Maryland Grows

I think we’ve all been there. Everything else in the vegetable garden is going well, growing as it should, producing bountifully, getting the better of challenges. And then there’s the one plant that just… isn’t. (Or more than one that just aren’t.) Maybe, though, given a little more time, a little more fertilizer, a little more effort, a little more love… it might pull through? Or is it taking up space for no reason? Worse, is keeping it around bad for your more successful plants?

When, in fact, is it the right time to commit plant murder?

I can’t help joking, but of course we all hate killing plants that we’ve tried hard to nurture, maybe even growing them from a tiny seed. But let’s face it, there’s only so much space in a garden, and the season will be over soon. We don’t want to waste the time and square feet that we have. Most of the plants in an edible garden are annuals, and with these we need to make decisions soon. With perennials, maybe you can wait until next year to see if conditions improve.

How do you figure out when and if you should pull a plant out of the garden? Well, it’s like a detective story in reverse; first, you need to be an investigator, and then a potential killer. Find out what’s wrong with the plant; assess how bad the problem is and what the consequences might be; and then make a decision based on the facts.

The HGIC website is a good place to start. If the plant in question is a vegetable, I suggest starting with the Vegetables Grown in Maryland page, select your vegetable, and visit the “Growing ___ in a Home Garden” article. From there, you can explore the list of potential problems. If you can’t figure it out from there, or from more searching online, you can contact the Ask Extension team, or ask your county’s Master Gardeners.

The problems you might encounter with plants include:

PESTS

Pest problems are often fixable. Follow the advice given at HGIC or on other regional Extension websites, and you are likely to be able to control the pests sufficiently to get a crop. However, there are a few instances where giving up on the plant is a better option.

• The pest has killed the plant or come close to killing it. For example, squash vine borer can take out a squash plant in days, and if you don’t remove the pest in time, or it has destroyed most of the main stem, you will not be able to revive the plant. Flea beetles can eat most of the foliage of young eggplants, to the point where they can’t survive. But don’t jump to the conclusion that a few holes mean a devastating invasion.
• The pests keep coming back even when you remove them. This happens often in community garden situations or when you have close neighbors growing the same plants. Maybe you can work together to get rid of the pests, but if that’s not an option, you might consider switching to a less susceptible crop.
• There is a solution, but you can’t implement it right now. This is particularly true of animal pests—maybe you need to fix a fence or fill a hole, and it’s best done in the off-season. Or you have overplanted a bed, making it difficult to reach plants to remove pests. The easiest fix may be to remove the temptation and limit the pest’s options in the process.

Remember that not dealing with insect pests as soon as possible means that they are able to complete their life cycle and make more pests! If you do remove a plant that is infested, try putting it in a black plastic trash bag and leaving it out in the sun until the pests are dead. That way, you haven’t just chased them off to attack another plant. You can then put the bag in the trash or even add the contents to your compost if the plant isn’t also diseased. Speaking of which…

DISEASES

If you suspect a plant disease, diagnose it and read up on its prognosis. Does it kill a plant fast, or is it slow-working? How lethal is it and how fast does it spread? Again, it’s likely you can keep plants going for a while, for example with a common fungal disease like early blight on tomatoes, but there are cases where plant removal is advisable. If you do pull plants, put them in the trash rather than adding the debris to your compost.

• Diseases that spread quickly. If you see the disease spreading to other plants, and it can’t be stopped by removing affected foliage and other plant parts, you may need to pull the plants that are diseased. This is especially true in truly destructive diseases like late blight (luckily, this is uncommon in Maryland!), but also with more common issues like bacterial leaf spot, which has devastated some of my recent pepper crops. Remember, most diseases are specific to particular species or families, so you don’t need to pull out your whole garden because one type of plant is affected.
• Diseases that will prevent a plant from producing. Examples include bacterial wilt that kills a cucumber overnight (easy call), or mosaic virus that lets a squash plant continue to grow but will kill it before it has any viable fruit (harder to make the decision to pull). In perennial plants such as fruit trees, you may lose a crop one year but not the next; on the other hand, if the disease comes back for several years running despite treatment, why are you still trying? (It took me a couple years of fire blight on quince to decide I wasn’t meant to grow it.)
• Multiple factors, including disease. A disease alone might not be enough to make you decide to pull a plant, but if it’s also battling pests or drought, or producing very little for some other reason, it might not be worth keeping.

OTHER

• Failure to thrive. This is a generic term for “just not cutting it”: looking puny and sad. Maybe the seed you grew this plant from was the worst one in the packet; maybe it got stressed from being in a pot too long; maybe the soil conditions in that particular spot are poor; maybe we’ve had crazy weather and the plant just can’t cope. Some TLC and fertilizer may help, but not always.
• Bolting. Cool-weather crops often last into the summer, but there’s always a point when they want to go to flower, and no amount of pruning will stop it.
• Failure to produce correctly. Maybe the plant looks healthy but it isn’t making what it’s supposed to make. Root vegetables that don’t make roots; beans that don’t bean; broccoli that won’t head up. A little extra time and some fertilizer may help, but possibly not. Pull the plant; do a soil test and plan an appropriate fertilizer regimen next year; look at conditions generally (enough sun? enough water?).
• Need the space for something else. In a small garden, we sometimes have to make choices about what hangs in there and what gets ousted. If you want to grow kale and there is nowhere else to put it but where the tomato plant is covered with early blight and producing many fewer fruits, it may be time for the tomato plant to go.

In general, remember that failures are a learning experience! Sometimes we learn about a fundamental flaw in our garden or in our practice; sometimes we learn that a particular plant isn’t for us (but give it another try first!); sometimes we can just chalk up failure to a bad year or one fixable mistake. Pulling a plant is also an opportunity to put another plant in its place. (Probably not one of the same species, because the problem may affect it too.) Succession planting is made easier by thoughtful but relatively quick decision-making; get out that sick squash and you may still have time to put some bush beans in, or to get the space ready for fall planting.

And as gardeners, we always continue to hope things will be better next time!

By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.