Ouch, it's disappointing when it's August already (well, on Monday). Sometimes you just have to wait for next year. Last year my spinach was fantastic. This year, a dud.

I don't grow a lot of annuals. I gladly hand my $$ over to the local nursery for some things. But I'm good with calendula/pot marigolds. They self seed in my yard so all I have to do is transplant them elsewhere (they'll even grow between the bricks in my walkway). So here's hoping that yours will bloom this year. Don't deadhead them. Let them self seed. Right now their volunteer efforts improve a perenniall bed that isn't fully planted.

Another plant that readily self sows for me is an annual poppy. Originally I bought the plant at my local nursery. Now, it's all over the place. In shady conditions, however, I notice it is much small, like dwarfed.

Did you harden the plants off before you put them in the ground? Not sure which ones you WSed. Also, how much sun are they getting? Scarlet Runner bean didn't do well for me in an area of half day sun (against east wall of a building). Now I put the seeds in full sun location sometime in late May or early June using seed I saved from the previous year.

Did you start the seeds too early indoors?
I better let others with more annual sowing experience to give advice. Here's hoping next year is better for you.

Thanks defrost49. I think I started the hardening off process too soon. We had a warm stretch followed by a very cool stretch in May. I got too optimistic.

I will follow your advice and let the calendula go to seed, but I gotta get some blooms first! LOL

My yearly challenge for myself is to not spend any $ on flowers and start everything myself. I probably have to reconsider some of my choices for next year.

Normally calibrachoa/million bells bloom non-stop right up to November for me but this year they petered out early- to mid-July and I'm not holding out much hope they'll pick up the pace again. CA poppies WS last year self-sowed in one bed and those are still blooming as are the carnations and New Guinea impatiens. I don't plant many annuals and allow myself to buy what I do plant because I grow so many perennials via WS I figure I'm entitled to a few "store-bought" things. I've got lots of sprouts from things I summer sowed and will enjoy blooms from those next year--sweet William, blanket flower, columbine, blue flax, rudbeckia and Echinacea.

So sorry to hear about your annuals. Most of mine are doing very well, but a few have straggled and I'm not sure why. Most are started from seed, which I spring-sow in cups and put up against the foundation of the house on the south side. I also splurged on a few Petunias, Salvia Black & Blue, and some Heliotrope (mmmmm love the smell) at the nursery.

May is good for planting hardier annuals, but I plant the heat lovers closer to June 1st, when it really warms up. I direct sowed the tall Zinnias in early June, and they have already started blooming.

Do you have a problem with slugs? I've noticed that small seedlings can have their vitality sapped if they suffer too much slug damage and may never grow well after that. I try to be diligent about using slug bait when the seedlings are small. Also, I don't mulch them at first, because the mulch can harbor slugs, and then spread compost when they're 6-12 inches tall.

I use dilute Peters in the containers, but am all organic in the garden. After planting small seedlings I usually fertilize with seaweed solution a couple times which does wonders for giving the small seedlings a boost (makes the soil micro-organisms happy).

Add me to the list. My flower boxes which do great every other season are not lush like they were last year. I used a hot pink and a beautiful yellow " super bell petunia" along with the sweet potato vine..looked fabulous in the beginning and now the yellow bells are barley visible and the hot pink have overtaken them and I am not a happy planter..LOL.. Oh well.

Me too! Disappointed and thinking of next year, that is.

My annuals are mostly duds this year. Lost lots of seedlings in the 90-degree heat in April, then more to the rain, rain, rain of spring. Now I have teeny-tiny little plants with teen-tiny little blooms - I too have three-inch snapdragons, just like you, although mine are in bloom.

My perennials are doing somewhat better, although in the prolonged heat and dryness we've been having lately they are not looking so good. Also discovered a lot of mole/vole damage. While I've had problems with this in the past, it had been getting better lately, so I was surprised/diappointed, even more so because it came in July, as opposed to the usual early spring damage. I've got buckets of perennials sitting in water, in a desperate time-starved attempt to keep them alive till I can replant. Several other plants have just disappeared. Must have had the roots eaten and then just composted in place before I found the damage, lol.

To top things off, some local construction on a recently-sold farm has evidently pushed deer to come looking for dinner in my garden.

Sheesh, makes you wonder why we keep doing this year after year, huh? LOL. I guess we gardeners are a hopeful bunch!

Dee

This heat is really taking its toll on everything - I use really big clay pots, but no amount of water seems to make the plants as happy as normal. I'm using our patio umbrellas to provide a little cooling shade, but it may be too little, too late. On the bright side, lavender and some of the tender salvias are just as happy as can be.

How could I forget to recommend Fish emulsion fertilizer at transplant time. I also use it when things look a little peaked.

I didn't have good luck sewing some herb seeds in large plastic pots that I put on the south side of the house. Darn, I think it was just too hot. (Marjoram, chervil, parsley) and moved the pots to the porch steps which get a little shade during the day. Looks like they are germinating and the soil doesn't dry out so quickly.

I'm not sure I like the professional potting mix I've been using. I don't want one with the osmacote but this mix doesn't seem to hold water very well. What I've been doing is filling pots with aged, composted horse manure and then a few inches of the potting soil. I figure one the plants get big enough, the roots will hit the great compost.

