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Regarding vegetable gardens:
Does anyone get the impression that pests/fungus/plant diseases have increased in recent years..? I feel like it's gotten more & more difficult to have a successful vegetable garden.. to the point of being almost impossible. The more work and money I put into it, the less results I'm seeing. It seems that diseases (& pests to some degree) have gotten more aggressive and difficult to eradicate.
I've noticed this change whether it's been several years at the same house, or different gardens at several locations. And even when I use all the conventional remedies (as instructed by garden stores) it seems to have no effect at all. ZERO. Just turns out to be a huge waste of money.
I always heard about people who could grow so much zucchini they had to force it on their neighbors- ha- seems like a great problem to have! I can't get a zucchini to save my life. well maybe one- before the whole plant dies. If the squash vine borers don't get them all- powdery mildew will. Tried spraying copper all over the plants diligently- NOTHING.
And they say to not water from overhead as it encourages mildew- well doesn't rain come from overhead? And didn't people water with a hose for generations?
You always hear stories about people's Grandparents and Aunts & Uncles who had an amazing veg garden, grew so many monster tomatoes and zucchinis they had to give em away... but no matter how hard I work, how much soil I compost &/or buy, and regardless of whether I've used organic or conventional methods; no matter how many different stores I've bough plants from (big box or mom & pop)- OR grew stuff form seed- every year it gets more difficult, and the success rate gets smaller and smaller. It just seems like years ago, it was so much easier! Even when I started gardening it was much easier. So I guess I'm referring to not only a major change since a couple generations ago, but even moreso since 10-15 yrs ago. (Or is it just my bad luck....??)
It just seems like in the 'old days' all you had to do was sow your seeds in some good soil, keep an eye on them and you'd have a major bounty & could have your victory garden- enough to feed your family, plenty to can and so on. They didn't have all these expensive pesticides/ fungicides back then.. correct? I don't recall hearing old folks talk about how they struggled and battled plant diseases and were lucky to get a handful or 2 of tomatoes out of a huge garden. I mean if there was a major drought or it was a 'bad year' weather wise, that's different. but I'm talking about a steady and noticeable decline.
(And add to this recent invasions of exotic pests, like stink bugs, etc..)
I've even talked to some older gardeners who basically said 'Yeah.. something's different now. I don't know if it's when scientists started messing with seed genetics, or started using stronger pesticides/ fungicides, the weather changing, or what.. but it's definitely getting harder I haven't had much luck in recent years either..."
I'm also confused about crop rotation is small backyard gardens. Didn't millions of people have backyard gardens, victory gardens, small farms, etc. in the same spot, throughout history? I had an Aunt who had a nice little garden in her backyard and it was always there.. she never moved it around to different locations. How are people supposed to do that, if they only have one area in their yard, that is suitable?? So, does this mean that you can really only use the same space for a few years and then you have to give up your garden, unless you have another suitable spot..? I'm not just talking about the soil being depleted of nutrients, because you can add a lot of that back in... but also the soil being contaminated with disease/ fungus/ nematodes/ etc. Does it get to the point where the soil gets so contaminated that there's nothing you can do to fix it? If so, how long before it repairs itself..?
So many questions...!
Just wondering how on earth humans have managed to survive this long, if having a successful garden was this impossible throughout history.. (which is part of why I'm convinced, it wasn't!)
I haven't had the same level of success over the past 10 years or so but figured it was because I'm getting dumber, good to know I'm not the only one especially if we're getting graded on a curve.
The idea of crop rotation has been around for a while now. Certainly not every home gardener does it. The only thing I do is alternate years for growing brassicas because I've found that the imported cabbage worms multiply and come back hungrier if they have access to them for two years in a row. Even a long growing season increases the worms and by the end I have Swiss Chard that looks like Swiss Cheese.
I haven't been gardening in this spot for too many years but the weather has been so odd for the last few years. 2 years ago I trepidatiously planted a few tomato plants expecting failure and also had some squash and peppers. Everything failed except the tomatoes which produced so much we couldn't go through them. Then this past year I planted a dozen tomato plants and they all failed but the few peppers I planted just to see if I'd have better success took off like mad. We had more peppers than we could manage. Now this year it's just early February and I have daisy greens growing and four o clocks peeking through the dirt. The lawn is getting green. It's around 2 months early for any of this. It's just confounding!
It comes and goes. Even in my recent gardening memory, there were years when neighbors were foisting their baseball bat-sized zucchini on me, and years when they had none.
Two years ago we had a bounty crop of beans. Last year, a handful. This year we had so many peppers we were the ones getting rid of them.
Don't be fooled into thinking yesteryear was a paradise. The same holds true for gardeners of any previous generations....Irish Potato Famine, anyone?
IDK....my dad used to put a lot of really toxic stuff on the garden that is now outlawed. So maybe some of that stuff worked better in some ways but of course was poisoning us in others.
I also wonder about the decline in use of manure for gardening. People used to put all kinds of animal poop and fish offal on their gardens. I've never tried that (seems strange to buy poop in a bag from the garden store).
My shrimp supplier (the guy in the pick up truck at the side of the road) says he puts the heads of the shrimp in his garden and wonders why I don't want to do that myself. I assume every cat and raccoon in town would be digging in there every night.
I guess if I ever want to garden again I need a big outdoor dog for the raccoons and some chickens to make manure.
I'm currently living in deep shade so I've given up on gardening for now.
You need to find what works with your area instead of fighting it. I have nasty fungus infestation so growing cucumbers in any quanity is impossible (without spraying). On the other hand I can just throw seeds of winter radishes, turnips, mustard greens, selected tomatoes on the grass (not tilled garden beds), forget about them and have plenty to eat. As for tomatoes, there are multitude of varieties, some will grow like weeds and reseed year after year and some will not produce. It is all a matter of trying and observing.
Yeah, since I seems to be the only gardener within 5 miles either way at the very least (Amish area!) I live in the pest free paradise for many staple crops like potatoes, no bugs, no fungus, no diseases. Unfortunately some native fungus is not kind to my cucumbers.
I am giving it up, but I blame it on the south being too hot, and my neighbor's tree throwing shade on my bed. I will concentrate on herbs, but that's it. I waste a fortune every year on amending the soil and trying everything, and nothing works.
I think there are fewer pollinator insects around these days. I use manure and no chemicals which seems to help attract pollinators to the garden. I also plant marigolds around the vegetable garden which helps discourage cutworms. Red pepper helps keep the squirrels out, but I have to keep applying it and get tired of smelling it!
Lettuce...beautiful heads, spinach...lush, zucchini, nice plants coming along, tomatoes....ready to bloom, melons, squash--all doing well. And then the deer come along and everything gets eaten down to the ground in one night!
Radishes. Fine. Peppers good too. Eggplants...after the bugs get done turning the leaves into lace....seem to do well late in the season.
So this year, they get garlic, onions, radishes, peppers and eggplants. Tired of throwing money down the drain for things I can buy at one tenth of the price.
Therapy and joy of working in the garden only goes so far, and I have reached the end of that rope.
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