Why all my vegetables die just after start growing?

[hotto]

I don't know what i am doing wrong, but everytimes i try to grow some tomatoes, papaja, etc, either from dry seeds bought from the shop or fresh seeds from the fruits, they just grow about 4 fingers and then they all die.

I try to put them on the shadow or on the sun, same thing, then i put them into buffalo's dung instead that directly on the dirt, same again, i did had some chemical fertilizers, sometime liquid and sometime solid, nothing to do......

What about you guys?

[siam2007]

I can not help you with your problem, but I can probably point you to the right direction to get some sound advice. check www.discovery-garden.org as this is a website run by a European Farang growing all sorts of things in Thailand, and the person running it is extremely knowledgeable and friendly.

Hope that helps

[NeverSure]

Are your plants either rotting at the ground or being cut off at the ground?

Damping off

Cutworm

[Suradit69]

Usually best to plant a lot of papaya seeds where they will grow ... they don't transplant well. As they start to grow you remove the weaker ones over time so that you're left with the most vigorous plant in each place that you want one to grow.

You could start tomatoes in small pots or a tray and transplant them out once they develop. Don't over-water.

If the problem is cutworms, when you plant them out, use "tomato collars." We used to wrap strips of newspaper around them, but there are other suggestions below.

http://www.tomatodirt.com/tomato-worms.html

Make no-cost tomato collars from –

• discarded paper towel rolls or toilet tissue rolls
• cardboard milk cartons (cut open at both ends)
• paper cups (open ended)
• cardboard scraps
• paper
• newspaper
• aluminum foil
• tin or aluminum cans (both ends removed)

Place collars on tomato seedlings when you first plant them in the garden. Sink toilet tissue rolls, milk cartons, cups or cans into the soil an inch or two around the seedling. Or wrap newspaper or aluminum foil around the base of the seedling, extending up from the soil line 2-3 inches. Check tomato collars periodically to make sure are not knocked away from the plant by wind, water, or an overzealous gardener.

[wabothai]

over watering is often the problem.

[rickb]

It could also be the dirt you are using. We use the very black dirt that you can buy in any plant store. We also use seed trays sometimes. But that is not really necessary. It just makes it easier to transplant. Again, as stated above, don't over water.

[cooked]

We had problems with cucumbers, tomatoes, egg plant peppers and chilis.(all solanaceae). I assume that this is due to a gradual build up in the soil of diseases specific to these plants as my wife used to plant the stuff indiscriminately. However after a season of avoiding these plants (growing them in pots) we tried again and things seem to be improving. The Thais know about solarisation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_solarization but I didn't feel like removing the shading so haven't tried it yet. Buffalo and cow poo poo can kill young plants, especially cucumbers. How's your drainage?

I never had problems with transplanting pappaya, the Thais just pull them out of the ground to transplant, I give them water a day before and on planting.

[pest]

My problem was the soil around my house

once I went over to old soil taken from a farm in Pang Na I didn't have a problem

I grow in 3' concrete storm drain rings (500bht each): raised beds

stopped for now as the coming rains will kill it off

[Muhendis]

Take a sample of your soil to the local govt. office that deals with these things and they will analyze it for you for free. Apart from that you sound like you have some understanding of your problem. I have some soils on my farm that came from lake diggings. These are sub soils that will take years to become top soil. I am encouraging this with lots of leaf mold, grass, ploughing and general rotting compost and many years of patience. This problem will take years to resolve.

[willyumiii]

Another consideraqtion..

If your manure, or "dung" as you call it, is too fresh, it will kill your plants.

This can be due to a high salt content in the manure from animal urin.

The best manure, has been age for a year, by then the salts have been leached out of it.

Also, never plant directly into manure..it is a soil amendment, not a soil!

[angiolo]

They are probably seeds from a HYBRID plant. May flower but no fruit

[Muhendis]

Another consideraqtion..

If your manure, or "dung" as you call it, is too fresh, it will kill your plants.

This can be due to a high salt content in the manure from animal urin.

