Yellow Squash Leaves

This is my first year gardening in this location.  As previously mentioned, I had to build raised beds because the soil here is red clay.  I filled the beds with a load of mediocre quality sandy soil and bags of cheap compost from Lowes.  This is all that I could afford to do this year.  Each bed is 12″ high.  I left about 3 to 4 inches of each bed empty so that I can add bags of compost – and compost if I can get a hold of some) this fall and next spring.

I have to wonder if the poor quality of soil is causing my problems with light and yellowing leaves.  Perhaps the soil is too sandy to hold nutrients?  Or perhaps the soil in the pepper bed is too moist? But I don’t think so.

I went ahead and fertilized with full strength Miracle Grow Vegetable fertilizer.  I also added  blood meal for nitrogen.  I don’t feel that I have anything to loose – it is mid season and I feel my garden is floundering.  I am used to gardening in very fertile/organic soil.  My last garden had soil that we had been improving for 20 years.  I suppose that it will take a number of years to get this soil to where I want it.

The older leaves are terribly yellow.  The newer growth looks like it may be better.  I’m really concerned.  The plants do have plenty of buds.

This is not typical yellowing of older, dying leaves.  The entire plants are a bit too light green.  I am particularly concerned about my pepper plants.  They are also lighter than they should  be.

Over-View of the Garden

This pic is from early May, when I finally got my raised beds built. I had to build them myself – quite a job for an old gal like myself!  You can see in the beds near the bottom of the pic that I had already planted my heirloom peppers that I start from seed each spring.  I put wood chips and mulch in the walkway between the beds  – it covers the red clay.  The beds were filled with a load of mediocre quality top soil mixed with 18 bags – added to each bed – of cheap Lowes compost and soil.  Each spring I plan to add at least 6 or so bags of quality compost to the beds until I can build the soil up.  If I am lucky, maybe I can get a load of rabbit poop like I did several years ago.  That was wonderful stuff.

This picture was taken June 20, perhaps 5 to 6 weeks after the above picture.  The pepper plants have grown in size, but are not as full as I would like.  I need to remember that I am not growing in the rich composted soil of my old garden plot.  I had been building that soil for 20 years.

Note the thick layer of leaves for mulch in the beds.  The sand would dry up in a day and crust over with out mulch.  I also like the weed repellant quality of mulch.

Still so much work to do.  The garden is on a slope and thus I have to work on the run off problem I am having after deluges.

Seedlings on the west wall shelf.  These are mostly pepper plants and basil.  I started 72 basil plants this season because I plan on making my own pesto.  I am just planting the basil here and there in the garden, where ever I find some room.

These pics are actually about 3 weeks old by now.  I plan to get updates next week – things are growing so fast now that the temps have warmed up.

Some more peppers and tomatoes.

These are tarragon and sage seedlings.

These are basil seedlings in their starter tray.  I planted the entire tray – all 72 cells – with basil.  The larger, faster growing seedlings have already been transplanted to pots or to the outside garden.

Spinach

I planted spinach over a month ago, some 2 months ago. We have had some very cold days, but I really expected my spinach to be further along. For the first almost month after sprouting, the plants barely hung on. Within the past few weeks I can see them visibly growing larger.

This tiny spinach plant has to be at least 6 weeks old. I don’t think I noted the plant date in my garden notebook. (I really need to keep better records.)

These little guys (or girls) are all over the rows where I seeded them. As spring gets nearer, they should grow faster. I need to get busy planting more seeds in the next few weeks. I will have to plant them in between where I think I will be setting pepper and squash plants.