It doesn't always work out like you want.

Life is one big experiment. And like all others this one does not come with a map or a guarantee of success. My raised bed went together like clock work which is great. Its just the after that is giving me a hard time. I planted it out and everything was going fine for a while. Now it seems that I counted my chickens before they hatched (before I even got them as the case is for me). Either the rain has gotten to my plants, which I doubt, or I used too much of the manure and humus mixture in combination with the topsoil I filled the bed with. This is more than likely the case as I planted some backup tomato plants about two weeks later in a different bed and those seem to be doing fine. What has caused my problems? I think that the levels of nitrogen are way to high from an overabundance of manure. This has caused my roots some problems and is killing my first planting. If this is the case then eventually I will pull the failed plants and some of the soil in the raised bed and remix it with an amendment of native soil and in an attempt to balance out the npk ratio and the percentage of organic matter. If nothing else this will be a lesson learned on my journey to growing my own food. Hopefully by this time next year all I will need to buy from the grocery store are the meats, dairy, and some fruit that I cannot grow my self (at least until I have some more land...but that is still down the road). The one thing I am certain of is that my thumb is green. The herbs that I am growing and the fruit and vegetable production class I took way back in 2013 have proven that much. That and the fact that I helped my dad garden as a kid, and even created a producing garden for his house this year are definitely reassuring. I'll have some more pictures here in the near future.