Seedlings - Slow growth

[OmahaJB]

July 19th update:

Since I see people are viewing this thread, I'll continue updating every week or so. This started out as me just wanting to vent my frustrations on my diseased seedlings that I had taken the time and care to start from seed. It's turned into a garden diary of what has gone (mostly) right so far. As you can imagine it's much more enjoyable to focus on the successes!

Left work early yesterday as my work on the job was completed, and I really wanted to do my shopping for the week (always on Fridays after work to beat the Saturday madness), then tend the garden and cut the grass a day earlier than planned. I did all that and can focus this weekend on taking care of things at my apartment the next 2 days and also relax, which is needed right now! I've been getting a little stressed with my work situation and the gardening is the flip side of that - enjoyable and satisying, but I also need time at home to re-energize myself this weekend.
Seems I'm hijacking my own thread, hah.

Potatoes - They did not like the heat this week. We've only had two stretches of a few days each this summer that have been in the high 80's to lower-90's. So far we've been pretty cool. On July 4th we were forecast to have high 70's for highs (Global cooling?). There's also been a lot of rainfall. This week it was hot & dry, and the potato plants had most of their blossoms die off and the leaves were wilting and curling a bit. They were watered a couple of times at least, so I know they had enough water. The only other explanation would be if the plants are starting to die off already which I highly doubt. Most of the flowers only opened a week to a week and a half ago. Maybe that's normal, but I think it's the heat. It should only be a few weeks before I'm able to start harvesting so I'm not too worried. The plants should be fine.

Big Bertha - I'm starting with my negatives today which probably reflects my mood this past week, unfortunately. If I get anything from this plant I'll be surprised. I've seen flowers open but no peppers yet. The plant also did not like the heat. I really needed to get a pepper plant in much earlier than I did this one. Plus, it has the WORST spot in the garden.

Tomatoes - I have tomatoes growing on each variety, although one each of the Better Boy & 1884 has not started growing any yet. Just flowers on those two so far. Big Beef has at least 3 starting out, Better Boy 2, 1884 one I believe, & Black Cherry has 15!!! Read Burpee's blurbs on Big Beef & Better Boy, and was happy to see they both have great disease resistance.
So far no real problems in that regard. All of those plants are only around 3' tall or shorter. The late start definitely hurt in that regard.

As for the 'stumps', the last 2 that I planted (Aker's WV & Red Rocket), definitely will not do anything. And I knew they wouldn't, it was just an experiment to see if I could get surprising results. With those two I wont. With the other 3 'stumps' I think there's a SMALL chance that I will. Mammoth German Gold still looks good but did not have much vegetative growth since last weekend, possibly because of the heat. It's done better than Czech's Bush & Red Rocket that I planted at the same time, but they all look at least decent. Since MGG has a longer DTM I'm less likely to get anything from it, whereas Czech's Bush which has much smaller toms than MGG & Red Rocket which has an earlier DTM have an outside chance of producing ripened fruit. Poor little Czech's Bush was planted between the garlic & Black Cherry due to lack of space and didn't get the sunlight it deserved until I removed the garlic. At the time I didn't expect it to do much anyways so didn't consider it a big deal. Will watch that one as I'm curious as to how it performs. Still only about 6 inches or so tall.

Of the corn & melon seeds I let the niece & nephew plant I see 1 corn and 4 melon plants growing. I'm pretty sure the melons are one of the watermelon varieties and the others are the smaller melons, which included Thayer, Kansas, Collective Farm Woman & Charentais. Obviously they wont grow to maturity but the kids are getting a kick out of watching their seeds grow, from what I've been told.

Next year I'll definitely be getting things planted earlier. The year was filled with hurdles due to lack of space for seedlings under my shoplights, and worst of all, DISEASE! What's aggravating is I don't know if the disease started from containers not being disinfected, the environment here in my apartment (most likely), or from the seeds themselves. Last August I drove approximately 3000 miles in the August heat with the seeds packed in my car with my other belongings minus what was in storage. It's hard for me to believe that disease spores flew into my car window, found the bags the seeds were in, and infected them. That would be one magic disease spore! Nah, it had to be the environment here as the most probable cause, with containers not being disinfected as the next most likey culprit, in my non-scientific opinion. As a former Cryptologist I deal with levels of probability.

Not much else to report, except the rhubarb didn't germinate. I may try to find a place that sells rhubarb plants to see if they have any left. They should still have time to establish themselves and would be larger than anything I'd get from the seeds at this point. Definitely want to work on getting this done. That's the least I could do for my mother who allowed me to use her backyard this year for gardening.

Until next time, you lurkers you....

Jeff