Monday, June 11, 2012

Out of the Bag

A few days ago I posted about how I was growing all my vine veggies in bags of soil.
I had started planting seeds in them about 4 weeks ago and they had all sprouted quickly.

It looked good and sounded good at the time, but recent developments have shown it not to be a good technique.

A week of rain, an unfortunate snail migration and continual cold temps at night made all my squash, melons, cukes and pumpkins fail to grow or they turned yellow and died.  Even with drainage holes, the bags never drained out and the bottom of the bags never warmed up.

Yesterday when the sun came out I did "veggie rescue" and cut all the bags open and removed the soaking wet clumps of soil and the remaining plants and lined them up at the end of one of my rows.


It was a muddy, cold mess of dirt and rotting roots.



The soil will take a few days of continual sunshine to dry out and hopefully the veggies will look a little better by then.

Sadly, I had used the last of my banana melon, white pumpkin and banana squash seeds in this bag technique and they did not survive.

Live and Learn.



Some of my friends are growing cukes in bags hung from their porches as well as potatoes in buckets, and all seem to be growing nicely.

When the soil warms up I am going to reseed a few regular buttercup squash and call it a done deal.

Anyone have any banana melon or banana squash seed they want to share?

Ever have a garden disaster?
~




5 comments:

  1. I can relate. My squash, pumpkin and cukes did not appear well due I suspect from the cold and rainy weather we have been having. After my hen disaster this afternoon, it was made clear that I will be replanting tomorrow. I hope I can still find white and cinderella pumpkin seeds. Good luck, lets hope the sun continues to shine!

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  2. Aww, that's too bad. I have garden disasters every year. I always have a hard time growing stuff. I guess I never water or fertilize enough.

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  3. My entire small garden, newly made so it didn't yet have good earthworm activity, died after Hurricane Irene, Storm Lee, and another night we got 4" of rain from an unnamed storm.

    It had been planted entirely in sprawly things: cukes, squashes, melon, gourds. They all drowned.

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  4. I just KILLED my bed of beautiful potatos. I baked them with a little too hot compost while hilling. now its back to square one but lesson learned. I actually think it was my bragging about them and God brought me down a knotch! So two lessons learn.

    Your garden is still looking pretty spiffy and with all that good bag soil, I think your little plants will do just fine.

    Sorry no seeds here in No.Cal.

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  5. I wish it would rain here, had a little yesterday but need much more! The ground looks more like August here then early June. Glad you could save some of your veggies.

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