Heatingman 971 #1 Posted July 4, 2022 Im pretty into gardening. Primarily for the joy of working with soil and seeing the effects of my efforts. First gardening year at this home. Its been a trial for sure. Last place it was pretty easy. Turn and till the soil - typically by hand, sow some seed in the spring, and nature would do the rest other then weeding. This year, Ive made probably 8 raised beds, plus the reworking of all the mulch beds around the house and trees that are more for the landscape astetics. Planted several apple trees, berry bushes for future perennial produce. I would have thought this location to be better for the garden as its less densely populated by houses. Unincorporated and much more spread out. Boy was I wrong. I feel like nature is working against me here. If I were dependent on the production crops, family would starve. Any plant that does survive the predations of the bugs, gets wiped out by the wildlife. I have had no less then 30 Sunflowers completely ripped from the ground, same for corn. Something about the seedlings must be very sweet. 15 or so pumpkin, watermelon, and any similar plant has been ravaged by pill bugs. I had 3 survivors that had gotten big enough to build a trellis for. I was very much so looking forward to watching its progress. Then I came home to this: 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heatingman 971 #2 Posted July 4, 2022 Best I can tell, the leaves were eaten clean off by a ground hog, and the hole in the ground is from a squirrel. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heatingman 971 #3 Posted July 4, 2022 Too late to start from seed, so I found a local girl that was selling starts to raise money for her 4H involvement. So I bought several plants Saturday, but cant figure out why they are turning yellow. Deficiency of something. Maybe transplant stress. But figured they would be safest in a pot for now till I can build a fence of sorts to keep the groundhogs from them when the leaves are ripe. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pfrederi 17,627 #4 Posted July 4, 2022 Add some ironite (an iron/mineral supplement) https://www.pennington.com/all-products/fertilizer/ironite-mineral-supplement-1-0-1-by-pennington Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Achto 27,481 #5 Posted July 4, 2022 Fencing out the larger critters and spraying for the bugs will cure one problem. As for soil conditions - Getting a soil sample tested is the only way to really know what you need to change or add. Your county extension office should be able to test your soil or at least they can give you info on where to have it tested. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heatingman 971 #6 Posted July 4, 2022 Its currently in a raised bed potting mix, with a little compost from the bin. everything in the ground seems to do just fine other then the wildlife and bug pressure. Finally getting some rain today. Hopefully that helps them out. Plants just seem to respond better to rain water then any other source. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jeff-C175 7,199 #7 Posted July 4, 2022 Welcome to the 'country' ! ( believe it or not, NJ has non-suburban 'country'! ) ANYthing we want to grow around here needs an 8' fence around it to keep out the deer, and to keep out the groundhogs, rabbits, etc, we need small mesh fences up about 2' or so. Why don't they eat the damn weeds? !!! 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Achto 27,481 #8 Posted July 4, 2022 40 minutes ago, Jeff-C175 said: Why don't they eat the damn weeds? !!! RIGHT!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
