Hello,

I recently built a raised bed. I don't know if I can call it a square foot garden, because I didn't exactly follow the directions...but it's similar.

Bear with me here...I might get long winded...but I'm so confused!

I have two actually. One is 3X8. This one, I'm sad to say, didn't get the best mix of soil. I got 10 bags of generic garden soil and 5 bags of composted manure. I also mixed it in towards the bottom with the natural soil, wich is a mix of what looks like sand and dry clay.

The second one, built after the problems with the first one started (and there fore a little more carefully)(also with better transplants as I knew this would be the sunnier happier spot for plants) is doing fine.

However in the first one I cannot keep things from dying.

I thought I had root rot. The first cuc to die had a squishy brown stem. It turned yellow and died within days of planting in it's new home. Also, I do believe I over watered at first.

Also, after testing the soil I found that it was a little alkaline, and did not have very good nutirents. I added some fertalizer, and after testing again this was corrected.

I read that root rot can spread, but because I have no way of getting rid of all that possibly infected soil, nor the $$ to buy all new, I decided to see if the rest of the plants made it.

The cuc next to the first one bit it last week. Yesterday I came home to the tomato's next door's bottom leaves starting to turn yellow.

At this point, I figured I should dig them up, and try the "bleach treatment" method I have read about.

Here's where it gets strange though...the roots on the tomato's are fine. In fact, the second cucumber did not have the brown squishy root/stem thing going on much either...it just looked like it dried up from the inside out.

Oh...I dug up a watermellon near buy as well...same thing as the second cucumber.

I did notice one of the tomatos' stems was shrunken where it was under the soil. It was hard and brown. The roots looked fine. I dug him up and stuck him in a cup of water to see what would happen.

ALSO...I had a few black beans near buy that were beginning to look a little sad as well. They were just young, so I pulled them up to inspect as well.

Roots and stems were fine...however there was a little white maggot in one of them...the one of the two that looked HEALTHIER.

WHAT'S GOING ON?

Yesterday I bought a fungicide that promiced to kill over 70 diseases. I sprayed it around the remaining plants. I also mixed in some pearlite to this soil thinking (from the root rot posibility days) that this all came from a water/drainage issue.

This morning...I might have just been overly hopefull, but the remaining plants looked a bit happier.

Is it that this bed gets less sun? Is it the soil? Is it the water? Disease? Bugs??? All of them?

I would be really sad if after all the work and $ I can't do anything with it.

Pictures possibly to follow once I get home.

PS Sorry for any poor spelling