• Everything other than hot peppers. Questions, discussion, and grow logs. Cannabis grow pics are only allowed when posted from a legal juridstiction.

What plant defeats you?

Obsidian

Obsidian

I tried a couple searches to see if it was done before, so if I did not find it don't exile me!

What plants out there have seemed to defeat you folks? This is not intended to be a defeatist sort of question, more of a curious interest.
And why have those plants not done well for you?
Also, this is for a plant that you can grow in your area/home situation. Stating that while living in Wisconsin/Minnesota I for some reason can not manage to get tropical orchids to grow outside year round is not the point.

What I've seemed to have increadible difficulty growing well is:
Short season radishes- You know the salad sorts that should grow in about a month!
I've tried a few different growing locations in different areas/neighborhoods. I seem to only end up with them bolting straight to seed. The weather seems to either be too up and down or something else is defeating my attempts at these tasty root crops. I've done all the typical things, thinning them out early, planting while the soil is very cool, fertilizers to no avail. They seem to just not want to grow for me.

Spinach. These I do have -some- reasonable successes with but no matter where I have tried them the weather sends them to bolt to seed quicker than you would expect, but the worst problem is the damn ants. Ants seem to go popeye meets the hulk on them and they ravage my crop everywhere, but typically I do at least enjoy some of those leafy greens.

Parsnips may be difficult as well, but I've only tried them once so it could have been a fluky year.

Dill is another problem child. If I sew the seeds, I get almost zero germination. However all over the garden there are always volunteer dill plants from years past..
 
Very interesting topic!!
Spinach due to pests for me.
I attempted pumpkins this year for the first time and it only produces male flowers but grew quite ridiculously.

I think thats about it... Pests and possums have been my biggest enemy
 
So far carrots have been my nemesis. This is my first year with a big market garden and I have a lot of things that I have never grown before, lettuce, spinach, peas, green beans, cabbage, cauliflower. Suprisingly everything has done wonderfully but the carrots just keep getting taken over by weeds, No matter how many weeds I pull they just come back in a few days. I am considering giving up on them and sterilizing the soil then replanting.
 
JHR said:
Watermellon. Coyotes eat them like candy.
Click to expand...

Do they ever! Like a treat, apparently!

For me, its also spinach. But I have problems with most of the brassicas that require cold weather. Brussel sprouts are worthless here, and I've had little/no luck with cabbage, either.

Tomatoes also don't like me, and I don't like them. :)
 
Dorset Naga. I have grown a thousand but have yet to see one single pod. Fakes, pests, premature death, failed germination... you name it.
 
I have had terrible luck with Silver Beet Swiss Chard. I was able to thin out some beautiful sprouts. That night the slugs took the rest out ! Rocoto Peppers also I have been able to keep them alive 6-8 months tops. They start to flower then drop the flowers and start loosing stems ...
 
Broccoli is one I've never successfully cultivated, even when I lived in New York. I've done other brassicas successfully, broccoli just hates me. Spinach has also given me all sorts of trouble.
 
synclinorium said:
Broccoli is one I've never successfully cultivated, even when I lived in New York. I've done other brassicas successfully, broccoli just hates me. Spinach has also given me all sorts of trouble.
Click to expand...

I have actually had some really beautiful broccoli this year. In fact a chef completely bought us out of it this week at the farmer's market. We have been having some really great spinach too, but that is to be expected with my sandy soil.

IMG_20120528_092733 by GhostPepperStore.com, on Flickr


Also, I forgot to mention mint, I can't grow mint to save my life. I started seeds 4 times this year and had 100% failure. The worst part is that if I ever get some started, people tell me I will have trouble with it taking over everything.
 
theghostpepperstore said:
synclinorium said:
Broccoli is one I've never successfully cultivated, even when I lived in New York. I've done other brassicas successfully, broccoli just hates me. Spinach has also given me all sorts of trouble.
Click to expand...

I have actually had some really beautiful broccoli this year. In fact a chef completely bought us out of it this week at the farmer's market. We have been having some really great spinach too, but that is to be expected with my sandy soil.

IMG_20120528_092733 by GhostPepperStore.com, on Flickr


Also, I forgot to mention mint, I can't grow mint to save my life. I started seeds 4 times this year and had 100% failure. The worst part is that if I ever get some started, people tell me I will have trouble with it taking over everything.
Click to expand...

Wow, I'm envious. I have never gotten heads anything close to that size.

Mint is a crapshoot from seed- you're better off finding someone with cuttings, which shouldn't be an issue. And it does take over very quickly. I have chocolate mint and peppermint in a planter, and then spearmint in the ground (because I don't care if that takes over, nothing else grows in that space anyway. And you can never have too many Mojitos...)

To give you some idea, I started with one small plant last year, and if I hadn't dug up the runners this spring the mint would have already covered a 25 square foot area. It doesn't belong in an herb garden in any event- pretty soon all you'll be left with is mint.
 
+ 1 on the mint!

I've gotten numerous cuttings from friends, started it from seed, purchased full sized plants, and it will grow fine all summer, but it never comes back. I've always grown it in containers, because I've read the horror stories about planting it in the garden. I've tried overwintering it on the porch, in the garage, and in the house, but manage to kill it every time. Another one that's supposed to be invasive, but I manage to kill is lemon balm. Pretty much the same story as the mint.

I'm also another one that can't grow spinach, or Swiss chard. They germinate just fine, but are completely unusable by the time the leaf miners are done with it.
 
Hahaha on the mint. I even grew it in a container. It managed to escape, the container did not do well over winter but the stuff that shot out the drainage holes...

Mint growers, just buy a plant!
 
I finally have dill sprouting, germination took about a month. I too am struggling with broccoli, my main problem is pests constantly eating them before they set a second set of leaves. Mints are so easy were I live, I have a mint garden with iris and orange poppy. All of which survive our semi-annoying winter snow. I almost tossed my first set of carrots, I thought they were weeds because they did not start out looking like carrots.

My biggest struggle is naga jolokia, I have planted about a hundred seeds and have yet to get a single one to germinate. I am currently going through another round, I put 40 more seeds in with a new concoction of starter fluid.
 
mygrassisblue said:
I have had terrible luck with Silver Beet Swiss Chard. I was able to thin out some beautiful sprouts. That night the slugs took the rest out ! Rocoto Peppers also I have been able to keep them alive 6-8 months tops. They start to flower then drop the flowers and start loosing stems ...
Click to expand...
rocoto
for me too that was another one, i did everything i could to help that plant and all it did was get 7 ft tall and give me just two stinkin pods, i dubbed it "ROCOTOZILA" never again!!

thanks your friend Joe
 
Haha, I'm tenacious about the Rocoto. I overwintered all of my plants in spite of only getting a handful of pods last year, and this year most of them are already 3-4 feet tall and again only a handful of pods. Here I have the hot weather to blame, but meh. They'll grow like weeds but getting pods to set is another matter.
 
Tomato! I have no idea why. Several years worth of watermellon and canteloupe have been 100% lost to critters, always just a few days before I intend to harvest them (gaaaargh!). I'm also not that great at growing most c. chinense varieties. I treat them just like my other peppers and they don't seem to like it very much. That doesn't stop me from starting them every spring, and I did get one caribbean red hab to fruit like crazy a few years ago.
 
Mine is the Manzano a/k/a Rocoto. This is my third year growing them and not one ripe pod yet. Maybe it is too hot here. I do have a few pods on the plant this season, though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top