Typically, yellow leaves are from over-watering, or a magnesium deficiency.

EG

Lots of nutritional deficiencies cause chlorosis in varying patterns. What is the soil made of? How long does it stay wet after you water? Is the chlorosis prevalent in either new or old leaves - or is it uniform? Are the veins yellow and interveinal areas green, or is it interveinal, marginal, concentrated at foliage tips, margins, or at the distal end of leaf petioles? What have you used for fertilizer? Did you add garden lime to the soil?

Al

How cold has it been? My bush beans were planted way earlier than I should have planted them, and they are getting some yellow leaves now that the temperatures have plummeted again. I think they will green up as soon as it warms up again, none of the cool weather crops in the same soil are showing any yellowing.

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

It's more common for normally green tissue to show purple hues because of chill than yellow.

Al

I'd like to chime in, but don't have enough information to do anything than offer a wild guess.

Dan

Let's see...the tomato plants are going yellow uniformly...meaning the older leaves as well as the newer growth. The veins of the leaves are still green, though.

The cucumber plants seem to be yellow throughout the leaves (including veins), and the jalapeno plant is getting blackened tips.

As best as I can remember, the weather has been pretty mild, probably a low in the 60's to a high in the 90's. Definitely nowhere near the frost zone.

I haven't added any fertilizer or anything at all. I just did straight Mel's Mix, right out of the book. 4 cubic feet of vermiculite, a bale of 2.2 cu ft of compressed peat moss, which is supposed to expand to 4 cu feet, and 4 cubic feet of various store-bought composts.

Do you all find that you need to add fertilizer or lime, or anything else to SFG's for their first planting?

The soil does seem to hold water very well. It could also be possible that my preschool daughters are watering (overwatering) the garden when I'm away at work. They're not supposed to be doing that, but they've got a little flower garden they're taking care of near the vegetable garden, and they might be getting overzealous with the hose.

The description given of green venation & yellow lvs is symptomatic of N deficiency, which can occur for several reasons. With info given, sounds like not due to unavailability but none present.

Jalapeno and cuke, from here with info given, sound like combo of nutrition and overwater - since no fert added, not too much fert but not enough.

Sounds to me with info given as if you need to side dress with your preferred veggie fert, and also stick your finger in a few places and check moisture levels.

Dan

I agree with Dan - you're likely short of N, but you're probably lacking other nutrients as well. I would also suggest that you add dolomitic lime or gypsum to the soil as a Ca source.

Al

I have one cauliflower plant whose bottom two (true) leaves are yellowing.

Rest of the leaves on this plant, as well as one other cauli and 4 other broccoli plants are fine. Soil is roughly 1/4 peat, 1/4 vermiculite, 1/2 compost, with a bit of lime added to the squares for cauli and broc.

Any ideas what I'm dealing with and what (if anything) I need to do?

Here is a link that might be useful: Luke's SF Victory Garden

I would also suggest that you add dolomitic lime or gypsum to the soil as a Ca source.

Good point & shoulda mentioned it. This is for blossom end rot for tomatoes & not a bad idea for peppers either. An alternative to purchasing dolo lime is to take expired antacid tablets and crush one in the planting hole, altho I no longer do it as I have lime.

Dan

Don't kill off the earthworms. Those are good guys. As for the lime, I'm not sure you'll need that either if you're in Texas. Most of the state has extremely alkaline (8.5) water. Only East Texas has acidic soil but I'm not sure about it's water. If you add lime, go with less before more.

I'd do some fertilizer and remind the children that you can over love your plants with water.

High N application containing urea may be detrimental to worms in this instance, but a general veggie fert shouldn't have too much N (and you shouldn't be overapplying N anyways, so not an issue).

Part of your overwatering issue may be the cardboard layer underneath, and when that rots away I'd suspect your drainage issues may improve, depending upon the subsoil constituents.

Dan

I definitely want to keep the earthworms. It was the subsoil that had them, so I would expect it to drain fairly well.

I hadn't thought about the cardboard messing with the drainage. I poked a few holes through it when I put it in, but I can use a metal rod to poke more holes to make sure.

Thanks!!