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September 24, 2024

This Week's Garden Gab:
​Why didn't my plants develop food?

Hi Reader!

Recently, I was contacted by a subscriber who has a balcony garden. She lives in Zone 9b where there are long, hot summers and mild winters. The growing season can span from February to December, which provides an opportunity to grow a LOT of produce!

This subscriber experienced a problem that is not uncommon for gardeners. She grew tomatoes and peppers, and had lots of beautiful green leaves and flowers, but no fruit. By fruit I mean the edible part of a plant developed from a flower, not just apples, oranges, berries, but also tomatoes, peppers, etc. It's all called fruit in a garden.

Let's get into possible reasons why this happens.

In this edition:

• Plant Life Cycles
• N-P-K Fertilizer Labels
• Reasons for Poor Fruit Production
• Remedies

Education:

Plant Growth Cycle

1. A seed comes in contact with a medium, i.e. dirt, soil, clay, sand.
2. With proper environmental conditions the seed germinates.
3. Greenery grows upward, and roots grow downward.
4. Water and nutrients will cause it to grow.
5. It produces a set of seed leaves (also called cotyledon), then its true leaves, then more leaves.
6. With maturity, it will develop flowers.
7. Flowers get pollinated by insects, wind, or by hand.
8. Once pollinated the flower will develop beautiful fruit.

Here is another picture for us visual learners.

NPK Fertilizer Labels:

Calling all Chemistry Enthusiasts! ... and all those, who like me, barely got through chemistry.
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Have you ever noticed the label on fertilizer bags that read: N-P-K? These letters are the chemical element symbols that tells you how much of these elements are in the fertilizer.

N - Nitrogen:

... gets the growth show on the road. It's a building block for growing new stems and leaves, plus it is a necessary part of chlorophyll, which makes the leaves green and helps plants photosynthesize.

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​P - Phosphorus:

... is needed for developing flowers, fruits, and root systems.

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​K - Potassium:

... keeps roots healthy and also aids flowers and fruits. It helps plants tolerate stress, such as drought.

🐛What is NPK? Find out more here.

🐛How do these elements/nutrients affect your veggie plants? Learn more about what these nutrients mean for your plants.

Application:

So why do leafy, flowering plants develop no delicious fruit? There are a number of reasons that affect the fruiting stage. Read more below.

🐛Tomatoes not fruiting? Read here. The Epic Gardener is a terrific resource.
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🐛Squash/Cukes/Zucchini not fruiting? Read here.

🐛Peppers not fruiting? Read here.

Selection:

How did I fixed the problem of no fruiting.
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• Grow Flowers

I had no intention of growing flowers in my garden but after I learned the benefits of growing them along with food plants I planted marigolds, sunflowers, zinnias, nasturtiums, mums, clematis, cone flowers, autumn joy sedum, and containers of wildflowers.
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Cute little rabbit beasts nibbled down lots of my flowers! So frustrating! However, these flowers also brought great numbers of bumblebees who were busy as ever spreading pollen everywhere.

[🐝*Side Note: If you are allergic to bees, do whatever you do to protect yourself.]
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Look at this Sedum plant. It blooms in late summer. The bees buzz between these flowers and my garden veggie plants for weeks.
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I work around these plants every day. I have three of them and these bees never bother me. They are solely focused on getting whatever is in the plant.

During the summer months you can pick up seeds anywhere from Dollar Tree to a Big Box store. The supply is endless. If you are looking for any specific type of heirloom seeds you can get them from an online gardening supply store and most of these stores also sell their products on Amazon. Heirloom seeds will allow you to reseed and grow the same plant the following year.
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I bought regular basil at Home Depot Garden Center, but when I wanted a special heirloom variety called Holy Basil... I ordered it from Amazon.
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​Holy Basil has special medicinal properties that I found interesting, so I wanted to grow it. [Just passing along information, I'm no doctor and not giving medical advice, folks!]
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• Less Nitrogen (N)

When I first pot my plants or put in seed, I add fertilizer that has a higher nitrogen number. One of my favorites is the Alaska Fish Fertilizer. Its NPK is 5-1-1. You can see that the N (nitrogen) is 5, and the P and K is lower.

As the plants grow and start to flower I use a fertilizer that has less nitrogen and more of the P and K. This encourages the plant to slow its production of bushy leaves and to put its energy into growing fruit.
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• Shade protection

My garden faces south/southwest so at about 11:30 am on, it is blaaazing fire hot during the summer. Most summer plants love the sun, but some while liking the heat, they don't want too much for too long.
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When it gets too hot I put stakes in the ground or in containers and drop shade cloth over the plants. Particularly for my bell peppers and eggplants. They like hot weather but too much sun will also scald them similarly a sunburn.
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The sun also slows or halts production of flowers on some plants. They'll continue to grow but do not put on flowers or fruit.

​Sunblock Shade cloth comes in different shade levels. I use the 40%-50% grade. I drape it over the stakes during the heat of the day and sometimes I leave it a while depending on the weather; it doesn't seem to hurt anything, but it really protects them from the heat and allows the plants to keep growing.

Edification:

You know I like to leave you with something encouraging.
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This prophetic vision serves as a powerful reminder of God's promise of restoration, abundance, and inclusion in His kingdom.

"Their fruit will be used for food and the leaves for healing."

God has provided all that we need.

That's all I have for this edition. Feel free to write me at jangardener@gardenease.org if you have any questions or comments.

Forward this newsletter to anyone you think would be interested in gardening information and to SUBSCRIBE HERE.

I'll see you in the next edition!

Jan🤗

If you have questions, comments, praises, complaints, or ideas about gardening or about the newsletter, you can reach me at: jan@gardenease.org