White Leaves on about everything

Finally bought the book and decided to try a box garden this year. Starting to wish I had only done a small sample. Does not look like I am going to get much of anything as of now.

I bought compost since I did not have any. I think I got four different types. Mixed it together with the vermiculite and the peatmoss, all at 1/3rds volume (1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 peatmoss and 1/3 of the combination of the four composts).

Garden seemed to start off okay, but now it is going south. Leaves turning white. Replanted cucumber, they got about 2 inches and just died. Here are some pictures if anyone wants to suggest something. I would appreciate any suggestions.

Been keeping it watered everyday. The book said that you really can't over water. If we did not water, it would really be dry quick.

https://s804.photobucket.com/user/scotgmayo/library/Garden

Thanks.
Scott

Welcome to the SFG Forum!

Oh dear Scott, so sorry. It looks like your peppers have chlorosis typical of a magnesium deficiency. You can look those things up on the internet.
In my opinion, the remedy would be to sprinkle a small handful (1/4 cup) of Epsom salts around the base of each plant and then top dress the whole bed with a good quality compost. then water well.

That's what I would do. Good luck.

Are you working on more sources of different compost to add the the garden after harvest? Mel recommends at least a trowel full to each square, but I think your garden could use more than that.Are you making your own compost?

I will try that and see what happens.  I always have a decent garden, especially peppers and tomatoes.  I always have to fight the squash bugs, but this is a new one on me.  I am about sick.

I was going to try and make my own compost, but I may go back to regular garden next year.  I am not sure I want to take the chance of this happening again.  I just get so busy during corn planting, wheat harvest and bean planting season around here that it is hard to keep the garden clean.  Was looking forward to not having many weeds with the box garden.  I don't have many weeds for sure, but I also don't have any garden.

Thanks for the reply.
Scott

I think part of the problem is you went with fewer than the recommended types of compost when you made your mix. What types of compost did you use in your mix? This may give us some clues.

I could only find four types around here and could not find the fifth.

The funny thing is that I have never been able to raise Dill.  Always had a hard time.  Only thing in the garden that looks good?  My dill!  It looks great.  Not much good since I have no cucumbers to go with it though.

Here are the four composts that I bought at walmart and orcsheln.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Green-Country-Soil-Mushroom-Compost/16782849
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Nurture-Naturally-Garden-Compost-.75CF/16911971
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Green-Country-Soil-Cotton-Burr-Compost/16782851
http://www.orschelnfarmhome.com/garden-manure/ctl16754/cp58311/si5350834/cl1/

If the epson salt does it, maybe I can at least save my watermelons.  I did not post their picture, but they are just now starting to turn a bit yellow/white on a few leaves.  I have always had a good watermelon crop, which is odd considering I live on a hill farm and the ground is a clay type soil.

Scott

Thanks for the list. Ah, dill thrives in nutrient poor soil... go figure. I think your garden needs a bit of a nitrogen boost as well. Can you get a hold of any good old fashioned farmyard compost. You will need that to topdress the garden bed after adding the epsom salts.

Welcome Smayo,
From your first picture it appears there are several small sticks, wood that are not completely composted.  I believe that as they continue to compost, they will pull the nutrients from the soil.  I am not an expert, so this is just my thoughts.
Madge

Scott, the extent of the damage to your plants is stunning. Perhaps a chat with and show your photos to your Extension Service Ag agent would be worth the time.

Personally that looks like a lack of many nutrients, I would purchase some fish fertilizer and feed the plants a diluted feeding to get some nutrients to the roots right away.
My peas in SFG have looked like that before and I just started to use compost tea and load up extra general compost and they came back nice and green.

Smayo,  Don't give up, just re-group.  This is my first year and I started to have the same problem, my plants stopped thriving.

Two-thirds of Mel's Mix is non-nutritious.  Vermiculite and fluffed peat moss make the mix so much fun to work with, drain easily, yet retain moisture.  The remaining 1/3, the compost is the most critical.  That is where first timers can run into trouble.  Since we are new, we don't have a rich pile of compost cooking on the property.  Once-living things slowiy composting, breaking down to release their nutrients, so that the rich organic material can be added to the vermiculite and peat moss mixture and release their nutrients slowly for the plants to use.

What do you do to the soil where your corn and beans grow?  You add fertilizer each rotation.  Maybe some type soil amendment. The roots can grow great distances to find the nutrients the plants need. In SFG, there's limited root space so the mix has to be really nutritious, but not burning.