I started my main garden beds with the lasagna method. They get topped in the spring with the aged horse manure. The manure has had kitchen scraps and wood ashes mixed in. A great Craigslist find that we've gotten for the third year. These beds are rich with earthworms. Even in this heat, I'll unearth a worm or two, just weeding the edges. OTH I have a bed that is mostly steer manure and did not get any leaves, just grass clippings when I built the lasagna bed. This bed is drier and doesn't have the earthworm activity. I just added more composted horse manure after pulling old plants and starting some fall vegetables. A small patch at the end of a lasagna bed has dark red sunflowers seeded in mid-June that are just budding up.

Fertilizing religiously to me means a gallon of Miracle grow solution to one large whiskey barrel planter every 2 weeks. Maybe a quart for smaller ceramic planters on on an east porch.

One year I had dying cukes in a planter and nothing seemed to help. That was a year of a lot of rain. On a garden tour I saw similar dying cukes in one garden yet nearby there were some healthy cukes growing in a raised bed. I've read that too much rain can wash nutrients out of the soil in containers. That probably happened this June.

Every year there is a bit of disappointment. This year, I cut back my phlox too late and, thanks to the critters, the echinacea that would have been in bloom right now is absent. The garden looks bare. My evergreen plantings hold down the bones, but I dream of a time when the arbors will be covered in bloom and I will manage late summer flower displays. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

If you can bear it, take a trip to Tower Garden. I don't know how they do it, but all their plantings, perennials, annuals, veggies - all are perfect. I would love to know their secret but I am pretty sure it is a full-time staff and enough funding to immendiately replace any plant that fades and plant annuals in all the bare spots. Oh well!

Granted I've only been in this house for 4 years, so I try to still think of things as a "learning experience" as opposed to a "disappointing year".

My perennials were all mostly duds this year. Not sure if it is because they were transplanted last year, or if it was the weather. And with the lack of flowers, it can be a bit tough to determine what is a weed, versus what is the foliage to a plant that will make fabulous flowers next year - especially when many of the plants came from generous friends and neighbors, and I have no idea what i planted in so many spots.

My annuals pots are pathetic. In mid June I replaced a lot of the plants that had died off. Out back I have marigolds and petunias - and they all look like little sticks with single blossoms. In front, my carpet of snow alyssum has formed nice dense green mats with nary a blossom. At least I'm not looking at dirt. Though I refuse to spend more money on annuals this year. My hanging baskets of impatiens on my clothes line are also looking quite wimpy - but I'm guessing that they get too much sun there.

My surprise has been my vegetable garden. I'm having my best veggie garden ever. We were eating fresh spinach all thru April and May, fresh lettuce all thru May and June into July. We've been getting fresh squash since late June. Now the cucumbers and tomatoes are ready. I have hundreds of hot peppers on my patio, and a great crop of smallage and parsley.

Just came back from Tower Hill yesterday! Yes, I am quite envious, especially their containers and vegetable gardens. They all looked fabulous, but I agree it must be the funding that lets them replace anything that has died. The "untended" gardens and green space certainly looked spent, and even my son commented on why there's only sticks out in some areas. If only we all had a little greenhouse ourselves with plenty of stock to replace our underperformers.

There's always next year...

PixieLou, it's always a learning experience. My spinach was a dud this year. Planted only one week later than last year (which was a fantastic year) but a bust. Heard cold, wet spring affected others too in our area, even the market gardeners.

I have a partly sunny space on the east side of our house, actually, some of it extends to the driveway so it also has a southern exposure ... but shade from a maple tree part of the day. I planted cherry tomatoes there this year expecting them to not do as well because of less sun and they are scrawny. We'll probably have plenty of cherry tomatoes, which are beginning to ripen, but not the huge harvests of previous years. This is the same bed that was originally my herb garden but I moved to herbs to a new bed next to my kitchen porch. They are doing astoundingly well in that location. Maybe that original bed gets evenn less sun than I thought.

What are the sun conditions for your beds? Maybe those perennials need more sun? I used to try to grow sun loving perennials in part sunny conditions and it was really a waste of time and money.

I can see where some parts of my garden need additional organic matter (the old herb bed) and a hurried lasagna style bed needs more manure/dirt. I see evidence of blossom end rot so a sure sign those particular tomato plants aren't getting enough nutrients.

OTH the good news is that germination was better in pots (herb seeds) when I moved them away from a hot southern spot against the house (further reflection from white house) to the porch steps that get some of that maple tree shade part of the day.

I am disappointed in my potting soil. The big plastic pots that are doing better have composted horse manure in the bottom, potting soil on top. The potting soil dries out quickly and seems to have too much peat moss in it.

My vegetable beds which get the great composted horse manure are black, soft and full of earthworms. Not so, my flower beds. The herbs don't seem to mind. I'd say the poorer soil seems sandier, finer particles which probably don't hold water very well.

Good luck to everyone. Striped cucumber beetles have made winter squash a bust this year and I'm only now just getting my first cucumbers for a second try. So even my great vegetable garden soil isn't enough.