Please help with my yellowing leaves on squash and beans....

6 years ago

Hello, this is my first time posting and first year of "serious" vegetable gardening. I am growing summer squash and beans (bush as well as pole) in a true raised planter bed - a few feet off the ground. I used all organic mix of compost and potting soil mixed in with some organic fertilizer for the bed. Everything seemed to be growing perfect until this last week when I left for a few days over the 4th of July holiday. I asked my neighbor to water my veggies if it did not rain and he watered once in the three days I was away. When I came back , the one summer squash I had growing (this was my first female flower) looked like this.

Also, a lot of leaves are yellowing on all my plants. The squash and both sets of beans. I don't know if it was the watering because the plants did not look wilted when I came back - just a few yellow leaves at the bottom of the plants.

but over the next few days a lot more of them have yellowed as well.

I appreciate any help you can give me on this. I am at a loss and have googled it but seems like so much could be wrong from inadequate watering, calcium deficiency, stress, some kind of bacteria / virus etc.

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Comments (5)

rgreen48
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
When you say that this is 'a true raised planter bed', am I correct in understanding that this is like a table filled with growing medium? If so, I think the problem might be how you consider the style of gardening. In essence, you are growing in a very large container. It's perfectly fine, it just needs to be treated like a container garden. Even if it's just a high raised bed, with the drainage you have, combined with the medium you used, I would switch to a soluble fertilizer.

Since everything you describe is organic, try to find a product like fish emulsion (there are many others.) The problem with the fertilizer you seem to describe, is that most 'organic fertilizers' are formulated to work in concert with inground soil organisms. You are above the ground, so your fertilizer isn't releasing. A complete (all nutrients, not just NPK) soluble fertilizer of your preference should correct the problems you're seeing. You'll want to use the fertilizer as needed, but many container gardeners find that feeding once a week, or once every 2 weeks - as the label recommends - is a good schedule. That may require adjusting, and you'll just need to watch the plants and see how they respond.
digdirt2
6 years ago
Agree with the above in that you are container gardening and that is a very different set of guidelines than in ground gardening, especially when it comes to nutrient supplements. You have no soil food web so organic liquids, pre-digested liquids are your only option when it comes to feeding.

Your young squash in the first photo suffered from inadequate pollination so you may want to consider hand-pollinating any future female blooms.

The leaf photos show very distinct signs of nutrient deficiency so regular feedings are required - weekly using a liquid. Nutrients wash out of containers with every watering so they must be replaced regularly.

Good luck.

Dave
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JL (Zone 6B MA)
Original Author
6 years ago
Thank you so much! Yes definitely container gardening - you are right it's a slightly larger container bed. I was trying to go organic but maybe I should just stick with the miracle grow fertilizer? Sigh - I was trying so hard to be organic....
digdirt2
6 years ago
You can do it organically if you wish. Many do. It takes more work and attention as well as a pretty good understanding of plant needs and symptoms and how organics work. Organic gardening always sounds great up front to new gardeners because they haven't yet learned all it entails and how it works much better and easier in the ground and no so much in a container. ;-)

Unlike synthetic liquid fertilizers that cover everything in the way of nutrients, or most everything, organic supplements are nutrient specific for the most part. So several different products may be required to cover all the nutrients something for N, something for Ca, something for K &P, a mineral supplement, etc. For example - You can cover most of the N-P-K needs with the fish emulsion fertilizer rgreen mentioned IF you buy the one that also contains kelp. Otherwise you'll need both fish and a kelp product. Maxicrop is a good mineral supplement - one of many. You just need to do some organic garden fertilizer exploring.

Dave
JL (Zone 6B MA)
Original Author
6 years ago
Thank you. I live in a condo association and didn't have access to have a patch in the ground - which is why I have the raised bed. Wanted to go organic because my kids are helping me plant and eating the veggies we're growing (sometimes right off the plant!) so I wanted to be safe. Also I know the liquid fertilizers runoff is not good for the environment! I will research this a little more!