Garden has been a wash this year...

[jdgabbard]

Been quite dissatisfied with the garden this year. I've had almost no harvest to really speak of...

For context, I'm a city dweller, who has a rather SMALL back yard. By small, you can mow and edge the entire front and back in the matter of 20 minutes or so. There are lots of trees, that shade a good portion of the yard. In the past I've gone with small raised beds. However, over the last year I've had multiple companies run lines through the yard, resulting in loss of usable space with the short 6" beds I was using. So this year I decided to go with container plants. I also used some pallet-like platforms to utilize deck space, since I have such a small yard.

Grow bags just do not hold moisture as well as beds, and I had a heck of a time with my tomatoes as a result of this. The few I did get were constantly cracking...more on this later. Seems like every day I am over watering just to make sure I get the entire grow bag moist. And then, even with 20lb grow bags I just don't feel like man plants have enough root structure to really produce.

Then, this year's heat in NE Oklahoma has been ridiculous. Seems like we're going on month 3 of higher than 95 degrees temperature. Too hot for tomatoes to produce, I'll tell you that much. Flowers blossom, then they just die off. Nothing else but a tiny little start of a fruit developing.

But ever before this, I had a heck of time just getting my plants to do anything. I started most of my seeds in late January to early February indoors. Moved them outside during the daytime in march when the weather permitted. But the early spring was unusually cooler, and rainier than normal. So seedlings were slow to grow. And even when I did finally manage to get them into containers, they mostly just sat there for another month or longer before getting going. By the time May came around I had started to get some decent growth, but then the heat hit....

Then I also haven't been happy with the varieties I've grown. First up, Cherokee Tomatoes. The dang things just do not like heat at all...obviously from my previous statement. But they're also so thin skinned that they just crack dang near every time you water them. Waltham Butternut Squash doesn't seem to like NE Oklahoma weather. It's either too hot for them, or they just don't take to grow bags, and even the vine bores had no problem decimating my plants. But before that it was the Squash bugs, etc... Don't bother with Honeydew melons, in grow bags. It's just not worth the water or the dirt. I've got one melon from each plant. Jalapenos, well, at least these produced, but the biggest I'm getting is about 3-3.5" with no heat to speak of.

The only thing I had that did grow pretty well this year were the Super Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes I grew, and the Tabasco pepper plant I had in a 6-7gal Pot. But even the Cherry tomato plant only got about 7ft tall, and put off about half as many as I'd eat. And the Tabasco plant had a heck of a time early on.... At first it didn't like the sun, so I moved it to the shade, and then it kinda stopped growing.... Moved it back into the sun and just left it up to the plant to figure it out. After about a month and half it suddenly sprang to life, and started making hundreds of peppers.

Next year, I'm going back with raised beds (probably 8x2x2) so that I can better control moisture, and utilize more of the yard. I'm also going to be getting away from the cherokee tomatoes, honeydew, and butternut squash. Instead I think I'm going to go with Heatmaster for slicers, and Zebra Apricot Tomatoes for volume of slightly larger cherry tomatoes in addition to the Sweet 100s. I'm sticking with Tabascos, but I'm going to add Trepadeira Werner cherry peppers. And for melons I'm going to go with some smaller varieties, Kajari and Tigger melons.

Anyone else had a hard time in the garden this year?

[foesgth]

I have been doing OK this year. Last year was a bust for me. However, like you the heat has really hit my tomatoes.

It seems with your grow bags you should use one of the solar irrigation setups. They would keep a slow drip on your plants.

[Misery-Whip]

I'm in western Washington in the country. About an hour from the Pacific. My garden is sprawled out over an acre or so around the house. Most of my problems are pests. We had a warmer winter than normal and the rodents are terrible. We had rats in the attic of the chicken coop, mice In our cars, I killed one in the heater fan upon starting the car... What a mess... And the sparrows ate all our blueberries while they were green! I need to build a year round netting around them now. But usually we get 8-15 gallons from 6 bushes. Zucchini starts really haven't done anything. And the blossoms on the fruit trees blew off in mild winds. So the greenhouse is all that's left. I have harvested maybe 5lbs of cucumbers from 2 plants, and the 4 tomato plants are about 4 feet tall I have only green tomatoes on one plant, another has some flowers. And the potato pile is doing ok. Hasn't been as warm as usual, so I'm about 1 frame behind last year but will have plenty.

I tried growing in bags but had issues drying out. Were I trying it again I would insert a tube into the bag to water from below. And stab holes into the sides for a drain to not overflow.

Im going to raised beds as a budget allows, our soil is PEGGED on alkaline, and the water too, so I amend where I can, and the chickens help, but it doesn't seem enough.

Normally we have much more going, so much so I use my vacation to can and process. We are short staffed at work, so much so the boss said "double time after 50 hours" so I've been working all I can.

[Shawlerbrook]

Here in rural Central NY this is our best in a couple years. First time I can remember never having to water it.

[HWooldridge]

You probably know it already but tomatoes don’t like high heat - they stop setting fruit.

Here in Central Texas, we plant as early as possible and generally plow or pull up everything once it gets deep into summer, then replant for fall.

I’ve had good years and bad years - it’s difficult to quantify the variables because I don’t keep records, although we experienced great spring rains in 2026. I had a great grape harvest but our peaches and plums set no fruit at all. The garden gods are fickle sometimes.