Martin, your post makes me smile, but it's a smile of sympathy and recognition.

This is the third year for me having a garden, too, and it seems like every year is another "rebuilding, learning" year.

So far, my asparagus looks great - next year, I get to begin harvesting it. My mesclun salad mix has produced...copious amounts of arugula, and almost nothing else. I thought I'd be getting a salad in a packet of seeds, but I've got like 90% arugula and a tiny bit of one other variety I don't recognize. And it's just too bitter to be its own salad. So - lesson for next year is to diversify a lot more, with several more varieties of lettuce.

My herbs were terrible - most didn't sprout for me this year. I got two oregano plants going. Slugs got my basil (traditional and thai), and also destroyed all but one of my Toscano di Nero kale (an absolute favorite I discovered last year).

Tomatoes sprouted and have grown wonderfully...and fallen prey to tomato blight. Once I found out what it was, I've been pruning ruthlessly and spraying with a sulfur compound. The first 3 to 4 courses of branches on each of my plants is gone, but they're forming nice-looking tomatoes. I hope the plants stay alive long enough to harvest them.

My zucchini and summer squash looked great (they've so far been my one absolutely reliable crop. Who can kill a zucchini?) ... until they started one by one to wilt. A trip to the nursery found the culprit - an inch-long white worm burrowing through the low stem system. Solution: spray for them bugs before they get in. Alternate solution: dig into the stem, find and kill the worm, then cover the stem with more dirt. So, being I caught it so late, I did get one worm out of one of them, and it rallied for about 5 days, wilted leaves stood up again, then gave up the ghost and wilted again.

Rhubarb produced pretty well this year, but the Japanese beetles have really hit them hard. I've never liked Japanese beetles. Many of them end up going for a swim in a bucket with water and just a touch of dish soap, but there always seem to be more.

Beets have been coming along nicely - humongous leaves - but they're STILL tiny. However, the greens have been great with some olive oil, bacon and balsamic vinegar.

I've got some Thai eggplants going this year - last year I couldn't get them above 5 inches tall - this year they're almost 2 feet, flowered and beginning to form eggplants, but we'll see if they really produce.

I started okra, too...they're still about 6 inches tall and I wonder if they'll ever get to maturity.

Pole beans have done well - kind of like my first time with squash, I underestimated the room they'd need. I made a bamboo pole framework, but they need more than a 7 or 8-foot run...I'll know better next year. The Japanese beetles like them a lot, too.

So...I think I've picked crops more wisely this year, and I think I've improved the layout/footprint of the garden a lot. Next year, I'll begin a pre-emptive course of spraying for several pests (fungus and bug). So far, that's been my entire gardening experience - some small triumphs, many lessons/things to try next year, and reversals on previous successes.

Dave

No worries there Martin. I've grown a few tomatoes and peppers, even a squash or two, but on the whole I'm near about useless as a farmer.

I don't so much grow a garden as run a torture center for plants. A place where plant enjoy vibrant early growth that highlight's the later grim end. Once I lay my hands on them they are condemned to stunted growth, extended suffering, and slow death. Those few plants that prosper and bear fruit serve as cruel mockery of the many less fortunate. It seems my grower's thumb is dark as a tomb, cold as death, and always pointing down in condemnation.

On the other hand I have had considerable success helping others grow things. I drove a well that made a dry field fertile. Build raised beds that made waterlogged ground quite productive, and cleared trees. I set up hoops of PVC conduit to carry protection from frost, hail, and birds. I have set up several hydroponic systems. One of which was quite elaborate. As long as I stayed away from the plants themselves the gardens thrived.

I've gotten four zucchini so far; 11oz, 12oz, 13oz, 16oz off the one plant we put down.

Lost one of our 6 tomato plants to the lousy early summer weather, replaced it and that one isn't doing much better either. The others are doing very well.

These plants are giving me satisfaction that my job hasn't given me in a long while!

like most,i have a "fun" garden.just a tomato patch and a few other easy things..if they grow..but if you were planting so you could winter over on what you planted--not you, Art in FL or other Southern types--what would you plant?..cabbage,string beans,potatoes,tomatoes,i'm thinking more bulk and keeping qualities than taste.

