Post a reply

Avatar for dennisGnj
Sep 12, 2020 1:15 PM CST
Thread OP

Hello! I built a raised-bed garden this year to try my hand at veggie gardening (for the first time). I planted Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes (seedling), cucumbers (seedling), Danvers half long carrots (from seed), Dunja zucchini (from seed, started indoors), and jalapenos (seedling). My property is very wooded so I was a little worried about sun coverage, as the garden gets something like 2 hours in the morning and 3-4 hours between 1 and 5 pm. When I built the garden, I filled the planters with a combination of 50% compost and 50% topsoil. I also mixed in some rabbit manure from a farmer friend. I fertilized the plants as recommended on label with Pro-Gro (5-3-4). Overall I was very happy with my yield. The cucumbers have put out dozens of fruit and the Sweet 100s have produced many hundreds. My zucchini flowered quite a bit but with very few female flowers. One female flower began to set fruit and then it withered. I did not appreciate when planting how ENORMOUS the Sweet 100s would get and made the mistake of planting them such that they are shading the rest of the garden. The zucchinis are fully shaded by the tomatoes and I suspect this is part of the issue. I've attached a photo to show how the tomatoes have pretty much taken over the whole space.

Writing now for help identifying what I think is blight on my tomatoes. I've attached a photo. The plants still look pretty and good and the fruit is unaffected, but the lower leaves have begun showing small brown spots and holes. These ultimately become larger brown/yellow spots and then the leaves die. This seems to be spreading from the lower leaves up the rest of the plants. Am I right that it's blight? I bought some copper fungicide to use if that's the case. As I said above, I didn't realize how big the tomato plants would get. I planted them about 18" apart which I'm guessing might be too close together. I relocated a sprinkler head to water the garden, which I know isn't ideal. I wonder if the overhead watering in combination with less-than-full sun might be causing the fungus issue.

Second problem is with my jalapeno fruit. Every one of them seems to be being eaten. There are brown holes/craters in the upper portion of every fruit. Some of them have multiple holes and most have started to rot. I checked for bugs, and I do see a fair amount of ants around the holes. They look like fire ants, which I understand might feed on peppers sometimes. From Googling a bit, the damage looks like it's from a hornworm caterpillar, but I didn't see any around. I appreciate any guidance! I attached a couple photos where you can see the brown holes.

Thanks so much! Apologies for the long post...
Thumb of 2020-09-12/dennisGnj/f5d14d


Thumb of 2020-09-12/dennisGnj/cf37b5


Thumb of 2020-09-12/dennisGnj/67ecde


Thumb of 2020-09-12/dennisGnj/c45c62


Thumb of 2020-09-12/dennisGnj/b18336
Image
Sep 12, 2020 2:12 PM CST

I don't know about Dunja, but some zucchini cultivars such as Alberello di Sarzana were selected to develop a surplus of male flowers to act both as pollinators for other cultivars and to provide cut flowers for deep frying. My grandmother pretty much grew zucchini for the flowers alone.
On top of this if a zucchini plant is overwatered it will massively increase the production of male flowers to the detriment of female flowers: zucchini, like most cucurbits, are dry climate crops and prefer their soil on the dry side, so you should cut back on the water.
Image
Sep 12, 2020 3:10 PM CST
Name: SoCal
Orange County (Zone 10a)
Lazy Gardener or Melonator
I give mine a little bone meal for fruit production, I always get female flowers after that. In the beginning, most squash plants have mostly male flowers.
Only the members of the Members group may reply to this thread.
Member Login:

( No account? Join now! )

Today's site banner is by Visual_Botanics and is called "Bees and Butterflies"

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.