The best manure, has been age for a year, by then the salts have been leached out of it.

Also, never plant directly into manure..it is a soil amendment, not a soil!

A minor correction to your "animal" urine. These tend to be high in alkaline so are great for neutralising salty soils. There is also the possibility that the mineral content of the water is not suitable. For example. If your water comes from a borehole then there will quite likely be high concentrations of magnesium and iron both of which a plant needs but not in excess.

[willyumiii]

Another consideraqtion..

If your manure, or "dung" as you call it, is too fresh, it will kill your plants.

This can be due to a high salt content in the manure from animal urin.

The best manure, has been age for a year, by then the salts have been leached out of it.

Also, never plant directly into manure..it is a soil amendment, not a soil!

A minor correction to your "animal" urine. These tend to be high in alkaline so are great for neutralising salty soils. There is also the possibility that the mineral content of the water is not suitable. For example. If your water comes from a borehole then there will quite likely be high concentrations of magnesium and iron both of which a plant needs but not in excess.

Sorry for the misinformation.

All I know is what I was taught at the university when studying for my degree in horticulture 40 years ago, and my experience since graduating.

Maybe the composition of urine has changed in 40 years?

Last time I did a taste test......

[Brer Fox]

Someone told me it is the dreaded nematodes. They eat the young roots. Try sprinkling sugar around the area where your seeds are planted. The nema's apparently hate sugar.

[pomchop]

Pappayas can be very picky about where they will grow to full trees. I have found that generally they like to be close to a wall, in soil that is a bit elevated and drains well and on the south side of the wall. Seem to like part sun and part shade. Once they get up to six inches or so water very little as they can easily get root rot....also good if you can brace them with a bit of old garden hose or something as the really good ones will produce so much fruit that the top can break off if not supported a bit. I have transplanted many at about six inches tall with success but be careful not to damage the roots when doing so.

As for tomatoes frankly i think every single seed comes up and biggest problem is too many tomatoes. I grow them in big black plastic pots in full sun and water the hell out of them and they seem to thrive.

No luck at all with bell peppers that grow fast but lousy or no fruits. Also no luck with lettuce that grows fast and then dies fast.

Chili peppers are very easy to grow....just buy a few at the local market and use the seeds inside rather than wasting money on storebought seeds. Full sun and water the heck out of them and you'll have more than you can handle.

Good luck with your crops.

[cooked]

Too many generalisations in this thread, conditions are very different from one part of Thailand to another. Pappaya and ginger are weeds here, chili and garlic will only grow well in the rice fields... for example. You just have to keep at it and find out what works for you.

[xen]

Agree with cooked except i would consider raising them in either sharp sand -river sand that has a granular (sharp) profile for both drainage and oxygen exchange - not beach sand usually to fine and too much salt) . Either 100% or 80/20 sand /peat or coconut fibre depending if you can water them regularly and lightly and prevent them from drying out. Sand is fairly neutral in both pH and nutrient which is another advantage of using sand. Once they are established ( a few weeks) then an occasional foliar fertilizer such as compost tea or manure tea if you cant get a commercial product. Also be very careful of growing tomatoes in the same growing media as other plants especially if they are in solinacae family ( capsicum, chilli, tobacco , potatoes etc as wilts will remain in the media/soil - crop rotation will help). Also it is good to grow in pots or better still individual pots like egg cartons to prevent transplant shock when you want to plant them out and you can also move them about to control the amount of light and sun reaching them.

[cooked]

Agree with cooked except i would consider raising them in either sharp sand -river sand that has a granular (sharp) profile for both drainage and oxygen exchange - not beach sand usually to fine and too much salt) . Either 100% or 80/20 sand /peat or coconut fibre depending if you can water them regularly and lightly and prevent them from drying out. Sand is fairly neutral in both pH and nutrient which is another advantage of using sand. Once they are established ( a few weeks) then an occasional foliar fertilizer such as compost tea or manure tea if you cant get a commercial product. Also be very careful of growing tomatoes in the same growing media as other plants especially if they are in solinacae family ( capsicum, chilli, tobacco , potatoes etc as wilts will remain in the media/soil - crop rotation will help). Also it is good to grow in pots or better still individual pots like egg cartons to prevent transplant shock when you want to plant them out and you can also move them about to control the amount of light and sun reaching them.

