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green and growing! but minimal flowers/fruit?
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Posted by chrisa Bklyn (z7) (My Page) on Mon, Jul 26, 10 at 22:28
I'm wondering if I got too much nitrogen in when amending the soil and planting this spring. I did use a very old bag of organic fertilizer fairly generously... I also understand heat waves can delay fruiting.
I have annual moonvines and thunbergia that are completely taking over the fences, but very very few flowers this year so far!!!
My pole beans are tangling themselves together and climbing telephone poles AND producing tons of flowers... but very few beans. They produced a small gathering early and then keep flowering and growing - but no beans??! Very weird to me. Normally I would be picking dinner twice a week by now.
Tomatoes are also tall/thin and minimally productive. First low flower/fruits are ripening but the plants aren't doing much else besides making annoying side shoots.
Even the chard is droopy and slow. Herbs are taking over the planet, however!
So is this just heat, or can I amend for better flower and fruit? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: green and growing! but minimal flowers/fruit?
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| No replies in two weeks? Oyyy. Well, hopefully you've had more success since you posted. I have way over 50 tomatoes on my 6 tomato plants, plus more small green tomatoes that will hopefully ripen before our first cold snap. I know others who have had similar success this year. My leafy greens/lettuces did poorly, which isnt a surprise to me given the incredible heat we had. I ended up letting most go to seed. Strange that your pole beans would flower but bear no fruit. Is it possible that they're not getting fertilized? I'm not sure about the old organic fertilizer. I imagine at this point it's too late to amend the soil for this growing season. |
RE: green and growing! but minimal flowers/fruit?
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| Moonvines are very late to flower — I've had them grow for months and finally put out lots of flowers late in the summer. Thunbergia also needs an early start, so it too might delay flowering if direct seeded or set out as a small seedling. It sounds like your fertilizer might be partly at fault. Some kinds (those with plenty of nitrogen and not much phosphorus) produce just what you have — plenty of green growth, but few flowers. Bone meal, a good P source, is a big help. Rock phosphate is another good organic source of slow-release phosphorus. There are other fertilizers, like triple phosphate and super phosphate, that might produce faster results. Either way, a little greensand will provide potassium and trace elements. Another possibility is not enough sun. Does your garden space get a good 8 hours of sun a day? Are there any new obstructions since last year? |
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