My garden is stunted. Will Miracle Gro Help?

[Barbee]

Diseases often follow wet weather. Fertilizer will feed your plants but will also feed disease. I would not be too quick to fertilize following a wet period.

[gdaddybill]

More rain in S/C Texas. This is waterlogged!

[MrSalvage]

You guys have certainly got your share down there. My son lives north of Dallas. He says he is done with the rain...

We broke the record here in VA for the most rainfall ever recorded in the month of May. This record goes back to the late 18th century. My Garden was nothing but quicksand. If you stepped in you would sink straight to the bottom.

[Urbanheirlooms]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Be careful what hay you buy two things can happen you will bring in weed seeds Bermuda grass seed grass burr seeds nut grass seeds.

Some hay is just garbage.

Worth

I agree with Worth on this one-I can tell you from experience. I have two garden spots and put down newspapers and straw over the paper in my first spot (very time consuming and a headache). When putting down the newspaper, the wind wanted to blow it away, so as I put it down, I would throw a trowel full of dirt on top of the newspaper to keep it in place until I put the straw down. I does keep the weeds out, but I have plenty of "wheat grass) growing where the dirt was from the seeds of the straw. It really doesn't bother me much as it is away from my tomato plants in the rows.

In my second garden spot (40 x 60') I started to put down the straw and newspapers, but my back went out on me and I had so much to do to get things planted out, that I decided to abort that plan and just till the rows to keep the weeds down. Yesterday, I went out to fill in some plants that the bunnies had messed up and noticed that the garden spot where the straw was in was still plenty wet. The second garden spot where there is dirt, was dried out to the point where I gave them a little drink (soaker hose at the roots).

I had used straw as a mulch in my beds before and it worked well for me as I did not have to water every 3-4 days even in the heat of the summer. You also need to be careful not to put it down too early as it will definitely slow down your soil warming up.

[Urbanheirlooms]

Originally Posted by MrSalvage

Listen we have had a lot of rain here in Virginia for the month of may. We have also been short on sunshine big time. I see where few people are calling this the bathtub effect. So in a nutshell everything has way too much water.

Now we got lucky today and the rain bypassed us. We did get some sunshine. So my question is should I hit the whole garden with MG or should I wait and let it dry out.

They are still calling for more afternoon showers the rest of the week and then a new front is gonna blow in.

Err...

Ty
Bill

I too live in Virginia, but in the southeastern part of the state (zone 7B). We have had plently of rain as well, but not to the point where it has been any issue for me-as a matter of fact, I have loved it. I have not had to water in 3 1/2 weeks. I did plant out early this year with the early warm weather. My plants are thriving in this weather with rain followed by temperatures in the mid 80's.

http://www.tomatoville.com/picture.p...pictureid=2142

MG makes a granular fertilizer which can be sprinkled on top of the soil, so you would not be adding any additional water to it. I do not use fertilizers in my vegetable garden, but have used the granular for my flowers and it works great.

[b54red]

I recommend you see if you can get a big bag of cottonseed meal at a feed store that sells feed to people that raise horses so you can get it at a good price and then work it into the soil near the plants and then water it in well with some Texas Tomato Food. Then mulch the tomatoes with cypress mulch if you can get it at a reasonable price there. Around here it is about 2 bucks a bag and one bag will mulch 3 or 4 plants well. It can be raked up and reused for several years but the smaller stuff in it will break down and add organic mater to your soil. When you prepare your beds next season or even this fall see if you can find fresh mushroom compost from a mushroom grower and add as much as you can reasonably use and at the same time add cottonseed meal and alfalfa pellets. The cottonseed and alfalfa feed worms and attract them the heavy cypress mulch keeps the soil cooler and the moisture level more even so the earthworms will stay in your garden. I have been doing this for years and my earthworm population is huge despite me killing thousands when tilling the beds. Every year I end up with more and my soil texture just gets better and better. Of course I add as much fresh homemade compost as I can make each year.

Bill

[Worth1]

If you cut an earth worm in half the head section lives you dont kill it.
Worth