Well I never mentioned that I have been adding builders' sand (river sand) to our really heavy soil for three years now. River sand IS slightly acidic and a good counter to the alkaline clay soil we have here. I think I have just got it right, I don't get 3cm mud on my shoes when it's wet and I can actually do something with the soil when it hasn't had any rain for months. Compost plus cow poo does the rest.

However despite this the fact remains that the soil born diseases that wreck the solanaceae remain in the soil for a long time, although wood vinegar 2% can help in a small garden. Just keep experimenting until you get what you want?find out what you can get.

[Muhendis]

Another consideraqtion..

If your manure, or "dung" as you call it, is too fresh, it will kill your plants.

This can be due to a high salt content in the manure from animal urin.

The best manure, has been age for a year, by then the salts have been leached out of it.

Also, never plant directly into manure..it is a soil amendment, not a soil!

A minor correction to your "animal" urine. These tend to be high in alkaline so are great for neutralising salty soils. There is also the possibility that the mineral content of the water is not suitable. For example. If your water comes from a borehole then there will quite likely be high concentrations of magnesium and iron both of which a plant needs but not in excess.

Sorry for the misinformation.

All I know is what I was taught at the university when studying for my degree in horticulture 40 years ago, and my experience since graduating.

Maybe the composition of urine has changed in 40 years?

Last time I did a taste test......

Maybe not misinformation. I thought that the smell of bovine urine, which is almost overpowering in the milking parlour, was due to the high alkaline content. If thats not the case then please can you enlighten me?

[willyumiii]

Another consideraqtion..

If your manure, or "dung" as you call it, is too fresh, it will kill your plants.

This can be due to a high salt content in the manure from animal urin.

The best manure, has been age for a year, by then the salts have been leached out of it.

Also, never plant directly into manure..it is a soil amendment, not a soil!

A minor correction to your "animal" urine. These tend to be high in alkaline so are great for neutralising salty soils. There is also the possibility that the mineral content of the water is not suitable. For example. If your water comes from a borehole then there will quite likely be high concentrations of magnesium and iron both of which a plant needs but not in excess.

Sorry for the misinformation.

All I know is what I was taught at the university when studying for my degree in horticulture 40 years ago, and my experience since graduating.

Maybe the composition of urine has changed in 40 years?

Last time I did a taste test......

Maybe not misinformation. I thought that the smell of bovine urine, which is almost overpowering in the milking parlour, was due to the high alkaline content. If thats not the case then please can you enlighten me?

You got my curiosity up too, so I did a little research online.

It appears they yes, fresh manure is high in salts and alkalinity, but, the big problem is the high ammonia content. It is also high in pathogens that are harmful to plants.

As I stated in my first post, aged or composted manure is your best bet, for whatever reason we choose.

"The use of cattle manure, or cow dung, in the garden is a popular practice in many rural areas. This type of manure is not as rich in nitrogen as many other types; however, the high ammonia levels can burn plants when the fresh manure is directly applied."

[hotto]

Been away from my pc a few days, thanks for all your replies and suggestions, i didn't yet have a look at the links but i will soon. As usual i got a massive amounts of issues to deal with, from small insects getting into my cctv cameras, lights having to be replaced, weeds that grow everywhere, even on concrete and as soon as i cut them off, it needs to be cut off again....i have never seen weeds grow up at that speed in all my life...while at the same time it seems so hard to keep alive the plants you want, and then hordes of insects of all shapes and sizes, it's a constant battle.

The land around here it's mostly used to grow rice and that white tuber i can't remember what is called (in thai they just say "man").

