1> I'm not sure, but I'd blame the weather.

2> No, the spot isn't normal. Most likely the plant isn't big enough to support the fruit anyway and you'd do best to snip it off and let the plant put its energy into building root and leaf. It will produce more later.

3> Your pole beans need food. Fertilize them! Or maybe they've been drowned and just need to dry out a bit.

4> In the past, I never used fertilizer. I used compost and that seemed to take care of things fine. If you don't have compost, then I would suggest a balanced fertilizer (10-10-10) because many big-wig gardening experts suggest it. This year I'm mainly enhancing my soil with horse manure because I don't have compost yet, so we'll see how that turns out.

5> In the past, I used hand picking for most pests and sluggo for the slugs. But I always had a tiny garden (in St. Paul) and hand picking was effective.

Welcome to the forum! I'm pretty new too. Just moved here last year and didn't get much done gardening-wise last year so this year is my "learning curve" year (or maybe that's "learning curse").

Ladies, welcome to the club. It's always hard having to adjust to a new garden and new growing challenges. But hey, this is the place to hang out for great gardening advice, and friendly chit chat.

I'm just now becoming more "regular" here myself as I am home this year and able once again to begin gardening.

It's all a learning process, and you win some and lose some, but you get better at it as you go.

The posters here are from all parts of Oklahoma and like a friendly bunch of neighbors. I personally love it, and have found so much good advice to help me along with my gardening adventure.
So welcome. Come on in and make yourself at home. :)

Shekanahh

Hello Kristin, welcome, I am new to the forum and not a long time gardener like most on this forum. I am having problems like you. I have pulled my broclli. I had six plants and got maybe a pound of broclli and the plants just wilted, the roots had rotted. I lost my first pepper 2 days ago it was about 3" long and about 1 1/2 dia., something had eaten a hole in it.

I do use some spray, and it looks like I will be digging it out. I don't see well enough to spot some of the critters.

I think two of the most impotant things I have learned is compost and raised beds. This is my 3rd year here so I really don't have my small garden built up yet. I am trying to grow in an area that would not even perk test
so you can see where some of my problem is.

I use 10-20-10 fertilizer, only because that was what my dad used when I was a kid.

My mother is from Pauls valley, many, many years ago, we live near Ft. Smith now. Lots of luck, Larry

Kristin, If your black spot on your pepper plant is a round spot, then, no, that's not normal. If, however, it is an area in the junction of the stalk and the stem, and it's kind of a purple-ish black, then, yes, I see this on healthy bell pepper plants.

Gardening in Oklahoma is a crap-shoot. It's different every year. If you buy seeds for plants that will withstand the drought that used to be pretty normal for much of the state during July/August, then nine chances out of ten you have insured that we will have too much rain. It's sorta like washing your car. ;)

Last year and the year before, we had flood conditions here in Dewey and Bartlesville during the spring months. And we've had a lot of rain this spring, as well, but not so much this time that our roads were closed. Last year, after an initial crop of wonderful, delicious heirloom tomatoes, all my plants developed several problems at the same time and had to be pulled up. I had a volunteer plant that came up in the compost bin, and it made a couple of decent tomatoes before the frost. The tomato plants that I started in the summer didn't make the transplant because we were by then in a hot, dry period. So that was the extent of my tomatoes for the year, and I had hoped to have enough to can for the winter. We just love tomatoes, whether fresh or canned.

I can't seem to grow bell peppers unless I put them in containers. Last summer, I nearly wore myself out moving those containers around. By the heat of the summer, they really needed afternoon shade. I didn't get many peppers until the weather cooled a bit as fall started coming on, and then they really started to produce! I am still using green, yellow, red and orange peppers I froze from those containers. This year, I planned not to start my peppers so early, as they really suffered last year during all the wind of late spring. The only problem was, the seed didn't germinate. I planted again, and only one variety came up in the tray. It's still tiny. So I had to resort to buying pepper plants this year and all I got was some California Wonder and a few Jalapeno. It seems like hot peppers do better in full sun, so I planted those in the raised beds. One of them has already died because of the mole or vole that is tunnelling all over my yard and in my raised beds.

Last year I had great success with candy onions, I believe because I waited till late to put them in. This year I didn't wait and the ones that have grown to any size (of the green parts) are sending up flower stalks. Some of the others are planted in a newer bed and I guess the soil just isn't improved enough for onions, even though I've tilled in composted manure, leaves and grass clippings, as they're just not growing much.

Last year I planted cuttings from sweet potatoes from the grocery store, that sprouted in my kitchen. They did wonderfully well. Since I'm the only one who eats them, however, I opted not to plant them this year as I have enough in the freezer to last me awhile. They were delish!

It looks like I'm going to have a great year for cabbage, the tomatoes don't look too bad considering all they've been through so I'm hoping for a better year with them than last year. My beans haven't come up very well, thanks to all the rain, and the mole/vole. But I've got cuke plants doing well so far, and lots of little dill plants up. If you plant a variety of things, that thrive in different conditions, you have a better chance at getting a good crop of something.

