How Was Your Year?

[stella1751]

At the end of each garden season, I look back, relishing the successes and evaluating the failures. In the balance of things, I think I had a good year, despite the cold, wet May & June and the cold September & October.

Watermelons: Failure & Success. I picked the last five yesterday. Two were unripe; they got tossed. Two were ripe! I sliced them open and gave them to neighbors. One is in my fridge; I'm betting it's ripe. I will end my second year of growing watermelons on a positive note, and I will learn from my many mistakes so I can have a better watermelon season next year.

Pumpkins: Failure. A freeze took out one plant; hail took out two others. I replanted and lost all of them during the hard freeze in September. I left the pumpkins on the dead vines, but they didn't grow afterward, just turned orange. Six small pumpkins from five plants total. I won't grow pumpkins next year.

Tomatoes: Failure. My worse year ever. Two of four plants became diseased. I was dissatisfied with the flavor of the variety I tried this year so will try something different next year. The only positive note was the volunteers from last year that sprouted up and began producing. I might get one or two tomatoes from this before the end. Those were very tasty!

Corn: Success! I ate corn all through July and August. If picked early enough, it was extremely good. This short season variety is genuinely short season: 50 to 60 days. I left one plant, fastening it to the fence with a bungie cord, and I will get seeds from it.

Strawberries: Success! I can't wait until next year. That bed is covered with 8" tall plants that have thus far resisted all our freezes.

Frankenchilies: Success! My second-generation Frankenchilies consistently and heavily produced big Anaheim types ranging in length from 6" to 11". I am incredibly jazzed about next year, when I plan to have one bed devoted to first-generation (if these old, old seeds are still viable), second-generation, and third-generation Frankenchilies!

Habaneros: Success & Failure. They don't like the cold so did nothing until July. However, they are now producing and maturing, and I'm betting I'll get a bucket-load of Habaneros over the next week.

Super Chilies: Success! I've dried enough of these puppies to make a serious contribution to my chile powder project. Best of all, an odd cross showed up in my two dozen plants: A NuMex Big Jim/Super Chile cross that makes the coolest looking, best-tasting 4" peppers I've ever grown. These are definitely going in my chile powder, and I can't wait to try a whole bed of these next year.

Conclusion: To those of you who aren't saving seeds, I highly recommend you at least give it a try. Sometimes, you just don't know what you'll get. It also adds a special zest to gardening that I've never before experienced!

Next year is going to be terrifically exciting

So, how was your year?

[PunkRotten]

My year is not done yet. But so far I would say I had both good and bad and the good outweighed the bad.


Spring I grew tomatoes, peppers, scallions and leeks, several herbs like basil, dill, sage, rosemary, chives, lavender etc.



The tomatoes did ok despite having too many plants and not giving them adequate spacing and support. I grew 8 plants and 4 varieties. The varieties were 2 Roma, 4 jet star, 1 yellow pear, 1 german johnson.


The yellow pear yielded heavy but the taste of the fruit was nothing spectacular. Romas were great, I also really liked the jet stars. The German johnson, although the taste was good it yielded poorly. I only got about 7 tomatoes total. I think it was probably due to my fault though.


For peppers I grew green and red bells and a serrano. The green and reds got off to a rough start. When they were seedlings they got attacked badly by earwigs. They did manage to recover. During the summer the tomatoes were growing crazy and some of the branches were covering up the peppers and the peppers suffered because of it. They loss all their blossoms.

Plus the heat was really bad too. They are still growing strong now and they are producing amazing. At this moment both plants are filled with many blossoms and several fruits all over.


The serrano produced good this year, but at this moment the plant is sick and I don't know if it will make it.


I had great success with the herbs too. I did kill some plants but now I learned a few things. Lavender for me has been hard to keep alive.

Right now I am growing radish, beets, lettuce, spinach, carrots, kale, chard, nasturtiums, mini white cukes, and black cherry tomato. All is going great so far. I have had some problems with cabbage worms lately but nothing devastating. All spring and summer I was battling hornworms, tomato fruitworms, grasshoppers, occasional aphids, and some rat or possum was getting some tomatoes here and there.


Next year I am gonna do more tomatoes, peppers, herbs, melons, cucumbers, and beans.