The dirt it's very red, so probably full of iron, when it rains, the water find it very difficult to penetrate the soil, so it floods easily, and the surface gets incredibly slippery, also very hard to clean it up from your hands, it gets stuck almost like a grease.

The water in the village it's provided by one of those mushroom shaped borehole well.

These are the fresh fruit's papaya seeds sprouting up, the tomatoes where looking almost the same before to die all togheter (rotting?), only a couple of small tomatoes plants survived.

Last 2 tomatoes, the survivors.

Fertilizers i am using, dry chemical and dry dung.

I bought also a couple of these pine like ornamental plants, i kept them in their containers and giving them water 3 or 4 times a day, i also add a bit of the 2 fertilizers i have to give them some nutrients, but they are drying up anyways, i didn't put them into the dirt as i had a previous plant that died this way too.....

[hotto]

The "manure" i am using, it's extremely dry and light....

[JDGRUEN]

Tomato blight is nearly the norm in Thailand... One need to plant blight resistant tomato varieties and be careful about using regular soil ... Composted soil - made from vegetable matter in a real composting setup will help ... There have been many post on TVF about tomato blight in Thailand.

[Anon999]

Your problem could be Japanese Beetle grubs. I've been inundated with them this year. If you can see long bumps on the earth with cracks across them then they are the cause. This year the very hot weather since late February has exacerbated the problem.

[hotto]

Not many beetles around here, when i see "bumps" on the soil, they are almost always flying ants or termites, we got plenty of them.

There are so many species of ants too, 1 night i found an army of small ones digging out all my papaja seeds and carrying them away....

Can you suggest any specific brand of fertilizer which worked out for your tomatoes?

I am going to check out on the suggested links now, thanks!

[hotto]

Are your plants either rotting at the ground or being cut off at the ground?

Damping off

Cutworm

Hi NeverSure,

the problem looks like "damping off", i am going to follow this guide and see if sharing my cuppa of camomile with the little sprouts will give me any good results, i did try so many things, as making different layers with gravel, sand, dirt, compost and also just dung, but nothing really seemed to work as yet, i will keep experimenting.

Tomorrow i will move some of the papaya sprouts in a new pot and give them some camomile, not sure if i should add some sugar too, as it might attract ants and other insects, i will do without for now (for the plants).

"Make your own Organic Fungicide

• A strong brew of chamomile or cinnamon tea. Use it to water and/or mist your seedlings."

http://gardening.about.com/od/gardenproblems/qt/Damping-Off.htm

[cooked]

I don't like the look of the 'dirt' (meaning soil) that you use, nor of the seedlings. I certainly give very little in the way of fertiliser before planting, maybe a foliar feed. I suspect that you are giving fertiliser too much and too soon? Difficult to say.

[hotto]

Ok i have got news.

When i was transplanting the small few survivors of my tomatoes plants, the soil under it was complitely infested with small insects of different species, i could recognize some little ants, then many other little creatures i am unable to tell what they were, including a couple of long ones looking as small centipedes or caterpillars, it was like a party feast, i could clearly see about 30 or 40 of them, so inside that soil's ball there was maybe 100 or more.....

I am going to buy some wood vinegar and see if it can make a difference, don't want to use chemicals as i got dogs strolling around.

[cooked]

Wood vinegar is a powerful chemical. I bet I could kill a dog with it. Just keep an open mind about the use of 'chemicals'.

[hotto]

I made some research on the wood vinegar (pyroligneous acid) before to choose it, apparently it's safe for both humans and animals, it's used on livestock too and some people also use it against tick and fleas on their dogs.

If anyone has helpfull info about the dangers of this product on dogs, please share, for the time being it seems to be ok.

I bougt a sprayer and the vv as planned and today i sprayed all of my plants, but for some of them seems to be too late already, i will keep posting about the results i get.

This are some links with helpfull infos i found, before to make my choice, it's a good read, have a look.

http://www.ace-agro.com/wood-vinegar.html

http://www.gic.or.jp/en/foreigner/2012/11/faq04.html (see answer number 9)