I drenched the soil with a strong hydrogen peroxide/water solution. That should kill any nasties lurking there. At least I hope. Plus, the other plant in the same earthbox still looks great. I checked with the Extension office and since the other plant is not showing any signs of problems, he thought I should be OK, but suggested the hydrogen peroxide as a precaution. I did notice yesterday when I was out looking for a new plant, that all the Big Boy's had been pulled (or maybe sold) from all the stores. Makes me sort of wonder if they discovered a problem with the stock. That was one of the more plentiful plants when I purchased the first batch. Hard to believe every one sold out at all 4 stores, but who knows. I should know in a few days if there's a problem with the soil in that EB. It was only 3 or 4 days after planting that Big Boy that it died.

Hope your tomatoes are growing, Mary. I just happened to shoot a picture of this cluster of peppers that are on a plant in one of my Earth Boxes. It survived the summer and now is setting fruit like crazy. It was shaded by a big plant in a pot, and that got moved a couple of weeks ago, so I guess it was asking for "More Sun!".

Looking good, Elaine. I removed the summer peppers from my earthbox and started a different one with fall peppers. so far, so good for them.

Thanks for inquiring, and yes, the tomatoes are looking good. I saved 4 of the best looking open pollinated/heirloom plants that I had started. They recovered from whatever it was they had (heavy spraying with hydrogen peroxide/water). So, those 4 plus the 4 hybrids I bought should give me at least a few tomatoes to try.

Zucchini plants are up, green beans are up and I planted cucumbers last week. that only leaves the broccoli and cabbage plants to get into an earthbox once they're big enough.

New herbs started last week as well. I found a source for some onion sets (or maybe you call them 'bulbs') so I'll get those early next month and have some green onions again. Then time to start the lettuce and radishes. It seems strange reading other forums and people are winding down their gardens and we're just getting started here.

p1mkw said: It seems strange reading other forums and people are winding down their gardens and we're just getting started here.

I have to comment... I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this thread since it started. And now it does seem strange to hear y'all getting started in the garden. I am wistfully reading now as the summer is winding down for me. Wishing all of you well in the 'garden' this winter.

I agree, Kristi!

I am so glad I started this thread as I have finally gotten some answers as to why I've been so unsuccessful growing edible plants.

I had to go grocery shopping last night but had to stop at Home Depot first. I really wanted to go to the garden center and check out the tomato plants, but I didn't want to leave any I bought in the car while I did my grocery shopping at another store. I will be making a trip over there this week though. I am rather excited about getting some tasty tomatoes.

I had also bought some sweet peppers at the grocery store last week (first time ever). Unfortunately, I forgot about them and they were starting to turn when I realized they were in my veggie bin (refrigerator). A couple of them were still good, so I washed them off and took a bite! Yummy! I saw that they had seeds, so I collected quite a few seeds with some rind to help them grow and will be sowing a bunch of those seeds. I then chopped all the sweet peppers up and put them in my bullet blender with some banana peels, blended them up with a little spinach and poured the contents into some sandwich baggies. I freeze the bags. Then defrost them (as needed) to feed to my worms in my worm bin. I have a thriving worm population in my worm bin and they can break down a large amount of waste in the bin within a month now. I just harvested almost 5 gallons of worm compost (castings) and will be using it in my new raised bed. (Though that new bed is not for veggies, but for daylilies! )

I am trying to garden as organically as possible. I love my red wigglers worms! I have noticed when I amend my beds, I am now finding lots of earthworms in the soil. That is a drastic change from 5-6 years ago when I never saw even 1 earth worm in my garden beds. So the amending is working .... however slowly. But the nematodes are still a big issue.

I wished I had a list of edibles that nematodes do not attack.

I made some self-watering buckets a few years ago and am going to use those for growing some veggies in.

Yes, thank you, Becky for starting this. It has been a tremendous help to me. I was about ready to throw in the towel with my 'garden', especially the tomatoes. Of course, I still have a ways to go to get one of those delicious little red things on my plate Good luck with the peppers you're trying to start.