First emergency move I made was to add a little bit of Miracle Grow even though it would wash on out rather quickly.  Second emergency move was to add non-fat dried milk and epson salts to all tomato plants.  Third, I got on Ebay and ordered kelp meal (has micronutients that plants use in tiny amounts) from Kelp4Less on the East Coast, and 100% worm castings.  I bought a bag of composted steer manure.  It smelled nice compared to raw steer manure.  I fine-screened through 1/4" mesh to make it fine.  Got coffee grinds from Starbucks and fine-screened those.  (The commercial "compost" I started with already had composted wood products!!)  I mixed the 4 ingredients and added one scoup to each square, mixing gently the best I could.  Within days there was a noticeable improvement and it still continues.


Then I found playground bark to use for mulch.

Meanwhile I have started a compost pile with products I could find or make. Still looking for other things.

Large quantities:
Starbuck’s coffee grinds, screened
Half bag of old Kellogg’s red stripe, screened
2 bags composted cow manure, screened

Medium quantity:
Heat treated grass clippings with a few jasmine leaves

Small quantities:
Kitchen scraps (gallon)
Shavings (gallon)
Garden trimmings (gallon)
Worm castings (quart)
Kelp meal (2 cups)
1 cup 16-16-16 fertilizer
3/4 cup ground oyster shell
1/4 cup pulverized egg shells

I started a worm tube.  (Above, search "worm tube")

Please give it another try.  The first year is the learning curve.

Check with your Extension Service to see if there is wilt or blight reported in your area. Those tomato plants look like mine did --and most everyone else's-- a few years back. And yes, see what you can do to boost the nutrition of your Mel's Mix (but I'm sorry, sanderson, MiracleGro, really?!  I'd rather use a naturally occurring amendment, not a man-made chemical.)  The extension service might help with that, as well as soil testing.
Good Luck!

I agree.   The tomatoes look like blight.  Copper fungicide spray might work.  Everything else looks like your compost had no nutrients, and commercial composts are notorious for that.  Fish emulsion, well composted manure, or even a one time emergency dose of miracle-gro should help that.

And there is nothing wrong with having both types of gardens until you get up and running.

Kay

Thanks for all the replies.  Was definitely a nutrient deficiency.  Did the Miracle Gro Plant food for a quick fix and put some fertilizer down.  Everything is greening up and looking much, much better.  getting some peppers and tomatoes after all.

Thanks again.
Scott

Scott,

Sorry you've had so much initial trouble!

I checked out your compost sources. One of them apparently was composed entirely of wood products, which, from the picture, weren't fully composted and thus robbed the plants of nitrogen.

Your mushroom compost's first ingredient was peat moss, which means that your mix contained too much of that ingredient, unless you reduced the amount of peat moss you added separately.

The cotton compost may have been okay. The last compost had unspecified ingredients.

As Mel points out, the cheapest composts tend to contain the least effective ingredients.

Personally, I would not use Miracle-Gro, either. Since you have a clear need to supplement, I'd go with organic fertilizer or fish emulsion, and depending upon the specific deficiencies, possibly the Epsom salt, which is a good source of minerals.

Please don't give up!

Oh, I forgot to post that.  We used the Epson salt also.

Scott

Scott, it sounds like you have a farming operation with corn and wheat. Just wanted to remind you that chopped up corn stalks make a fine start for your compost pile unless they are ROUND-UP sprayed. Add kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, any manures you can find (just keep the manures to about 20% of the total) shrimp shells, fish guts (buried deep), fall leaves and dried grass clippings. I'll bet you even have a tractor that can be used to turn your pile frequently.

Good luck and happy gardening

Kay

Welcome to the forum Scott!  No advice from me this time since you got wonderful advice already!

Don't farm anymore, am just a seed salesman and the network administrator at a local school, just rent the farm out, but I do have access to the stalks and still have a tractor I can turn it with.  Most of the corn anymore around here is RR, but it may not be sprayed with roundup.  Mostly an insurance policy so a neighbor does not kill all your field when burned down.  Even if it was sprayed though, I cannot see that causing any problems for compost.

I need to start doing some reading on composting and get mine going I guess.

Thanks again for the info.

Scott

I don't know that I would want Round-up ready corn in my compost... but that's just me.... Scott let us know what you find out about composting with RR corn.