My first garden troubles

Wow, thanks for all of the great tips everyone. This was my first garden as well. While I fared better than Lostmind, I did have some similar problems. I had the most success with pole beans and tomatoes. I found that planting Basil with the tomatos helped keep the pests away and the basil grew very well. I found that I had to pull of the "sucker" branches on the tomatos to keep the fruit from getting covered by the drying leaves.

The pole beans were quite unruly and many times I had a leaning tower of beans. I felt like I needed to climb into the plants to get at the beans all twisted up. Next year I will use a arched trellis!! I know now to pick them when they are slim and small for the best right off the vine flavour.

I didn't have to fertilise the zuccihni, but did have the same fungus problem. Perhaps having some other flowers about the garden to attract the bees works. I had lots of bees. My cilantro also didn't fare well, but I did get some home made salsa out of it. Yum.

Any tips for growing vigorous Rosemary. Mine seemed to grow very slowly. Is this normal?

 

I'm surprised that rosemary would even grow in a cold-winter location like Ottawa. In Florida (and also in Portland, Oregon), it likes well-drained sites and sun. Growth, at least here in Florida, seems slow fast and plants may or may not be long-lived.