r/Raisedbed

Hello there, first summer trying to grow peppers (a few diff varieties) and every plant has leaves that are crumpled and curled. I'm in SoCal and growing them in raised beds. I had a couple of shishitos earlier with the same prob and added some blood meal to the soil but they didn't make it, so I thought I'd try some bells peppers instead. Everything else in my garden is doing well (tomatoes, cukes, squash, etc) except every kind of pepper I've tried (ignore all the cages, my dog wants to dig into any blood meal I use). We've had some very warm weather here the last few weeks but still...any ideas, anyone? Thanks!

redid the old garden when we built our kitchen

The first pic is this year, the second if last year. Can a slightly wetter cooler year be the whole explanation? I may have somewhat over watered but it seems like a major difference

This is my first summer gardening! I'm in Missouri, Zone 6B. We were military and moved around a lot, so l've always wanted a garden but never had the chance. Now that we're settled, I finally got to start one! ...it's been ROUGH.

I have 3 raised beds, 2 larger and 1 smaller. The smaller one has strawberries and is doing well.
They're producing like crazy, although the strawberries are tiny.

The other two beds are struggling:
Tomatoes: 2 plants barely grew and have produced 1 tomato and the cherry tomatoes plant has grown but only produced ~3-4 and still looks miserable.
Bell peppers: stayed tiny and never really took off.
I've gotten 1 teeny pepper out of it. Flowered well.
Bush beans: first variety didn't germinate; second variety sprouted but half stayed tiny and the rest eventually stopped growing. Still no beans in sight.
Cucumbers: started struggling; I recently discovered a whole aphid colony underneath the leaves and have been treating them. They were TINY, the plants just started kind of taking off (legit weren't that tall 3 weeks ago) but minimal fruit.
Marigolds: thriving in the strawberry bea, but two died in the other beds and the rest look terrible.

I've fertilized regularly and watered deeply, letting the soil dry enough between waterings.

I'm wondering if I have a soil issue. I used basically the same soil setup in all 3 beds: cardboard, sticks, grass clippings, then Black Kow compost + Kellogg Organic Raised Bed & Potting Mix.

So... what would you do next?! Is this sounding like a soil/nutrient issue, watering issue, pests, or something else? Should I test my soil before attempting fall crops?

l'a love some success with a fall garden. My husband is unimpressed with the $$$ I've spent for like 4 cucumbers, 3 cherry tomatoes and a handful of toddler-sized strawberries.

I’ll attach pictures of the garden and the cucumber aphid ecosystem I discovered.

Bonus points for organic/low-toxicity advice and a good Missouri planting calendar/cheat sheet!

Currently growing raspberries, tomatoes, zucchini, strawberries, lettuce, peppers, collard greens, string beans, watermelon, cucumber, assorted wild flowers annuals and herbs. I have 2 open beds I was thinking about doing potatoes and something else in? Located in south east PA.

What's going on with my purple Cherokees. They all seem to bruise at the top while green. One grew into a circle

My dahlias are just starting to bloom!

I built this cedar raised bed garden (my own design) and shed a few years ago, but city critters kept eating my vegetables. So bad that I could have bought huge quantities of organic vegetables, put them on silver platters and it would have been cheaper than growing vegetables. Bunnies, groundhogs, deers, and whoever they invited to dinner.

Now I grow dahlias, but I’ll have to expand next year as I split the tubers.