My Green Thumb has Turned Black

I never actually had a green thumb to begin with, but I have always been able do to pretty well growing flowers and vegetables outside. However, after two years of rather dismal results, I have decided that this will be the last year I plant vegetables. I might still try flowers, but judging from this year's results with those, I might not..

I have heard that nobody is having a very good year with gardens (in my neck of the woods anyway) but that doesn't help explain LAST year-or the year before-! I really can't figure it out. Everything sprouts beautifully and the plants are soon bursting with beautiful buds, making me look forward to the wonderful meals ahead. And then, almost overnight it seems, things start looking pretty darn bad.

The first year I planted, I had so many zucchini and eggplants that we were eating them several times a week! I was giving tomatoes away because we couldn't keep up with them! The same with the hot peppers, bags of them went to the neighbors.

Last year, no zucchini at all and only a couple of eggplants, they were doing great and then...well...they weren't.

This year is even worse. I branched out into the yard so I could try planting in different areas and add more crops. I was thrilled to see how well the peas and green beans were doing, not to mention the zucchini, yellow squash and eggplant. The tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers were doing great also.

Green Beans and Peas ...when they died they were about 2 feet tall and bearing pods :-(

Then it happened. The buds began to fall off, vines and leaves began turning brown and decaying, any vegetables that  appeared didn't grow very big or ended up shriveling away. The beautiful peas that were almost ready to pick seemed to die overnight, we didn't get to eat any at all, the same thing happened to the green beans. It was so sad to see all my hard work end like that.


Such sad looking yellow squash and zucchini plants, last week these were beautiful plants..what happened?



Even the tomato plants which always do wonderful have failed me this year, giving up only a few cherry tomatoes a day and the big ones, they don't even get red, only a pale orange. I got tired of waiting because they just weren't ripening and squeezed a couple, only to find they were soft. I picked them and we have eaten them, but the flavor is lacking.

The only thing that is yielding a good crop are the cucumbers. Which is pretty surprising considering that all 3 past  years I have not been able to pick ONE measly cucumber..LOL I have also gotten 2 VERY small eggplants and a handful of green peppers and jalapenos, but again, they grow to a certain small size and grow no further. BTW, yes I watered and fed and weeded and talked to them and all those good things.

So I think maybe the garden needs to rest. Actually maybe the whole YARD needs a rest! Most of the flower seeds I planted did not sprout. I planted herbs TWICE and they didn't grow either. Buds are falling off the Rose of Sharon bushes like raindrops and well established flowers aren't looking very perky either.

I have to wonder if it is just me. Am I toxic to anything that grows from the earth? I really do wonder because the first year, when things grew so well, the ex-husband did a lot of the tending and that man can plant a dead stick and have it grow into a beautiful hedge! Unfortunately for the crops, ( and the kids too) he is no longer coming around for some reason, and the garden seems to be suffering because of it.

So I ask..how is YOUR garden doing this year?