I made up several self-watering buckets in the past too. I found them to be as successful as the earthboxes. Here in Florida, I'm only using the earthboxes. I just don't have room for any buckets, plus I doubt the park manager would appreciate buckets sitting around.

Thanks for the good wishes, Kristi. We'll be envying you next spring/summer as you get ready to start your garden again. I suppose it doesn't matter where we live, there are challenges to gardening for a variety of reasons. Are you able to grow anything in the fall? When I was in Indiana, I used to grow cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli in the fall. I'd start the plants in late August. Even an early frost didn't bother them. In fact, I think they all did better in the fall than the spring plantings.

Yes, Mary K. Winter crops here are carrots, radishes, kale, chard, lettuce and other greens as well. I have romaine lettuce started but it is still too hot and dry to plant in a raised bed. Also lots of herbs like our winter. I always grow cilantro and chervil.

I think part of my fascination with this thread is recalling the struggle I had after moving from Minnesota to Texas and trying to garden as I did back home. I do admire how hard all of you work to grow vegetables. Sadly, I ate my last fresh tomatoes over the weekend. I hate store bought tomatoes. Best wishes with your gardening endeavors... Kristi

Finally the winter garden is underway ... so far, so good









The cabbage/broccoli seedlings are growing oh, so slowly. They didn't appreciate the direct sun light and once I moved them back to a shaded area, they're much happier. Green bean germination wasn't as good as it should have been, so I had to make a later planting in some of the holes in the earthbox. I'm sure they'll catch up. Herbs are growing slowly too ... probably should have waited until it was a bit cooler to start them.

Everything looks like it's coming right along, Mary. Good growing. I have a suggestion for the two smaller tomatoes, as they look like they might need a bit more water to me. Try watering the top of the medium around those two for a few days. Sometimes starter plants take a little while to get their roots down far enough, or the top of the medium in the Earth Box dries up on them too fast. I just lift the corners of the cover and water the top of the medium for a week or so to get them a boost.

You've got a little bit of leaf-miner action going on there, too. Just soapy water spray 1/2tsp to a quart of water in a spray bottle will stop that, and prevent a lot of other sucking insects from getting started, too. I flit around my garden with my soapy water spray bottle like the soap fairy at least a couple of times a week. Best to spray soapy water in the late afternoon or evening, so the sun doesn't shine on the plants while they are wet with soap. Or if you do it in the morning, leave it a few minutes then rinse it off with the hose.

thanks, Elaine. I've got a bottle of soapy water made up ... I'll give them all a spritz. The two smaller plants were VERY small when I got them. The soil around them is damp so I think the moisture is OK ... they should catch up soon. The very small one is the replacement I got so it was behind the curve from the get-go. Thanks for your input.

And today I had the same thing happen that you did, Mary. One of the two tomatoes I planted in an Earth Box looks to be giving up the ghost, and it's only been in there for 2 days! I have doused it with H2O2 but if it hasn't perked up by tomorrow morning I'm hauling it out of there.

Elaine, so sorry to hear that. Isn't that just the most baffling thing? I'm beginning to think it's something in the air .. really. One of the plants I started from seed is doing the same thing now. The first one was a hybrid that I purchased. This last one I had doused in the hydrogen-peroxide/water before I set it in the earthbox ... and it's been in there for 2 weeks or more and has been treated with the H2O2 a couple of times. That first one there was no hope of bringing it back ... it was fine one day, and totally dead the next. And this is a different EB too and not that close to the first one ... probably 30 ft. or more. Here's hoping neither of us lose any more plants ... very discouraging.

Well, I doused it last night, and have shaded it from the blazing sun today, and so far, the leaves are lifting up and the stem looks fine, so it's possible this one will survive. Will report back.

The trouble with buying transplants, especially from the big box stores, is that you don't know where they've been or how they've been treated. If they sat in a hot truck for half a day before being unloaded, that's a huge stress on a crowded plant. If there's one miserable pathogen hanging around in that situation, it's so easy for it to be spread around when the already stressed plants come off the truck in those huge racks, and get hosed down, so that the water runs through the top plants onto the ones below.

