first garden

here is my first garden, outdoors that is. I planted roughly 600 sq' and little did I know I was in store for a great deal of work. Everything is doing well except my squash and pumpkin started this funky leaf rot today. any ideas as what to I am looking at here. Native soil with organic soil mix, fed once a week with general hydro nutrients that I put into a miracal grow hose feeder (the dispersement ratio was the same for miracal grow as it was for the general hydro; 1 tsp per gallon). I water daily. I live in a very dry environment, less then half an inch since april or so. soil not ph'd neither is the water. is that the prob? I have seen ph burn before and it looked nothing like this.....was a different plant in different conditions. I think next year I am going to form raised rows and angle the garden so I only have to put a hose in the corner and let it run. let the fun and work begin

I think that i figured it out. I believe it was a form of fungus rot which is common with squash species. I cut back the amount that I was watering to every otherday and have avoiding getting the leaves wet. the rotten areas died as well as the fungus. maybe this will help someone in the future. keep things green

Hey there, the garden looks great, currently starting my first garden also, alot smaller scale however and indoors. I've got tomatoes, sunflowers and chillies all planted so far, more varieties on the way soon depending how i go with these. It's icy cold winter here in australia at the moment so no chance of growing outdoors for me at the moment. 1 of these pictures is taken under MH the other about 1 week later under HPS (the HPS being the redish picture).

those are very heatlhy looking. I understand that because the MH haves a higher specrtum of blues and greens it is more benificial for veg growth, and that HPS is higher in reds and yellows it is ideal for flowering. I guess what my question is; is it benificial for vegies to switch like that or does it matter? I know that with pot people perfer to switch the lights, but I have always had great luck with only HPS. The reason that I ask is that I plan to open a commercial hot house business and I live at about 42 degree north and at about 4000'. the grow season here is short and would be supplimenting light about 8 months out of the year. How has the switching of lights gone for you and your vegies? or are you growing some under only MH and some only HPS? I am rather curious

I switched lights due to the MH bulb i had blowing, all i had left was a 600 watt HPS. Growing under the HPS ever since i have noticed no change in the growth rate or anything else for that matter, the enclosure does seem to remain at a higher temp however (28C instead of the 25C average under the MH) but apart from that the HPS is working great. I Will post some images in a few hours of their growth under the HPS.

Due to the size that the plants were becoming i had to plant some outside and left 2 inside to view the difference in growth rates between the natural sunflowers and the hydroponic ones. Here are pictures of the indoor plants.