[jal_ut]

I had a good garden overall. The corn did not all germinate at once due to the hot/cold/wet conditions this spring so some of the later to germinate corn didn't get pollinated well.

Sweet peppers were near a complete failure. I did have one variety of yellow that gave me a few.

The hot peppers did ok.

Melons did well. I left on a trip before they were ready, so my daughter picked them.

Potatoes did very well. I still need to dig some of them.

Brocolli did exceptionally well.

The summer squash was so-so, and the winter squash did ok. I think these warm weather lovers did not get enough heat this year.

I am writing this in Centerville GA. Its raining.

Have a great day!

[jal_ut]

Forgot to mention tomatoes and onions did excell.

Peas and beans did ok.

Carrots did good, but I didn't plant enough.

Lettuce did very well due to the cooler season.

[stella1751]

Melons did well. I left on a trip before they were ready, so my daughter picked them.

What kind of melons did you grow? I'm definitely going to try Sugar Babies again next year, maybe Fordhooks. I need a third variety. Did you start them indoors?

[jal_ut]

I planted Charleston Grey Watermelon and Burpee Hybrid Cants.
Planted seed directly in the garden.

[SPierce]

I... did a lot better this year than I did last year! I will never buy starter plansts ever again, it's going to be all growing from seed!

Lettuce- Fail. I tried to plant from seed directly into the ground, and they just never did anything.

Tomatoes- Success! My in ground and potted tomatoes did great- they produced plenty, but i didn't get to eat all of them because I screwed up and forgot to keep an eye on the ripe tomatoes-- they got mould, etc all over the good ones. oops!

Zucchini- so-so! my potted Zucchini plant grew HUGE and produced a ton of zucchinis-- which is tucked safely away in my freezer for right now. My in ground, zucchinis, however were a fail. They didn't get very large and just didn't ever really get the pollination that they should have before they were overtaken by powdery mildew, and I pulled them. I've got another container zucchini going thats just starting to flower, so with any luck maybe i'll be able to get one!

Pumpkins- epic fail! going to try again next year and just fill my entire in ground garden with them. A mysterious disease killed most of the plants, and after that the SVBs attacked and that was the end of it.

Gourds- so far so good, actually! I don't know what kind of gourds they are (i planted burpee fancies, but whatever it is that's growing aren't fancy gourds!) but i've got 4 miniature gourds that are varying degrees of tan/yellow and dark yellow. Waiting to see what else happens!

Pepper- Biggest challenge this year. My sweet banana peppers never got off the ground. Just none of the seeds really did anything. I tried to germinate an entire packet of bell peppers, and only one survived. I've nursed the hell out of it since Feb. when i started it inside- it took 6 months, but it's now got about 12 peppers on it and is 5 feet tall. I cover it with a garbage bag each night and take it off during the day- mother nature's given a temporary reprieve- it's getting up into the 80s! I go to bed and pray every night for the safety of my pepper plant so I can get some peppers!

Potatoes- Huge success, very yummy!. Wish I had bought more potato seeds so I could plant a fall crop! Whoops!

Onions- fail, i never got an onion this year, they simply didn't bulb. Probably my screw up, i'll try again next year.

Garlic- got a few green sprouts from the garlic, but they never really bulbed/did anything. Hmmm.

Radishes- tried to plant some radishes for the fall. They rooted and grew top leaves, but never bulbed. They've been out there for several months, now, and I'm just leaving them to wait and see what happens.

Carrots- as far as I know, they're doing fairly well. I'm definately getting some carrot tops, but haven't tried to pull any of them to see what they're doing yet!

Strawberries- they did well, but i just got june bearing strawberries so after the beginning of the year... no strawberries. Need to hunt down some everbearing so I can have them on a regular basis throughout the year.

Lima beans- after a non-start, I planted them directly outside in a container and they grow! I got a small ziploc baggy full of Lima beans, so I'm fairly happy. Will be planting some more beans next year!

[Tilde]

Anything you grow in summer here has to be babied - so I took it easy on myself and did front stoop tomatoes, stevia, herbs, and strawberries. And ever present aloe.

Tomatoes - got a few big ones and a couple pints of little ones. Mostly wanted to get the kids back into gardening and it worked. Cut off one of the cherry tomato indeterminates and planted it with a couple onion bulbs to see if it will re-root and grow.