I did buy that one from Lowe's . . . I should know better by now!

I hope your plant survives. I know what you mean about buying transplants. I prefer to start my own seeds, but once I decided to switch to hybrids this fall, it was too late to start seeds so I bought 4. Next year I'll have my own seed and start my own plants.

Good luck.

Finally! After 3 tries, I finally have zucchini! Amazing how such little things can excite me lol.





Elaine ... how are your plants doing? For me, I think it's herbicide drift. I've had 2 more hit and one of the earlier ones seems to be recovering ... I see new growth on it now.

Bought some plants from Lowes one year -- three tomato plants that started out healthy, but they just didn't make it. When I pulled them out of my veggie bed the roots were swollen with nematodes. I could have screamed as I had now contaminated my carefully cultivated veggie beds. Not an option to dig all that dirt out, so, I spent days and days with boiling kettles of water which I poured in holes I made in the soil. I did this every day for quite a few days. I realized that I also killed all the beneficial microbes, etc., but then I added compost tea from my bin; made up some veggie smoothies which I poured in holes in the beds; mixed in eggshells and mushroom compost. I allowed the bed to rest for months and the tomatoes I planted this past summer were very healthy with a good crop. I will be planting garlic; lots of it. I have huge, beautiful basil plants right now and will putting in a climbing spinach.

My one tomato that was in trouble has made it. Thankfully, I guess I got to it with the peroxide douse in the nick of time. I did shade it for a few days after it had wilted and now it's going strong.

I am away right now so will post pics next week.

Glad to hear your plant recovered, Elaine.

I am now convinced it is herbicide drift hitting mine ... I just saw a guy leave our park with a small tractor and a spray tank. I called the office and he's from TruGreen ... they treat all the common areas here in the park. She agreed it was probably a combination of weed killer and fertilizer! I'm going to try spraying everything down once he's done and hope that helps. I've lost 3 plants already ... I sure don't want to lose any more.

I've been away, and then came home to house guests so sorry for the long silence. How's everyone's veggie gardening going?

I got 3 types of cool-weather veggies, purple Kale, broccoli and purple cabbage but haven't yet gotten started to plant them. It's just been too darned hot!

My tomato plant in the Earth Box that looked like it was dead is now 3ft high and blooming. Will take pictures tomorrow. Looks like the peroxide douse did the trick for it. Mary, if you are getting herbicide drift onto your plants, just keep an eye out for that lawn service truck and say something to the guys! Also stand by with the hose so that you can wash off anything that does drift onto your plants. If you spray a fine mist into the air, it will take most noxious stuff out of an airborne state. They shouldn't be spraying anything when there's enough wind to carry it away, anyway.

Hopefully once the weather cools off they will stop spraying weed killer anyway.

Glad to hear someone's garden is doing good. I'm giving up on tomatoes ... can't grow them in the summer because it's too hot ... and now what I'm sure is herbicide drift has taken out the fall planting. I'm only a few miles (less than 3) from the Gulf so there's always a breeze here. So anyone around me that uses a herbicide has a good chance of contaminating my plants. The day I saw the Tru-Green people here in the park, I did spray the plants after they left. Either that was too late, or another application got them. Either way, no tomatoes for Mary K. this year And, I'm sure they have no concern for how it affects other people here ... they have a job to do and they just spray away.

I have some broccoli and cabbage that I started from seeds ... they're doing OK, but like you said, Elaine, it's so hot still. I've started another planting from seeds so hopefully by the time they're ready to go into an EarthBox, it'll be a lot cooler. I suppose the bright side to the tomato fiasco is that I'll have more boxes available for broccoli lol. We all love broccoli so that's something to look forward to. I want to get some onions and radishes started as well, but again, too hot. I planted some radishes a few weeks ago thinking it would be cooling off, but it hasn't and they didn't even sprout.

Here's what the tomatoes look like now -- the leaves just dry up and eventually the plant dies.




good luck to the other Florida gardeners ... hope you all have a great garden this fall/winter.