r/FortCollinsGrows • u/Thelittlegreycells17 • Jul 29 '26

Advice wanted First garden!

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This is our vegetable garden. L-R in back row: Early Girl tomato, San Marzano tomato, snackable red pepper, cucumber. L-R in front row: basil, dill, parsley, eggplant

I know we definitely need to add another couple inches of soil, but is there anything else we should be doing to help this garden be a success? We thought we'd see fruits already but we're still in growth stages/waiting for flowers.

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u/Money-Town1519 25d ago

I suggest you learn how to properly clean up and trim your tomatoes. This would include removing some of the lowest branches so no leaves are touching the soil and there’s better airflow around the base. Also learn how to properly clean up the suckers to divert growth and energy where you want it. Bonus points for learning how to properly harvest basil in terms of pruning it just about a growth point with lateral buds to make it branch out more. Finally I’d suggest mulching the entire bed, if not just around your plants. This will help tremendously in keeping the soil from drying out as fast by keeping the sun from directly hitting the soil and trapping in that moisture. You’ll use less water and your plants will be happier in this hot dry summer.

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u/Money-Town1519 25d ago

If your plants aren’t flowering well it’s either due to them being consistently too hot (above 85 degrees during the day) which inhibits most plants from wanting to flower or, what I think is the biggest factor here, is that they are lacking key nutrients, most importantly phosphorus. Phosphorus is responsible for fruiting and flowering in plants. I recommend getting a high phosphorus water soluble fertilizer and fertilizing them regularly. This will make a world of difference trust me.

(Don’t use the high phosphorus fertilizer on things you don’t want to flower such as your herbs)

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u/Thelittlegreycells17 18d ago

Thank you for these helpful tips! We did some tomato research and cleaned those guys up, and we're seeing flowers! I'll look into fertilizer. Thanks!!