/\ I have no idea.

It's true though, it's a fun garden not one designed to keep me alive. I'd like to do more next year, we have the space and we get great sun exposure.

My father grew potatoes for several years when we were small and I'm sure that was not just for fun either.

Art, you have what is commonly known as Black Thumb Syndrome. Some people have overcome it (with strict training), but most back off and use it as an excuse not to do any weeding. Proximity, you know.

Sue

Dave T,

'Salade mesclun' just means 'mixed salad', usually harvested when small. Collect the seeds of varieties you like, mix them together and sow. Arugula would gag a goat.

Try winter sowing your herbs: put in containers with drainage in late November or December, and leave them out in the weather all winter (out of reach of slugs). They will sprout when it's time.
(for more on winter sowing, see Winter Sowing.

To help resist tomato blight, plant far enough apart for good all-around air circulation, and prune off all stems within 12" of the ground. Mulch with straw, hay, leaves or weeds to prevent soil splashing onto the leaves.

Insecticides are less useful every year, as the bugs quickly develop resistance. Use organic fertilizer (look for OMRI on label), it's more complete with 16 nutrients and trace minerals, most chemical fertilizers just provide three (NPK). Healthy plants resist disease and pests better than struggling plants.

Consider chickens, they love Japanese beetles.

Sue

Thanks for the tips Susan...imagining how far to space out my plants has been an ongoing challenge - when you've got a 2-inch-tall sprout you're transplanting, I find the picture in my head of how big it will get and how much space it will need doesn't match up with how big it eventually gets. A couple of my tomato plants are crossing limbs, and I think that's adding to the problems of a fairly high rainfall this year and blight.

I knew that that mesclun would provide a mix - and that was the surprise -that what matured was almost exclusively arugala. When I put it in, there were 5 or 6 different-looking seeds...but the results didn't reflect that.

I'll be sure to mulch the tomatoes early with hay mulch next year, and prune the lower branches off...another thing I read is that bee balm is a good companion to plant with them, so I took some out of my flower beds and put 2-3 small ones in each row of tomatoes...of course, they were small ones and while most of my bee balm was done blooming in June, I've just now seen the first one breaking out into bloom in the vegetable garden...so perhaps next year the timing will work out better.

Another thing that I've been working with and modifying is using the anti-weed roll-out fabric. Last year I used some around my plants - patches of it, and I cut a hole into the fabric for each individual plant.

This year I much more carefully rolled out rows of the fabric and made a pair of slits almost the length of the row (using 3-foot-wide fabric)then made a cross-cut that overlapped the long row cut by about 2 inches in either direction (like a very long, skinny capital I). Then I tuck the flaps back under the fabric, and have a narrow row of exposed dirt for planting either my started seeds or seeds directly into the row - very little exposure of bare dirt, makes it very easy to weed.

However - weeds still grow in the "footpaths" I had between the fabric rows. Sometimes I'm really on top of it and the garden's gorgeous and looks manicured and well-planned, sometimes the weeds get ahead of me and it's pretty ugly...then I do another session of heavy-duty weeding to get back to bare dirt.

I've decided that for next year, I'm stocking up big-time on the weed fabric. I'm going to remove the fabric rows I have now to put down compost and rototill, then I'm going to put down a solid floor of the anti-weed fabric, and just have my row slits to plant - and then I'll have very little weeding to do at all (I don't kid myself that the fabric means "no weeds" - but it will hinder them to the point that it will make a very small work load). Plus, a solid layer of that fabric will keep moisture in the ground, and should help control the dirt splash-up during a rain that helps spread blight. This is another one of those "sounds good in theory to me" plans that we'll see how it works when I actually try it. Like I said, so far every year with a garden has been a "rebuilding year."

Any thoughts on what's going on with this yellowing of the leaves ?

Tomatoes are in raised beds, good soil, excellent sun exposure and get enough water.

Doesn't really seem to be stopping the growth of the plant(s) although I haven't had anything ripen yet.

MarkO, are you feeding them with a chemical fertilizer? If you feed too near the roots, you can get leaf tip burn. If you're getting a lot of lush, green growth and no fruits, you may have overfed them.

Overwatering might cause it, too.

Sue