What is a possible cause of garden plants not developing. They sprouted and came up good, but then seem to be halted in growth. Plants include: spinach, beets, cucumbers, zuchini, lettuce, cantelope and squash. Thanks.

Are they planted out in the landscape/garden or still in a container/flat/cell pack?
Al

The garden is out in the open and is 25 x40 in size.

More details please. A raised bed? Potting mix or regular ground soil?
Can you add pictures?
That is a lot of plants for not quite 2 by 4 feet.
Spinach, lettuce, and possibly beets also are not good growers in midsummer. I assume it is hor there now.
One healthy zucchini plant could easily cover that area.

It is regular ground soil and the size of the garden is 25` x 40` not inches.

Welcome to NGA @bridgettbur

Whew, I initially read your garden size as meaning 25x40 feet, then Sally's post made me second guess myself...

Did you plant from seeds, or transplants? and, how long ago

(I agree that the spinach and lettuce might not be happy with the heat right now, but I think your other plants should probably be doing okay; and sometimes it does seem that the plants are taking forever to do anything and then all of a sudden they take off.)

what was I thinking??? sorry!!!!

bridgettbur said: What is a possible cause of garden plants not developing. They sprouted and came up good, but then seem to be halted in growth. Plants include: spinach, beets, cucumbers, zuchini, lettuce, cantelope and squash. Thanks.

Agree that the heat would definitely cause issues for cool season crops like spinach, beets, lettuce...

The other plants?
Sounds more like soil issues.
What kind of compost are you adding to the clay?

How deeply did you shovel dig the area?
Just digging a planting hole won't work, the plants need a good bit of area turned to send roots out into...

After the soil issues, the soil conditioner issues have been addressed, maybe look a little further into stuff like ph, Too alkaline a soil can adversely affect plants ability to uptake nutrients... but usually enough compost will help to balance that issue...