I'm glad to see so many new folks on the forum. I've been posting here for quite awhile, and so far we've been lucky in not attracting any of those people who just read the posts looking for something to fight about, like you'll see on some of the other forums.

Kristin,

1. Spring-planted broccoli has to be planted at the "precisely right" moment or it won't produce well. The problem is that the "precisely right" moment varies from year to year. Here's what you need to know: March is the time to plant, but whether you plant in early March or late March varies with your location in Oklahoma and also is dependant on the weather.

If you plant early in March, there is the risk your plants will be exposed to temperatures below 40 degrees for two weeks or longer once the plants are 4-6" tall. When that exposure occurs, the broccoli gives you 'button heads" and that sounds like what you might have this year. (This year's nights stayed very cold very late.) If you plant late in March, there is the risk that hot weather will arrive earlier in May than we'd like, and your just-forming heads will begin to bloom. (If they begin to bloom, harvest and use them immediately.) If you planted late, you could be having this problem.

To avoid having either button heads or late-maturing heads that flower before they fully form, time your plantings carefully, grow your own transplants inside and get them nice and large and healthy before you set them out, and choose early-maturing varieties. Also, mulch them well so their growth won't stall and cover them with sheets or blankets on very cold nights to keep them warm and lessen the chance of buttoning.

This year, I planted near the end of March, I, think, but I had raised my plants inside in 12 oz. styrofoam cups and they were quite large when I transplanted them out. The plants grew well and survived the heavy rainfall because they were in raised beds. I am south of you, between Marietta and Thackerville, and "should" plant very early in March, but doing so almost always gives me button heads (we are in a low-lying area near the Red River so very late frosts are very common here). I have found that waiting until almost April works pretty well if I plant an early-maturing variety. Still, I just watch the weather and the forecast carefully and try to "guess" at the best planting time in March. Dorothy is further north and I think she plants later than I do, so if she responds and tells you her planting date, you might want to plant mid-way between her planting date and mine because you are about halfway between the two of us.

I am harvesting this week from the first bed I planted, and am getting heads that are about 8" across. Most of it will go into the freezer because I planted a lot (70 plants total). The second bed that was planted a week or two later has plants that are just ever-so-slightly smaller, so they should start heading up next week if the heat doesn't get them.

It could be your variety too. I have found that Packman and Premium Crop produce much better for me than any other variety I've tried here. And, it is better to use transplants than to direct sow, and it is better to raise your own transplants than to purchase transplants. When you purchase transplants from a store, you have no idea if they have already been exposed to enough cold temps to cause buttonheads.

2. In general, black spots on sweet peppers are not normal and tend to indicate a fungal disease. However, there are a few varieties of peppers that get blackish spots near the stem as a normal part of their growing process. This is more common on jalapeno peppers and it tends to go away over time, but I have seen it on several varieties of sweet peppers too. Sometimes it is more of a purplish color than a black, especially on lighter-colored peppers. Look closely and see if you are seeing necrosis (tissue death) in the center of the spots. If you are, those peppers are going to rot before they mature, so go ahead and pick them off the plant and treat your plants with a fungicide spray so that the next peppers that form will (hopefully) avoid the disease. If there is no necrosis, wait it out and see if the black spots go away as the peppers grow.

For what it is worth, your best chance of getting peppers to set fruit is right now before the weather heats up, so don't hesitate to remove fruits that have necrosis. If you wait a month from now, it likely will be too hot for much additional fruit set.

Hot weather (temperatures consistently above 90 degrees)prevents sweet pepper flowers from setting fruit, so you need to allow your plants to set fruit now before it gets too hot. Once the temperatures are consistently above 90 degrees, you'll get fewer sweet peppers forming on the plants, but they'll set heavily again in the fall.

Hot peppers, by the way, go on setting no matter how hot it gets.

I never remove small fruits from pepper or tomato plants unless they are diseased, nor do I remove flowers, no matter how small the plants are when the flowers form and the fruit sets. While that is a common practice in cooler climates, doing so here means your plants miss the narrow window of opportunity to set fruit before temperatures get too high (90 for most sweet peppers, 92 for most regular-sized tomatoes, but cherries set all summer long).

If the black spots are at the bottom end of the plants, that indicates blossom end rot, which is a common problem with peppers and tomatoes and is related to calcium uptake issues. If the black spots are scattered all over the fruit, that's bad. If they are only at the stem end, that's not so bad.

Are you seeing black spots on the leaves too?

3. The pole beans probably have a little stress going on and it is possibly from too much moisture or from low soil fertility. Generally, yellow leaves on beans indicate 1 or more of 4 possible problems: low soil fertility (side dress with a balanced fertilizer), wet soil (avoid overwatering, plant in raised beds), spider mites (early for them here, but I've seen them in May before--check undersides of leaves for very tiny red dots that have legs and move), or nematodes (only an issue in sandy soil).

Based on the weather you've had there, it likely is moisture stress and the excess moisture is clogging up the roots and preventing nutrient uptake. If your ground is still very wet, be patient and wait for it to dry. If you think the plants might be underfed, fertilize (but don't overfertilize) them.

