Slow growth, yellow leaves

Menditha wrote:dastrong, I am also from the Houston area and suffering mainly problems with my cucumbers and peppers. I need to pick up some better compost while my homemade stuff "cooks." Where did you find the worm castings?

buttaflie143 wrote:Me too. I just went through this. I am using liquid MG to give my plants a nitrogen boost and I added fertilizer to all the boxes. My new plan is to visit as many local organic gardening stores as I can and ask the patrons what they use and how they like it. My plan is to be a more informed consumer. Hopefully, next year I will only need 4 composts because I am actively working on my own. However, one thing I have learned is that even home-grown compost can lack nitro, as it is the easiest nutrient to lose during the composting process. Go figure.

Miss M wrote:
I used the cotton burr compost, too, to round out my five composts. I thought at the time that it probably wasn't much better than filler, being made of cotton burrs. I was wrong. Apparently, it rivals or even surpasses manure composts in nutrient value, and it accepts water and retains it, acting almost like a peat moss with nutritional value.

dastrong wrote:Hello,
This is my first attempt at SFG and having poor results.
I built 2x8 cedar boxes with bottoms and have them raised off the ground.
I made up the Mels mix by the book and planted some tomatoes, squash, beans, etc. All of the plants leaves are more yellowish in color and are growing very slowly. My neighbor planted tomato plants a week after I did in a traditional row garden and his plants have grown at least 12" to 18" inches and are a nice green color.
I first thought I was over watering and cut down on the water, but it didn't seem to help. I use an automatic watering system for 5 mins per day - early morning. The boxes seem to drain well.
Any ideas of where I've screwed up???
Thanks,
Dale