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Welcome to the first Garden Blogger's Death Day for the Spring planting gardening season of 2010!! It's GBDD for April, 2010! This is the day for gardeners who overwater, underwater, maim, prune or otherwise neglect their plants to a state of dismal droopage or untimely death. This is the day for gardeners like me with black thumbs who kill more than they cultivate, for cadmium-green-thumbed gardeners who have a lapse in judgment and commit accidental planticide, and for any poor soul whose plants fall victim to that fickle mother who controls us all - Mother Nature.
I've done quite well with this year's garden, but I always start off cocky and confident and end hungry and shamed. Each planting season I do get better and I find that less plants fall to my black-thumbed wrath each time I start a new garden. But, of course, there are always victims.
Here is my nice little square of 16 carrots - please excuse the ugly weed poking up in the front of the picture. As you can see, I only had three carrots poke through the soil. The other 13 have died a sad little seedy death in my garden. I blame the heat since that's always a safe bet around here.
Now this one I'm mad about. I've tried to grow English Peas a few times now and every time something happens to them when they get about this height. This time it's that huge mound of ants you see at the bottom. They've raised the soil, pushed the plants over to one side and flat-out displaced my peas and overtaken at least a third of this raised bed. I am working on a plan to annihilate the buggers, but I think it's a little late for my peas. RIP English Peas. One day the planets will align correctly and I'll find a way for you to survive in my garden.
This bottom half of a tomato plant falls right into the category of "I know better," which says a lot since I rarely know better when it comes to gardening. I often fly by the seat of my pants so the fact that I screwed up AND I knew better says a lot. This tomato plant was tall and gorgeous and full of wonderful little yellow flowers. I knew I should put a cage on it, but I can procrastinate better than anyone. Then a big storm came through this past weekend and the plant fell over and broke in half. Well isn't that special? I put a cage on it and noticed that I have a little growth out of the top of the main stem, so hopefully all is not lost.
Overall this was a nice quiet first Death Day of 2010 for me! I have something eating my eggplant, strange white spots on my spinach, a prematurely flowering broccoli and sickly parsnips, so I fear that May's Death Day might be chock full of crime scene photos if I don't get my act together this month.
So how about all of you? What fell victim to your gardening wrath this month? Feel free to leave a comment with a link to your blog showing what you killed or maimed this month. We're here for you. Let's not judge, but support each other like a good pair of pantyhose or a well-staked garden trellis.
10 comments:
Count me in for the same results on my carrots!!
Strange white spots on your spinach....look on the bottom sides of some leaves and see if you can find a few little tiny white eggs, 'cause it sounds like you have leaf miners. If you see eggs, rub them off with your fingers (be gentle). You can still eat the spinach, just tear off the affected parts as you clean it. My spring spinach and beet greens are always damaged, the fall crops are fine.
I can't do peas, either. I'm headed to post my GBDD, finally!
I've lost a couple more tomato seedlings....I really got them off to a poor start anyway. My carrots, beets, and chard were dug up by stray cats when they decided they found a new litter box. I couldn't bring myself to replant in those areas...yuck! My netting is now in place!
GBDD sounds like my kind of thing. I've never ever been tempted to post anything on the Garden Bloggers Bloom Day-- the 15th of each month I think? But I'll be back in May to participate in this celebration of reality.
I'm with yah on the English Peas. They're such finicky little suckers!!
My best pepper plant met the same fate as your tomato. I did it, though. Dropped the shop light onto it. I was lucky that was the only casualty. At least yours will still grow.
If it helps, my mum with her peas always chits them in a pot thing on the windowsill, then plants them in toilet roll tubes filled with soil and keeps them in a container inside/in the greenhouse till they're quite well developped then plants them outside. You don't have to worry about the tubes because they're biodegradable. -alternatively you can make tubes out of rolled up newspaper.
This might help, although we do live in england so that might make things easier... I wouldn't know, i do the flowers :P
Carrots -- they're hard. They're so picky about germination.
I can't get the indigo to sprout to save my life. I'm going to try once more, and then throw my hands up in despair.
Good luck with that tomato!
We just had a freak snow storm on May 8th - 3 inches - garden plants wiped out!
Third year in a row we have to replant.
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