Winter garden

Winter garden is in :) I'm giving sugar snap peas one last shot. I also planted some tomatoes (small plants), lettuce, and green beans. This is a small garden (4 ft. by 8 ft.) so I have to do it on a small scale. I'm vowing to watch carefully for those dastardly spider mites that have killed the pea vines in the past. Hopefully I can stay on top of the rust/blight, too. THat does a number on the beans and tomatoes, and the snails usually go for the lettuce.

I let the garden go empty for one full year in hopes that diseases would lessen. We'll see if it was any help. Can't wait for that first garden ripe tomato. I'll have to call my Dad in WI and let him know--that always gets him! So does calling from the beach in the middle of a blizzard ;P (They have plenty of time to "get us back" when it's 100 degrees in the shade here...) All in good fun.

;-P

Do you eat that ripe tomato while talking to him with the juice running off your chin? Slurp, slurp.......

I'm not QUITE that mean. Heh, heh, heh >;~}

As of two days ago, most of the bean seeds are up, the pea seeds are starting to come up, and a few lettuce seeds are sprouted. I need to go through and thin the bean plants in a few more days and put down Soilguard to help fend off blight and rust. I have a terrible problem with that in my gardens here.

Butterfly gardnr,
Have you tried any fungicides like Captan or Saf-t-green to try to amend your soil?

I use a product called Soilguard from GardensAlive!, which helps against certain fungal problems. The problem is there are SOOOO many fungal diseases all over down here that you can't possibly get rid of them, and this product decreases in effectivity after about 2 months so you have to reapply. If you miss an application, you may loose your crop. I just don't always have as much time as I'd like to garden. My gardens need to be pretty much fuss-free.

Had to replant half of the peas as they didn't come up or something ate them before they emerged. The beans already have a touch of rust on them and the snails are eating the leaves, so I went out this weekend with my fungicide and snail/slug bait. Also had to replant the lettuce. Only a few plants came up. Hopefully the second time is a charm. The tomato plants look great so far. I need to stake them yet, but I have some time to do that. They are still small.

Been spraying with a copper-based fungicide and with soapy water to keep the rust/blight and spidermites away from my crops. Put down Soilguard to help with some soil-borne diseases (like damping off disease and blight) and also Escar-Go! to keep the snails out. So far, so good. There are blossoms on the bean plants and also the tomatoes and they are all looking healthy and green :)