I’ve had an interesting time this season, watching some plants absolutely thrive (salads, brassicas, leeks, parsnips, beetroot – they are all looking super!) and then watching other plants struggle to survive.
A lot of the struggling plants have been tender crops, like beans and sweetcorn. They’re doing ‘okay’ but they are definitely not thriving, and as for the squash and courgette bed, well, they may as well not have been planted at all. I’m not kidding, the courgettes never grew more than one extra leaf, and the squashes have only just started to grow now that they’ve been in the ground for almost two months!!
But, I have also been observing, and the beans in one of the top beds are doing better than the beans in the lower bed. Interestingly, the lower bed is one that I topped up with compost, whereas the top bed didn’t get any extra this year. Then I noticed the nasturtiums. The ones pictured above – the nice bushy ones that have lovely flowers – are growing in a bed that I didn’t top up with compost, and the ones pictured to the left are growing in the same bed as the squashes and courgette, a bed that I chucked a whole load of multipurpose compost onto.
Normally, things are the other way around, and I find that the beds that have been recently topped up with compost tend to have healthier looking and slightly faster growing plants. But not all compost offers plants the same thing, even when you’re buying the same brand. It can’t, because the composition will always be slightly different.
What is interesting with the squash, is that it is now that their roots have gone deeper than the layer of compost that they’ve managed to get going properly. They are preferring the soil below. I’ve not experienced this with squash before – they normally gallop when I grow them in compost.
It also got me looking a little more closely at the plants I’m growing in pots, filled with the same compost, and they’re not doing brilliantly either. Unfortunately I bought in bulk, and it’s the same brand that I normally buy, so I’m not going to do any naming or shaming because it was probably just a substandard batch and I’ve always found them good in the past. But it is an interesting thing to have seen, how plants can sometimes just struggle with the compost composition – and that’s down to texture, moisture retention, nutrient balance and so on.