Small veggies but LOTS of foliage

by Heather
(NS, Canada)

I planted a not dig garden and used corn meal and ash, then 3 inches of compost. I had LOTS of foliage on everything but my tomatoes, onions, corn ears, melons, etc were VERY small. I only ended up with tiny peppers at the very end of the growing season and only a few potatoes per plant but huge plants.
The only thing that seemed to do well were swiss chard, lettuce, zuchinni.
It seems like there was something off in my soil. What would be the problem?

Comments for Small veggies but LOTS of foliage

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Jun 11, 2011

Good foliage but small vegetables
by: Megan

Could be a number of causes, but at a guess your soil may be too high on the pH scale, that is quite alkaline. A soil test would be worth doing. Although you used ash, the potassium may have leached away, so that is a soil mineral worth making sure you have enough of. Seaweed meal or feeding with seaweed compost tea would help.

Not knowing about your compost it’s hard to know whether that was the problem, because if it had too much fresh animal manure in and was high in nitrogen, that may have caused lots of leaves but poor fruit. Cornmeal also contains nitrogen.

It sounds very disappointing for you, and I hope the next season your soil and growing conditions will be more balanced. Have a look at growing a fallow crop before planting next season.

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