Huge healthy plants, tons of flowers, no produce?

[Ariel301]

I am having issues with a lot of my garden plants. They are huge, healthy looking and green, and putting out a ton of flowers...but hardly any vegetables.

The cherry tomatoes I bought at Walmart are doing great with loads of fruits, but of 15-ish heirloom plants grown from seed, only one has made tomatoes, and not many at that. The plants are tall and blooming like crazy though...

My armenian cucumber (ONE plant!) is about two feet by five feet, 60+ flowers at any time, and is only making one cucumber.

The pumpkins and various squashes are growing well and blooming, but not making fruits.

Green beans are barely putting out anything...about 1-2 beans a day from over 100 plants.

I'm watering daily as it's really dry here (desert), and the soil has composted manure added to it from my own livestock. Leafy stuff like lettuce and chard have grown very well, just not anything that makes a fruit. Could it be the heat? It's between 80-110 here in the day and 60-80 at night. There's no shade anywhere and too big a garden to build shade over it all...

 

[vfem]

I think the heat has gotten you!

Mine were doing the same thing the week before last because we had temps up and over 100. Then mid last week we got some rain and temps dropped back into the 80's, now I have a ton of flowers and fruit developing. I have noticed the increase in bee activity that came back after the rain too.

I think the eat not only affects the plants, but the pollinators.

 

[hoodat]

I am having issues with a lot of my garden plants. They are huge, healthy looking and green, and putting out a ton of flowers...but hardly any vegetables.

The cherry tomatoes I bought at Walmart are doing great with loads of fruits, but of 15-ish heirloom plants grown from seed, only one has made tomatoes, and not many at that. The plants are tall and blooming like crazy though...

My armenian cucumber (ONE plant!) is about two feet by five feet, 60+ flowers at any time, and is only making one cucumber.

The pumpkins and various squashes are growing well and blooming, but not making fruits.

Green beans are barely putting out anything...about 1-2 beans a day from over 100 plants.

I'm watering daily as it's really dry here (desert), and the soil has composted manure added to it from my own livestock. Leafy stuff like lettuce and chard have grown very well, just not anything that makes a fruit. Could it be the heat? It's between 80-110 here in the day and 60-80 at night. There's no shade anywhere and too big a garden to build shade over it all...

If your leafy vegetables are growing fast and your fruiting ones aren't producing a good guess would be that you have plenty of nitrogen but not enough phosphorus and potash.

 

[Ariel301]

Well, phosphorus and potash is easy to fix. I can pick some of that up next time I am in town, I guess it is worth a shot. Thanks!

The pollinators are out in force (we have wild bees aplenty here). But everything looks a little wilty during the day. I'm going to reprogram the watering system to do a watering in the early morning and a short little misting in the afternoon, maybe that will cool things down. Right now I only water for an hour in the evening. I have a few sections of a shade cloth that I got for my goat pens but they started eating it; maybe I'll try covering my favorite plants with it.

 

[Ariel301]

I guess that's why everyone gardening around here says fall/winter gardens are the best...it will be in the 100s from June until September. :/

 

[hoodat]

I guess that's why everyone gardening around here says fall/winter gardens are the best...it will be in the 100s from June until September. :/

It's tough to grow anything in that kind of heat. The plants lose water faster than they can take it up. Make sure you water slow and DEEP.

 

[obsessed]

yeah I planted my melons too late and they won't bear until it cools off. The cukes stooped cause of the heat here as well.

 

[Ariel301]

It's tough to grow anything in that kind of heat. The plants lose water faster than they can take it up. Make sure you water slow and DEEP.

I know that all too well, unfortunately. I have a drip hose system buried in my rows so it's down around the roots of the plants, and then I mulch the tops of rows with old hay to try to keep the moisture in. The sun sucks the water out of everything! Apparently it can take a native bush around here 50 years to grow a few feet...

 

[ducks4you]

Ariel301, can you update your Profile, so we know what zone you live in?

 

[SweetMissDaisy]

I'm having that trouble with my zucchini. HUGE big canopy of leaves, few zuc's. Over the weekend I cut out some of the old leaves to see if I could let a little light in, and let the pollinators see the flowers. Hope that helps. I'd rather not have to add hand pollination to my list of morning chores.