Garden fail

I'm running late and don't have it in me to do anything really deep tonight, so I am just going to give a garden update.

Last year I had my little patch of pumpkins and tomatoes, and if the tomatoes didn't do anything that impressive, I was at least really thrilled with my four pumpkins. I would have liked more, but I had only planted one plant. I learned a lot from them, and while I never tried it, I did learn enough about hand pollination that I wouldn't rule it out.

The vines and blossoms were very productive in terms of growth alone. I had to cut some runners off, because I wanted the pumpkins confined to the bed, and it looked like they were ready to take over the whole yard, which I did not want at that time.

This year, I did want them to take over the yard. Our grass is horrible, but I want to move away from a lawn anyway; they are not environmentally sound. I am still figuring out what I want to do instead, but I liked the idea of having a pumpkin patch just for one year. The vines could work through the soil, it would be interesting, and then next spring I should have a better idea on what to plant.

This time I got five plants, placing them strategically along the yard and also planting some sunflower seeds to give kind of a border. I used the same combination of soil, plant food, and egg shells that I used last year. Initially everything took root and I saw blossoms on each plant - no females, but it was early enough that I wasn't worried. The vines never started spreading and then they started wilting.

There was also a wildly different range of growth for the sunflowers. Around the perimeter I planted, one side had tall growth, one had smaller but still fairly healthy looking plants, and one row had only a third of the seeds sprout, and really runty at that.

I have no idea what made the difference with the sunflowers, but I had a hunch that with the pumpkins it might be a nitrogen deficiency. It's a common issue, and nitrogen helps with the new growth, which is what was lacking. It hadn't been an issue at all last year, but maybe last year's plants depleted the soil.

Nitrogen fixing works better with companion plants than additives, but I didn't feel like I had the time to make that happen. I bought some blood meal and spread it with lots of water.

It seemed to help. Three of the plants looked like they were perking up. I was cautiously optimistic.

When buying the blood meal, we also bought my mother some petunias. She has always loved planting them each year. The past few years she doesn't really plant them right and she can't remember to water them so they die really quickly, but she had expressed an interest and I thought we'd try it. I didn't monitor her.

Mom weeded out most of the sunflowers and one of the likelier pumpkins. It's not her fault. She didn't even believe she had done it, and it doesn't help to argue with her, but it was a blow. It didn't feel like a few plants was too much to ask.

One healthy sunflower is left, and two pumpkin plants that are not in great shape. I had this image for how it could look, and that is not going to happen. Next year I should probably move on to something more permanent anyway. I mean, do we leave the horrible lawn all the way through until next June, do the patch, and then not get toward something lasting until June of 2018? That doesn't sound very practical.

It just kind of sucks.