DRAMA in the garden!!

Yes folks, there is drama in the garden! But first, I must apologize for not posting because I was really busy with work, and then I became miserably ill with a cold. I've also been busy with so many places to go and things to do. I'm seriously wondering if I'm busier here than I was when I was living in NYC. It might be true.

Some of my plants have died, are dying or are suffering. Here are the problems:

1. Our backyard hose busted. It was really old and worn out by the scorching sun and split when we started using a nozzle. I guess it couldn't take the water pressure. So I had to hand water everything until our landlady brought over a new one, and hand watered my lettuce which probably ended up displacing the seeds.

2. Aphid infestation! I looked closely at my potted flowers and noticed aphids going to town on my English daisies. I went and bought a bottle of poison and killed them, however I'm sure I probably killed a few honeybees as well. =(   Not good.  I found aphids on my little squash and killed them and tried spraying it with soapy water, but I think either the soapy water killed my squash or the aphids did, I don’t know- Either way, both of my squashes have died. It might also have been some kind of fungus that killed them.

3. The pots that I have my flowers in have started to split. They are recycled plastic pots and I don't know if all the rainwater we had made them split or what, but I'm very upset that they are cracking so I'll never buy any kind of recycled pot again, even if they are on sale for two dollars each!

4. My lettuce has never surfaced and as I stated before, my two squashes have perished.

5. There is something wrong with one of my tomatoes now too. Some of its leaves have become limp and yellow. I talked to my mom about this and she said that either I'm not watering it enough or I am watering it too much. I don't think I've ever watered it too much, so on Sunday I watered all of my tomatoes thoroughly, and I placed them all out into direct sunlight. Now my other two in plastic pots have now gotten droopy, so maybe I've overwatered those too!? This is crazy!

What is?!?

Here's a rundown of how each of my plants are doing:

Tomatoes: As I said before, one tomato was droopy and now that I gave them a ton of water, my two other ones are droopy as well. Also yesterday we were having high winds and so I immediately went out and bought wire cages to support them. (I'd have to buy them eventually.) I'm having trouble recognizing how much water I should be giving them and how often. I'm used to growing things that don't need to be watered often and now I'm relearning everything about taking care of plants. One guy on the internet said he waters his tomatoes in buckets everyday because they dry out quickly. I checked them today and the soil feels quite damp so I don’t want to touch them. I wish I had some kind of gage to tell me when to water them.

All in all, I've noticed that my tomatoes are growing, which obviously is good. They are much larger than when I first potted them a few weeks ago, so something must be working! I just hope that I don't lose them to anything. I haven’t noticed any aphids on them, which is great. I've also noticed that my tomato in the clay pot has done well and has shown no signs of under/overwatering or anything else. My two tomato seedlings in the small terracotta pot are doing well also, which makes me wonder if going terracotta/clay is the way to go. I suspect that the terracotta keeps the moisture more even than plastic does. The next time I plant a container garden I guess I'll save my money and go for the terracotta! Even though it's harder to move them around because they are heavier.

I don't know how I'm going to transplant my two tomato seedlings. Should I keep them together, or try to separate them?

Squashes/Zucchini: My little seedlings have perished, due to some kind of blight, aphids or by my own hand. I feel bad, but that's when it becomes LOWE'S time. I picked up two more zucchini plants that are much farther along than my little ones were, and they appear to be healthy. I haven't repotted them yet, since my mom said that they can stand to be in their pots for a while.

Just a few beaten up leaves- the rest looks great!

Lettuce: Never materialized. The heavy rains we had probably killed them along with me trying to water them by hand. I think it's too warm to try and plant them now. Maybe at the end of this year...

Potted Flowers: Some died from heavy rains and as I said before, their pots are starting to split. They look a little more old and scraggly now, but very worth what I paid for them!

Sunflowers: My sunflowers have given me hardly any issues whatsoever. It looks like some kind of insect ate some parts of the leaves, but it didn't do much damage. My main task now is to decide where and possibly how to plant them. Since there used to be a pool in our backyard, the ground is very rocky and shallow and I'm not sure how far down I'll be able to dig.

All of this makes me wish that I had my own house and yard because then I could make a raised garden bed, and do pretty much anything I want without having to wonder if I would have approval or not. Also I would know that my situation is much more permanent than it is now. If I had to move right now, I wouldn't be able to take everything and it would be a lot of money down the drain. I've yet to meet anyone else here my age range who is interested in gardening as well.