Mine look fine as well. I dump horse manure on the plot after I'm done in the fall and till it in. Sometimes right after I'm done and sometimes like this year, right before I want to get started again. The area I planted my snow peas in was virgin soil a year ago. So it had some manure added then. it needed more this year. It did OK last summer, but not great. Deluge of rain didn't help. I don't fertilize any more during the growing season with most things, especially row crops like this that I seed with a seeder. They always do fine for me. I started making a cocktail a couple years ago in a 500 gallon tank for transplants. I'll make about 200 to 300 gallons at a time because it's heavy to pull around. I'll add whatever size bottle of fish emulsion (quart, I think), chelated iron (micronutrients needed per soil test, 8 or 10 ounces), a bottle of liquid NOG (natural organic growth, organic growth enhancer), and a handful of 20 mule team borax (for the boron) dissolved in water before adding. It's very weak compared to package instructions, but I believe it really works. In 2012, I put in pepper transplants and watered with this for several weeks. Then it got hot and I gave up on lots of things. Couple months later, I noticed red things in the weeds. Turned out my peppers grew larger than any I'd ever had and they were loaded with chiles that had dried on the bush. So I harvested them and was very happy. That year, I also had an overabundance of sweetpotatoes like I've never seen. Monsters! I water in the slips by hand after planting and used this concoction along with manure in the ground beforehand. Had to water 5 or 6 times I guess before the rain took over. But I blame this cocktail and great hot weather. Last summer was a washout. Didn't use my cocktail, so I still have it in the tank ready to stir up and get going again in a few weeks.

Hi Traci, Welcome back. You know, first about the tomatoes....last year I worked so hard to get them into the ground, maneuving my way around 3 late freezes, etc., only to have almost 13" of rain fall in about 18 hours on April 29-30th. I have heavy, red clay and even though it is well-amended and the tomatoes were in raised beds, it was a struggle to keep them alive. For six weeks I wasn't sure if they'd live or die. We had water standing underground for weeks. If you stuck a trowel into the ground you found standing water just 3 or 4" down. The tomato crop was late, but very plentiful and it all ended well....but, you know, I think I am almost afraid to plant them this year. I might plant this afternoon or tomorrow, but I'll be planting into very wet soil after 2.6" of rain fell here in the last three days. You know, if it wasn't for the weather, gardening here would be a cinch. I think that this week might be our last really cool nights, but I never feel safe here until the first week of May arrives. (A couple of years ago we had a frost on May 3rd, so maybe I shouldn't even feel safe then. lol) In some previous years I have planted tomatoes as early as the first week in March, but the older I get, the less likely I am to plant early...instead I'm going later every year it seems. First, plant what you like to eat. Secondly, plant crops that are low maintenance and produce a lot of veggies for the space they use. I'll list some in a second. Third, plant crops that are very pricey in stores. For example, if you like to cook with fresh herbs, plant them! This winter my adult son was preparing a meal and needed 4 types of fresh herbs. He went to the grocery store and spent $3 for each of those 4 herbs in tiny little packages, so $12.00 for a very small amount of those fresh herbs. It made me think about how much I'd pay for basil, rosemary, mint, sage, dill, oregano, etc. if I had to buy them instead of growing (and also drying the excess) my own. If I were planting in a 12' x 24' bed, I'd plant the following (assuming you like them and eat them): tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, bush green beans OR pole beans if you have a fenced or trellis along one side of the garden for them to climb, okra, sweet potatoes (if you have the right soil for them), eggplant (if you like it) and maybe cucumbers (they do have more disease and insect issues than many other veggies). I'd plant the tomatoes, peppers and eggplant from transplants, the sweet potatoes from purchased slips, the beans and okra from seed, and the cukes either from seed or from purchased transplants. If you like southern peas like black-eyed peas, crowder peas, lady peas or cream peas, they are very low-maintenance, but can take up a quite a bit of space...I love them so that it would be worth it to me to have them. If you want watermelons, I'd go with a spacesaver like Sugar Baby or Bush Sugar Baby and for cantaloupes or muskmelons, I'd go with Hale's Best Jumbo because it is very productive. If you like zucchini or summer squash, they're easy but squash bugs and squash vine borers tend to hit them pretty hard. If you like carrots, they're easy from seed, and so are radishes, but only sow 15 or 20 or 25 at a time, wait a couple of weeks and then sow another little batch, etc., because no one needs 200 radishes at one time. Herbs are relatively easy from seed, but you can plant from transplants if you want an 'instant' garden. It is obviously too late here to plant all the cool-season crops like onions, peas, potatoes, lettuce and other greens, broccoli and other cole crops, etc. This ought to be a great tomato year because we rarely have a truly excessively wet year 2 years in a row, except perhaps for parts of northeastern Oklahoma. I hope you have a great year and talk with us about what's going on in your garden whenever time permits. I'd also try to plan the layout of the garden to get the maximum benefit of the space available, and I'd use plants to provide shelter for other plants. Pepper plants, for example, are brittle and easily broken by wind, especially when they are carrying a heavy load of ripening peppers. I like to plant a row of them right beside the okra. The okra serves as a windbreak for them and also gives them a little shade since they're prone to sunscald. Carrots can go in a row close to the tomato plants (or even in between tomato plants). The carrots will mature fairly quickly and be harvested by mid-summr and by then the tomato plant roots will be expanding into their area. If I were planting radish seeds and carrot seeds, I'd mix them in rows together, putting in a 2 or 3 or 4" of carrot seeds in a row, and then a radish. It can be hard for carrot seeds to break through the soil surface if it crusts over and dries out, so let the radishes break that crusty soil for the carrots as the radishes sprout more easily. I think of it as 'working smarter, not harder' in the garden when I can get the plants to help each other. Dawn

