrageously kind and you have my deepest respect. To think that I thought I may have something to donate to our food bank here---it's laughable now. I'll keep trying, because I'm more stubborn than grumpy, but I definitely need something to work with.

I ripped out half of my backyard, including lawn. I moved TEN yards of compost and garden soil from my driveway around the back gate and around another corner and distributed all of this into 14 raised 4x8 beds. And then I moved more of the soil into my used-to-be flower beds so I could plant rambling items there, like winter squash. I'm a tough chick but smallish. But I was serious, man.

I've planted 9 fruit trees and have 5 potted figs, a lemon tree, 12 blueberry plants, 4 grapes, six thornless blackberries and a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting. None of this includes the vegetables, asparagus bed, sweet potato patch (purple of course), and the Partridge in the Pear Tree.

I compost, I collect my rabbit's 'berries' and distribute them, I chop leaves from my yard and chip mulch from my prunings. I have 7 ducks and a chicken. I have 3 boys who have no interest in this but I still do it.

Oh, I also live in the 'burbs in a normal house on less than a quarter acre and I am absolutely NOT allowed to touch the front yard but imagine their suprise when I secretly plant the six artichoke plants I have been nursing from seed since December of last year.

I WANT SOME TOMATOES, YA KNOW? A couple squash, a bean, whatever... :)

Whine. Whine. Whine.

Angie

Angie,
You are a machine ;-)
That is a lot of work, and then to have faltering production after all that work, well....it's unconscionable ;-)

But that said:
It can only get better from here on out, you are already at the bottom, so things are going to start picking up and before long ,this fiasco will be a forgotten memory, do you remember that terrible problem that was driving you crazy 8 years ago....I didn't think so, me neither , it is long gone and we have moved on, this too will get resolved, you will learn stuff and be teaching us next year ,using your experiences from this year....Don't worry (it doesn't help).

i'm with you angie!!! all that i do, and i just want to east something other than LETTUCE!! and i can't eat that much longer as it's beginning to bolt along with the spinach. i swear, it was actually painful to buy a bell pepper this morning at the market.

grumpy, whinny... ok, maybe, but i definitely don't get it. it's not a selfish jealous thing. i believe in 6 degrees (or less) of separation, so i know that my friend jon is touching/helping all of us through what he does - i know for me, it's INSPIRING! and reminds me, as my garden does every day, that God, the 'Universe', or whatever your higher power is - is in control, and is in the details of what we do as gardeners. sorry to get off topic, but...couldn't help it.

thanks for this thread!

~ angela (lil ms. grumpy, lol!)

To God Be the Glory! We have what I call the Procrastinator's Garden and we have been blessed! We are like 2 months behind on everything. Just heard that so many people have had bad luck gardening this year here. We work at the local food bank and have been able to donate fresh collards. The people are sooo happy to get fresh greens. I'm so thankful we can provide for others. We have been blessed by others so much recently. Thank you Jesus!

We are rainy here in Tennesse, some have amazing gardens, don't know what they do, but maybe they planted with plants not seed. I'll learn direct planting does not work one day, I'm looking for a mini green house, can get them anywhere.

I moved thinking I had better ground, but rain got us again, and again, and again, and again. Now we are in for some smoltering hot weather, probably weeks without rain.

My lettuce just stared back at me about 2 inches tall for 2 months, now growing. It's amazing I can look back at my last year's garden as bad as it always was, and everything was so much bigger and greener. I was also on a hilltop with wonderful drainage. I started to put some raised bed tires in there, but lost them in the move mostly unfinished.

My watermelon is still 2 inches tall, cantelope 1 inch tall, my pumpkin look like they were just tranplanted, although I started by seed. They have been in 2 months, getting some blooms, but only a few leaves. What a sorry strange year!

If you want to survive, hunt, a garden is not as much as a guarantee that the rabbits will mate. Sad to say, but true.

I guess I have the best of both worlds, then. I go to my garden and there are rabbits growing in the mulch.

I laughed, yeah, but the tomato worms eat more leaves than the rabbits, wonder what they taste like? LOL!

This little Cucumber looked so delicious, it was calling out my name when I walked by, I know I should have waited a few more days, but it was sooooooo good and crisp and delightful to the eyes ;-)
I just had to partake...Yummmmm

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Jon, go get some salt so we can rub it in, oh and then maybe you can put some on that cuke too!

And I thought my boys were brats. Phht.

Angie