Why Won't My Garden Grow?

Alright bloggy friends, help me out here please.

My garden has not done well again this year.  According to all the experts, a home garden is supposed to produce enough to save money on the grocery bill.  That has definitely not been the case for our garden. 

A little history…

We live in Zone 7.  Our soil is red clay, and the lot is sloped, so the topsoil tends to erode quickly.  We have a retaining wall running the length of our backyard as a tier to minimize the erosion.  Because of these issues, we decided to build raised beds rather than dig around in the yard itself.  To prepare for the raised beds, we tilled the soil about 4-6” deep, which was as far as we could dig with a residential tiller.  Furthermore, failure to coordinate among utilities resulted in several strands of wire/cable running the length of our yard, greatly restricting where we could plant.  There is only one area where we get full sun for much of the day, and that area is where we placed two of our beds, both 4’X8’.  The third bed, a 4’X4’, is in a medium sun area and is used solely for growing salad greens.  Our raised beds are 12” deep. 

When we put in our raised beds three summers ago, we had raised bed growing medium trucked in.  We spent over $250 to build the beds and get seed stock.  That first year, our plants grew large and lush.  They didn’t produce much, though.  I did not use any commercial fertilizer, only compost from our yard which had been composting over the winter.  Typically, our squash plants would produce one squash per week per plant.  Our tomatoes produced well; but not until late-August into September, which is much later than typical for our zone.  It was enough to eat and put some up for the winter, but certainly did not begin to justify the cost of the garden.  However, we didn’t expect a return on our investment the first year. 

The second year, we amended the soil with compost and purchased our seeds.  Our plants grew tall and spindly, but really did not produce anything of significance.  I discussed with our local extension office and learned that the problems we were facing were very common in our area because of draught and temperatures.  We ended up buying a small bag of organic fertilizer to try and boost the growth.  During the dry season, we watered three days a week, according to local ordinances regarding water restrictions.  We did get a decent crop of lettuce for one to two weeks in the late spring.  Our zone is not conducive to growing lettuce during the summer. 

This spring, we amended our soil with more compost, building it up a bit.  We had our soil tested and those results were normal.  Our lettuce bed produced enough for one salad for our family.  That’s it.  Our vegetable beds have produced (so far) 1 zucchini, 1 regular cucumber, and 1 pickling cucumber.  We switched to a commercial fertilizer this year (Miracle Gro Tomato Fertilizer), hoping it would help.  We are using it according to package directions.  The zucchini plant has grown well.  Right now, it has a single 4” zucchini growing that has not changed in size in over a week.  The tomato plants (cherry, roma and slicing) are pencil thin and range from 18” to 30” tall, after 4 months.  Some were grown from seed, others purchased.  They have no blooms.  The cowpeas didn’t even germinate, as the birds ate the seeds.  We purchased 10 strawberry plants to replace them and 4 of those are still alive.  Those are about 6” tall, and were about 3” tall when we bought them in early June.  The okra is about a foot tall and spindly.  It’s the same with the kohlrabi.  I also planted a few marigolds, as a natural bug repellant.  We don’t have much of a bug problem, but our hope was to eliminate any.  Grass grows beautifully in the garden.  I have fought grass all spring and summer.  I pull up large clumps of grass, including roots, and a week later the plot is filled with grass again.  We have a good population of earthworms in our soil. 

I’ve called the extension office again and they recommend spending yet more money to have our soil tested several times during the growing season.  I simply cannot justify dumping more money into this.  We’ve already spent at least $300 in supplies, plus the cost of supplemental watering, and the garden has yielded around $25 worth of produce over three years.  I’m not going to spend more money testing the soil again. 

Our roses, azaleas, roses of Sharon, spring bulbs, mums and hostas are all thriving in their various locations through the yard.  Our lawn is decent. 

Do any of you gardeners out there have any suggestions for getting this garden to grow?  I’m ready to pull them up and lay down a patio instead.