Garden Blogger's DEATH Day for September -beet fail

The end of the month is here, already, with the change in the weather upon us. I have been harvesting the veggies, and as I scrubbed my ENTIRE beet crop, I decided it would be the appropriate thing to share for Death Day.

Garden Blogger's Death Day was instituted by Kate and Crew at Gardening without Skills.

Don't miss the fun, head on over and see what's up (or not up).

You can see, not much there. Not total death, but the next puny thing to it.

And why, oh why, did the beets do so poorly?
Perhaps because they had to grow in the shadow of these volunteer cosmos?
Nah.. that couldn't be it.
Must be some other problem.
Every year I vow to be merciless to the volunteers (sunflowers, cosmos, dill weed) in my vegetable garden. Every year I fail.

fail, fail, fail -Garden Blogger's Death Day

I know I'm late for Death day, but took these pics earlier to share.

In the spring, I cut up and planted some red potatoes I had grown last year.

I knew that we really are not supposed to do that, but thought I'd try it. I've only grown potatoes two or three times before, and don't consider myself an expert with them.

(neither will you, when you see my results!)

The first tuber was mushy.

ahem. 'maybe the others will be better', I thought.

No such luck. Everything was a rotten, mushy mess.

Maybe it was the re-used potatoes. Maybe there is verticillium wilt, etc built up in the soil. I try to rotate the tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes, but the garden is not that big. Several of my tomatoes are showing evidence of some kind of blight/wilt problems.

yep, you can see the dwindly plant stalks and evidence of disease. I thought they were just done. I guess I'll try something different next year. I do have more potatoes to harvest. I'll let you know how they turn out.
ring out your dead. oh yeah.

Be sure to check out more death at Gardening without Skills!

Garden Blogger's DEATH Day?!

A few weeks ago I found a blog that tickled my funnybone.

Katie, of Gardening Without Skills, has begun a timely tradition that can help

all of us as bloggers AND gardeners

face our failures with a smile on our lips.

(photo courtesy of USDA plant files)

As you may have guessed, it's called blogger's death day, and gives us a chance to admit ("I'm gardener Muum, and I've killed ten plants this week." 'Hello, Muum')

our failures and mistrakes.

So, here's mine. I started out with some cute buttercups, and moved a few to my 'spring' garden bed, thinking they would add color and interest after the spring bulbs, etc, had faded. This worked great for ONE year, and then the buttercups, 'dear, little buttercups' ruthlessly took over half of the bed.

My response was to try and dig them out, but they have clumpy, nasty roots, and root off of the stem, etc. So, I reluctantly broke out the roundup, because I've learned that it is better to head off an invasion earlier than later. In this pic above, you can see the results of my roundup attack.

Here (below)you can see the roots, as well as the lovely and attractive (said with a bitter and sarcastic tone) foliage.
A month has passed by, and I still have a few more to dig out. And a few that have come back after my offensive and are hoping I won't come back and get them. But I will. :]

Let me know in comments if you have a failure, disaster, etc that you are willing to post, and go see Kate's deadly blog.