I don't know what your neck of the woods is like but here in "High altitude misery land, were subsoil is the only soil in your yard and it'll freeze in June because fuck you" it's a struggle to get anything out of the garden.

This year, something went wrong with the peppers and tomatoes I started indoors (I suspect the potting soil) and they never grew over 1.5 inches tall, even after they were hardened off and planted outdoors in proper soil. As such, I bought a pepper and a tomato from a retail store. The pepper is still only about a foot tall, but the tomato was actually bushing out fairly well, about 4' tall... and then something ate it down to maybe 3'-2.5'-ish. The squash I started indoors did much better and survived hardening off well. After I put them into the garden the earwigs actually waited a whole week to eat them down to stumps. And I absolutely need to water... it takes about two days for the plants to start wilting.

My garden makes me appreciate the supermarket every year.

[–] cizra@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

My soil is also "clay with weeds on top", but somehow the weeds manage to grow, so I'm not losing hope. I'm digging it up, mixing with peat+manure+last year's grass clippings, and hoping for the best. It helps to have a neighbor sell bullshit by the ton. My Mrs., on the other hand, would prefer to buy planting soil by the truckload.

A late frost eated almost all my apples, bell peppers, and whatnot, this year - everything that wasn't covered. What was covered, though, survived fine. You can make a basic greenhouse-like thing out of bent sticks and some translucent fabric or plastic. It needn't be clear.

As for watering - get a drip-feed system, the basic ones cost sth like 50€ here. Hook it up to a tank placed high, and add a timer, or just set up alarm clock to open it every day for 10 minutes. It's so much comfier than dragging around hoses or cans. For bonus points, get rain catchment tanks and install them high. Your plants will grow better when watered with warm water.