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mcpoulsen82

My 1st time gardening is becoming a nightmare...HELP!

Melissa
7 years ago

So I need some advice. I've never gardened before but I recently moved to a place with a huge yard so I figured I'd give it a try and so far it's been a disaster. I have 2 raised garden beds in the front yard. The strawberries & zucchini starts I planted about 3 weeks ago are still alive and green but the peppers are an epic fail... out of the 4 jalapeños, 4 habinaros, 4 yellow peppers, 4 red peppers all but 4 plants total have died but those 4 are still green and have grown a little so I don't know what I did wrong.

My biggest concern is the 3 raspberry canes & 1 boysenberry plant I tried planting in the back yard along 2 sections of fencing this weekend. I apperantly did a few things wrong so I would just like somebody to tell me if they think they'll survive.

Here is what happened. so I live in eastern WA the soil is hard & dry but when it gets wet it's slick so I guess that's clay soil? Anyways to prep the area along 2 opposite fence sections (each section is approx 10ft long x 3ft wide) I dug up the weeds, loosened the soil and then added 3 bags of top soil, 2 bag of organic compost and 1 bag of shredded bark/mulch. I mixed thst using a small cultivator and then mixed in Scott's all purpose vegetable continuous release plant food 10-10-10. I planted the bare root raspberry canes in one section about 3 ft apart 6-8" deep, so that only the 80% of the cane was above ground. the live boysenberry was planted approx 20 ft away from the raspberry plants, 6-7" deep so all roots & the bottom 1" of the vine were buried. I had been watering them by hand the 1st 3 days but today I turned on the irrigation and 1 sprinkler head hit that area hard and drenched my soil, like thick Mudd consistency so I freaked. I carefully dug up all my plants & rinsed the Mudd off the roots. Then went and got a small wheelbarrel of dry dirt from the horse arena to mix into the top few inches of muddy soil. I carefully replanted the canes the right way, spreading out the roots and only burying them an 1" deep like I read online. I did the same thing with the boysenberry plant. I read online that I wasn't supposed to mix fertilizer in the soil cuz it will burn the plants or something but obviously can't undo that so my question is this. Considering that I did mix fertilizer in the soil, drench the soil and then had to replant the bare root canes/plant how tramatized do you think the plants are? (the raspberry canes were dorment but the boysenberry plant was live) Do they stand a chance at making it? Also since the ground is still drenched how long should I wait to start watering them so I don't raught the roots? Also am I supposed to cut the 4-5" tall canes down to 1-2" like some places say to online or just leave them like they are? ANY suggestions/ help would be appreciated. I've heard raspberries are a pretty hearty plant but not so sure they can survive my lack of gardening skills... :( :(

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