Hi there, Steffen. And welcome to the forum. Growing adeniums up here north can be a challenge but fortunately not impossible. For indoor growing I suggest that you buy a heating mat and an artificial light source (heat is as important as high light intensity and adeniums love bottom heat). For instance, LED or T5HO as suggested. Use the setup - both mat and light - even in the spring and summer, on overcast cold days to prevent your plants from going (semi-)dormant. In my experience, changeable weather (with longer periods of cold overcast weather) during the growing season will dramatically stunt the growth of adeniums. It can take weeks before they wake up again. You want to prevent that. During the fall and winter months, I suggest that you use the artificial light as well. The past year I have been growing adeniums in heated closed grow tents (30C/86F) under 17 hours of LED light. Using this setup, I prefer a growing medium, coir/cocos ground, with 40-50% inorganic materials (it does not really matter what you use - as long as it prevents water logging). The ratio you want to use depends on your growing conditions and watering regime. Without a heated tent, I would probably change the ratio myself and increase the percentage of inorganic materials. Say, to 60/40. Cheers, Martin

wayne may be right about the slag baking things but I don't know why it would be worse that gravel. ==>>> many trees survive just fine.. growing in scree .. on the sides of mountains ... the high drainage is not a bad thing ... but that has nothing to do with transplanting plants into spots that are completely unlike where they were grown to sale size ... perfect sun.. perfect humidity .. etc ... one of the most important things that helps getting a heavily leafed plant ... is a night time cool recovery period ... so that no matter what happens during the day ... it get a few hours to pump enough water for the next day ... so one very important variable.. in this type of circumstance.. is proper timing of planting ... 2 options are ... planting in fall.. so you have 2 cool seasons.. before the heat hits.. lots of root growth.. at least.. in my location ... until the ground freezes ... or very early planting ... so you have a long spring.. to get roots working ... and frankly ... its the same issue with gravel.. next to cement.. or even too close to a south facing brick wall ... your local expert.. ought to know all about it .... ken note proper planting time https://sites.google.com/site/tnarboretum/Home/planting-a-tree-or-shrub