Organic Gardening Fails 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010 14:08I started gardening last year, when we made it a priority to start adding more local and organic foods to our diet. Despite some lousy weather, including snow while I still had green tomatoes on the vine, I had decent success with my first “real” garden. This year, however, things have been off from the very start. At the end of last season, when I should have been doing work clearing out dead plants and planting a cover crop, I managed to land myself on bedrest. The garden sunk into complete disarray, and I really had my work cut out for me when spring arrived.
By the time spring finally got here, our family had grown from three kids to four, and I was in the middle of remembering just how hard it is to do anything at all when you have a newborn. I was woefully late starting my tomatoes and peppers inside, and when I moved them outside to harden off in the sun, an unexpected storm killed them, then blew them away.
A week after Mother’s Day, I managed to get enough weeds pulled to dump some seeds in the ground. I got my watering system fired back up, and crossed my fingers. After a slow start, things were actually looking pretty good, especially my green beans, which were growing to Jack and the Beanstalk proportions in my back yard. Then the bees moved in. They decided to start a new hive within the wall of my raised bed garden, and they were very territorial. I had to let that part of the garden go untended, while we figured out a way to rid ourselves of the bees.
By the time I was safely able to get back out to the garden, two of my biggest cucumber plants were completely infested with aphids. In an effort to spare the rest, I pulled them out, which seems to have done the trick.
Unfortunately, those giant green bean plants bit the dust at the same time. Victims of mosaic virus, they now reside in this heap, waiting to be carried to the trash. 
My onions, which were also growing quite nicely, became the plaything of some nocturnal pest. After several days of finding the plants trampled in the morning, and sometimes pulled up, I pulled the little onions out of the ground so we can at least eat them.
Today I spent some time planting some relatively quick growing veggies like radishes in the areas where plants have been lost. I figure that since those areas are already covered by my drip irrigation, it’s worth a shot. Hopefully it will pay off, but I don’t really have my hopes up at this point.
How are your gardens doing this year? Anyone else hit a patch of bad luck? I hope not!
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