Winning and Losing Plants in the Vegetable Garden

Winning vs. Losing in the Garden

If you've ever heard the saying you win some you lose some that couldn't be any more true when growing in the vegetable garden. When losing plants in the garden it doesn't mean you should give up or quit taking chances when growing plants. Gardening is a variable thing because we have no control over weather temperatures or conditions that may happen throughout the growing season. Sometimes we plant as soon as we think we can plant a certain crop and it can work out wonderful or fail other times in the vegetable garden.

Why Are We Losing Plants?

In the past, we have planted Kentucky Blue Pole Beans around early September to late August to get a headstart on germination before the cool weather comes through. However, this season the weather has not cooperated like normal, and it has turned out hotter than usual. With hotter temperatures, we have experienced a decline in production while also losing plants in the vegetable garden. Our pole beans started off with really good germination, and everything was growing fine until the hot temperatures began to stay around longer than expected. Although a few of the plants thrived a bunch of them look pitiful and have experienced disease pressure problems.

Winning in the Vegetable Garden

Although we may be losing plants we are also winning with a few plants in the garden. On the same day of planting pole beans, we also planted a row of Stonewall Cucumbers. We have gave both crops the same amount of treatment but the cucumbers seem to be thriving better than the pole beans. This variety of cucumbers is gynoecious which means they produce predominantly female flowers. These cucumbers have a few white specks on the leaves that indicate insect issues that will need to be dealt with which whitefly eggs. To help control these insect pressures we will start a spray program using Horticultural Oil for whiteflies and Monterey BT. to take care of pickle worms. By growing on a Hortonova trellis we are able to keep plants off the ground and provide a strong structure to climb. These cucumbers continue to produce and we are excited about getting a bountiful crop this year.