4. I do not regularly fertilize my vegetable plants. There are two basic ways to grow veggies----organically or chemically.

If you grow organically (or mostly organically), you focus on feeding the soil by adding organic (once living) material to it. This would include compost, composted animal (cow, chicken, rabbit, etc.) manure, greensand, lava sand, soft rock phosphate, blood meal, bone meal, etc. Essentially, you feed the soil and the soil feeds the plants. You also can add organic fertilizers, and of the ones available in a granular form, my favorite is the Espoma line. I use their Tomato Tone (one handful mixed into soil around planting hole at planting time) for my tomato and pepper plants, and their Vegetable Tone for other plants. If you have healthy soil, it will give your plants what they need. However, since plants "use up" the nutrients in soil, you have to continually build up the soil. One way to do this is simply to mulch year round. As the mulch decomposes, it turns into compost which enriches your soil. Because some veggies are "heavy feeders", though, I do tend to supplement the peppers and tomatoes with Tomato-Tone every year. (However, some veggies like sweet potatoes and black-eyed peas grow and produce better on 'lean' low-nutrient soil, so don't feed everything the same. Different plants have different needs.)

If you grow chemically, you routinely apply fertilizers to make up for what the soil is lacking. I am not a fan of this approach to gardening because certain fertilizer ingredients build up in the soil and cause problems while other fertilizer ingredients leach into ground water or get carried into creeks/rivers/lakes by heavy rainfall and cause problems there (like excessive algae growth). One way to get a new garden started though, is to use chemical fertilizers the first year or two or three as you continue to build fertile soil, so that is also a route you can take.

5. Pest control is a difficult issue to address. Once again, you can go the chemical route or the organic route.

If you go the chemical pesticide route, you should know that many chemical pesticides are nerve poisons and can affect not just insects, but butterflies, birds, pets, people, etc. In addition, many chemical pesticides are known carcinogenics, but that info is always buried in MSDS statements because the manufacturers don't want you to be aware of it. In a "healthy" garden that is in balance, you have "good bugs" that eat "bad bugs". The pesticides will kill the good bugs and since good bug populations rebound more slowly than bad bugs, you'll have more bugs two weeks after spraying a chemical pesticide than you had before you sprayed.

If you choose to go the chemical route, always read every word on the product label and follow all directions exactly, including wearing all the protective clothing and gear they recommend. Be sure you understand how closely chemicals can be used before your harvest date too.

If you go the organic route, you have to be patient and work to build up a healthy population of "good bugs" so they can keep the "bad bugs" under control. One way to do this is to plant flowers and herbs that have very tiny flowers that beneficial insects use for food. This includes sweet alyssum, yarrow, chamomile, dill and fennel.

You also have to avoid many broad-spectrum organic pesticides because they'll kill the good bugs too. (Poison is poison, whether synthetic or natural in origin.) Over time I have dropped organic broad-spectrum pesticides one by one as their bad side effects have become more well understood, and there are very few of them that I use.

I try to handpick and destroy any problem bugs as they appear. This includes Colorado Potato Beetles, cabbage loopers, etc. If touching them gives you the creeps, buy medical-type latex gloves and wear them as you are bug-picking. Or, use a rechargeable or battery-powered hand-held portable vacuum to suck the bugs off the plants.

I released lady bugs and green lacewings every year for our first few years here until we had built up a good population. They take care of aphids, mites and many other pests

If there is an insect I need to use a pesticide to control, I try to find an organic problem that affects only that kind of pest. For example, Bacillus thuringiensis (aka Bt) 'Kurstaki' targets caterpillars and Bt 'Israelensis" targets mosquito larvae in water. That way, only the target insect is affected and the beneficial insects are not harmed.

I watch the undersides of leaves for insect eggs and remove them, destroy them and dispose of them when I find them. For example, if you check the undersides of your squash family leaves regularly and find and remove the squash bug eggs, you save yourself and your plants a lot of grief.

There is an organic solution for almost every bug problem. The key is to consistently check for problem bugs and remove them ASAP before the population can multiply. I found only two potato bugs this year and destroyed them and haven't had a potato bug issue since.

You have to figure out what works for you. Think of your garden as one large experiment, or maybe as a series of smaller experiments. Everything will be a learning experience, and you have to try this and try that and figure out what works for you.

Dawn

WOW! Thanks so much for taking the time to respond to my questions. This is an awesome forum. I feel less overwhelmed now. I have just been feeling alot of pressure to see some produce to justify all the money I spent on getting my stuff going. You guys are so kind and helpful!

Thanks, Kristin

Hey Kristin,

Welcome to the forum. I've been kind of absent for a while, and won't, even yet, be able to be around much.

Here are my two cents: 1) I do almost all my fertilizing by mulching and composting. So, at planting time, and during the growing season I hardly ever fertilize. This seems to work well for me. 2) Try to think ahead, perhaps to next year. This isn't to say that you shouldn't be working on this year's garden. But if you mulch, compost and keep working on your garden's soil, you'll be amazed how much better things will be next year. Time flies. Enjoy the moment but work for the future.

George
Tahlequah, OK