Today’s post is all about WHAT WENT WRONG in our summer garden. I have loved sharing pretty images of what’s growing, our daily harvests (here on Instagram), and beautiful blooms. But I felt it’s so important for me to share that there was a lot of work and trial and error that went into this summer’s garden planting! We had unexpected problems that came along which lead to a lot of frustration, researching, and learning. I can’t wait to share these lessons with you in hopes to encourage you if your garden is struggling. I also want to show that behind every picture-perfect garden is a work-in-progress!
Without further adieu, here is a list of what went wrong, how I fixed it, what’s still puzzling me, and what I learned to do different next year!
Summer Garden: What Went Wrong
This was our first year planting bell peppers in the garden. I made sure to give them a nice sunny area to grow. One day I went out to the garden and noticed all of the leaves on the peppers had small green bugs on them and eggs all over the backs of the leaves. It was interesting because the vegetables in the surrounding beds were fine, but the peppers were fully covered.
After doing a little research, I learned my issue was aphids. I’d never had them in our garden before. The problem was that not only were the aphids taking over the plants, they were also attracting ants. Aphids leave behind a sort of sticky sap on plants that ants love. Ants started destroying whole plants in 24 hours by eating through the stems. I knew I needed to take quick action!
I do not like to use chemicals in my garden (especially with veggies we’re going to be eating!) so I knew I wanted to get results using something as safe as possible. I learned that lady bugs eat aphids and that I could actually order them on amazon! Isn’t that amazing? I quickly ordered 3 packs of ladybugs and in no time we had them in our garden to release.
Ladybug Release:
Opening the ladybug packs was SO much fun! I made a little video on Instagram HERE.
It was a truly incredible experience for the kids and I to watch. We learned that the ladybugs will fly if you release them in full sun or wind. Luckily when they arrived it had just rained and was overcast. The perfect circumstances for release!
We cut the bag open and let the ladybugs out. They immediately crawled to the plants and started cleaning the aphids up! I could not believe my eyes when within 48 hours the plants were COMPLETELY CLEAR AND CLEAN! I was so excited to also see that once the aphids were gone, the ants seem to slowly disappear as well. I am so thankful to have a solution for next time if we have to deal with aphids again! The ladybugs were an amazing natural fix. They will not eat plants or harm them.
Thanks to our ladybugs, look at our peppers now! I counted 13 peppers on one plant today!
Where are the cosmos?
I planted a whole bed of cosmos this year! I was really looking forward to seeing pops of purple, pink and white in the garden. I don’t know what happened and it’s still puzzling me! I haven’t had a single bloom or even bud on one plant.
Shop my favorite raised beds
After doing a bit of searching, I found that sometimes cosmos won’t bloom if they have had too much nitrogen fertilizer or too much water without well-draining soil. While I do not think this is the issue with mine, I did originally plan for tomatoes in this bed and used an organic fertilizer specific for tomatoes. It’s confusing though, since I did plant a few seeds in other beds and none of them have buds, either.
The only other issue suggested is that the plants need full sun, no shade. My cosmos do have full sun, which make it extra confusing. Have you ever had this problem?
Summer Garden: What Went Wrong with the strawberries
Last year I planted 9 Ruby-Ann strawberries. I knew I wanted ever bearing and the gal at the local nursery told me they’d do great here! I carefully trimmed all the shooters and plucked all of the blooms the first year. I really hoped that would help us get a great harvest of strawberries this summer.
To my disappointment, the plants slowly dried and started to die off this summer. I did my own research this time and discovered that Fort Laramie does really well in my region. I was able to find some bare root plants on amazon and immediately got them in the ground upon arrival.
They seem to really be taking off which makes me so happy and gives me hope that we can try this again next year! Note to self: Don’t always trust employees at a nursery before doing your own homework 🙂
Summer Garden: What Went Wrong with the cucumbers
Last summer we had such an abundance of cucumbers! I was thrilled one day when I had baskets and baskets in our refrigerator to share with family and neighbors. My kids and I love the Marketmore climbing variety.
This spring we had unseasonably cold weather. The wind blew so hard and the soil stayed so cold that many of my seeds did not germinate. I had to re-plant several times after the seeds molded in the ground.
It is now August and we should have a trellis full of climbing cucs. Instead, we are just this week seeing our very first little cucumber. The seeds not only struggled to germinate, but the plants were stunted in growth until now! They are just barely taking off on the trellis and flowering.
Mint and herbs
Early this spring the weeds really started around the perimeter of our yard. This was before I planted the garden, but I did have a couple of pots of perennial herbs in front of the greenhouse. We had sprayed some round-up around the house, and because nothing was green in the garden yet I didn’t even think to cover my herb pots!
Come mid-May this pot should’ve been totally full of green mint and the smaller pot next to it full of sage. They come back every year, so I knew it must have been a little drift from the round-up spray. Lesson learned! Next year I’ll be more careful to cover any perennials or put the pots in the greenhouse,
Romaine Lettuce
Last of all, I wanted to share the mistake I made with my romaine lettuce. This was my first year ever planting it, and it was so easy to grow! The problem is that I didn’t harvest the leaves until after it started shooting (I planned to just harvest a whole head at a time). It happened so quickly that the leaves had shot and the harvested lettuce was slightly bitter when we finally ate it. Bitterness can also happen if your soil is lacking in nutrients like nitrogen or even sometimes when the soil has been over-fed!
Next year I will definitely harvest the leaves sooner so I can enjoy salads longer and hopefully with sweet lettuce sans bitterness!
I hope this post encourages you to keep trying if you have had some garden fails yourself this year. Seeing some of your hard work be unsuccessful is really disheartening. Don’t let discouragement stop you from learning and trying. I researched the problems we had so I could hopefully learn from them and do better next year.
I often get asked how I learned to grow and care for a large garden. I always remind people that it started with one small pot of herbs on my porch!
Gardening brings such joy to my heart and such calming therapy to my mind. If you’re interested in more garden posts, I think you’ll love these articles!