Not familiar with your weather, what are the day/night temps?

Peas often are a light green rather than a dark green. They also take around 2 months, to mature, sometimes more when early spring planting.

Tomatos will have problems with temps below 50F as well.

My lettuce has been in the ground since April 15th and much of it is still tiny. It will soon 'explode' and be ready to harvest as baby greens in a week or so and full size in about a month.

Hope some of this helps.

I live in northern Utah so the temps vary quite a bit. One day it is really warm and the next is freezing. I would say that on average this past month the day highs have been in the 60's- low 80's and the nights 40-50's.

In that case I would say your weather is pretty comparable to mine in SE Wisconsin.

I sowed lettuce seed on March 15th along with Kolrabi and Kale and carrots. Nothing germinated by April 15th (the normal start date for cool season stuff here).

I resowed on April 15th and everything came up well and some of the earlier planting also came up, but not much.

At this point kolrabi has 2-3 sets of leaves and no bulb yet, lettuce ranges from super tiny to a couple inches tall for a few plants, carrots are just itty bitty things and I am debating whether or not to set tomato transplants out this weekend, but won't dare try pepper or eggplant until June 1st.

In other words I think your cool season stuff is on course and the warm season stuff was put out too early. If you don't get a hard frost it will survive, but it will look bad and not do much until it warms for good.

Hang in there, good gardening weather is right around the corner.

One thing I forgot, if you are watering Mel's mix daily in the cooler weather you almost certainly are overwatering.

The nice thing about Mel's mix is it is very soft and we can plunge our hand right through it to the bottom of the bed without much trouble. Try letting the top 2" dry as long as the soil below feels moist or at least damp.

When germinating seedlings more surface moisture is necessary, but once the seeds sprout let the top 2" go dry between waterings.

BTW, for a first year gardener you are doing really well. You clearly have a lot of great gardening to look forward to.

Thank you so much for your help and encouragement! I will ease up on my watering and try and be patient! I do hope my peas make it - it is supoose to hit 90 this weekend.

I'm new to gadening as well and am also using the SFG method. I found that it was helpful to suplement the SFG book with something more detailed regarding different vegetables. This forum has also help me a lot. The book that I also used is called The Vegetable Gardener's Bible. Basically, you can't end with the SFG book; It is just a beginning.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Vegetable Gardener's Bible

Good point Steve, Picking varieties, when to plant, and that sort of thing - its all pretty generic (and regionally impacted) rather than specific to the quirks of SFG and related methods.

One other thought, from a pure organic gardening standpoint. Right out of the gate, having used bagged compost, your mix may not have a whole lot of microbial activity yet. It's those microbes that break down the organic matter in the soil to provide nutrients for the plants. Given some time, your mix should come to life with bacteria, bugs and worms.

This is my second summer with my Mel's Mix beds and I'm amazed at how much better everything seems to be doing this year, especially the eggplants. Since my initial fill with bagged compost, I've used homemade compost and given the soil plenty of organic matter by mulching with leaves and grass clippings. I also usually give the plants a little fish emulsion within the first couple of weeks of planting.

It does sound like you've gotten a great head start on the growing season though and I'm sure you'll be hauling in some great produce when my Texas garden is crispy from the heat.

I followed the mel's mix directions, but also was disappointed at the lack of growth, and things looking kind of weak & yellowish. All of you will think I'm terrible, but I added 10-10-10 organic granular fertilizer to my beds in order to get some growth action. I would recommend it to anyone starting with mel's mix, as the mixture hasn't really broken down enough yet for any nutrients to reach the plants. As soon as I added the fertilizer evertyhing (peas, beans, cukes, squash, tomatoes) took off like crazy. Next year I'm hoping that I can skip the fertilizer, but definitely needed it this year.

I followed Mel's Mix to the T and it worked great for me. Both of my 4X6 beds are doing great and are doing a lot better than my friends who planted at equal times. I will say that I built and filled my beds a couple of weeks before planting so that may have given it a little bit of time to get some of the nutrients going. That said, if your plants aren't getting what they need, a little fertilizer is a good help.

I think you are watering too much, cut back on the water , say twice a week. Bill