Stevia - bumper crop. Couldn't eat it all. Now know I need to cut it more often or put a tomato cage around it (falls over). Cut back and repotted some babies coming up.

Herbs - mostly basil from last year and rosemary - grew enough to use and look pretty though I need to cut off dead basil stalks now. Trying to figure out what I want to cook with and plant.

Strawberries - put in two plants and got two strawberries. One plant died. I think they were too shaded. Fixing that for the fall. May put another one in.

Aloe - I've had one, potted, for about six years now. It put out a pup a few years back, and now that one has put out another. I put the baby in one of the planters atop my front porch composter as the lid.

I took it easy on myself, used mostly "plant the pot" Bonnie brand types of starter plants. Most of them broke out of the pots, but not as much as stevia (my biggest success). If I use them again, I'm going to score the pots so they break open as the root ball expands.

Starting my fall crops mostly from seed. I think I'll just do it at lunch - layout what I want to do at night and then run home and do it on my lunch hour. Carrots tomorrow, lettuce the day after, and so on.

[RyNJ]

I had such a great time doing it this year! It was my first year of really getting into it, and it was a super cool experience.

I think I bit off a little more than I could chew, and made some big mistakes like going extremely cole-heavy, but now I know for the future.

Radishes: Success, the first round. The second round I only got leaves, which was ok 'cause I ate those.

Beets: Success and failure. I only got about 5 roots worth eating, but lots of greens.

Zucchini: Success! I was able to rather successfully eradicate some SVBs, and that made me really happy.

Tomatoes: Mostly success. They got diseased something bad towards the end, and I think I underfertilized and didn't get as high of yields as I could have, but I still got a good amount of really tasty tomatoes.

Lettuce: SUCCESS! Grew like weeds and not a damn thing ate them. Besides me, of course

Broccoli: Failure. I tried growing them in the heat and that zapped the life out of them.

Cabbages: FAILURE. Same thing as the broccoli, but I could absolutely not get them to grow fast enough and the cabbage worms took a severe toll. Plus flea beetles, which abounded due to the other 5 coles I had put in

Kale: Success! They grew vigorously, even though I left them too close together, and are still growing strong despite a good amount of cabbage worm damage.

Turnips: Failure. Same thing as some of the radishes and beets, few roots, just leaves.

Peas and beans: Success. Generally good yields. I think next year I'm gonna start out planting some different varieties all over my garden.

Peppers: Success and failure. I got some bad plants from one nursery that didn't do anything. and some better plants from another nursery that did fruit, even though I was paying very little attention to them.

I think that's it. I still have kale, mustard, and carrots growing. Hopefully the carrots don't have a root problem like most of my other root crops. Garlic is in and I'm waiting to see if it sprouts. Next year I'm gonna focus on much fewer crops, namely legumes, tomatoes, kale, and squashes/melons.[/b]

[jal_ut]

OK, I was curious if I could use facebook as a photo server. Apparently not.



So, here is the photo from a different server.

[stella1751]

"Wow" pretty much sums it up. I would imagine you are one of voters who said you had a terrific year! The composition is suberb, too, especially your arrangement of color and size for the greatest contrast.

I suspect I could fit all my harvest at the end of my driveway. It's a thought . . .

BTW, I just looked up Charleston Gray Watermelons. How did you grow an 85-day watermelon in your location? Do you have any tips?

[PunkRotten]

Melons did well. I left on a trip before they were ready, so my daughter picked them.

What kind of melons did you grow? I'm definitely going to try Sugar Babies again next year, maybe Fordhooks. I need a third variety. Did you start them indoors?

I am doing sugar babies too in Spring. I also will grow Minnesota midget.

[PunkRotten]

I had such a great time doing it this year! It was my first year of really getting into it, and it was a super cool experience.

I think I bit off a little more than I could chew, and made some big mistakes like going extremely cole-heavy, but now I know for the future.

Radishes: Success, the first round. The second round I only got leaves, which was ok 'cause I ate those.

Beets: Success and failure. I only got about 5 roots worth eating, but lots of greens.

Zucchini: Success! I was able to rather successfully eradicate some SVBs, and that made me really happy.

Tomatoes: Mostly success. They got diseased something bad towards the end, and I think I underfertilized and didn't get as high of yields as I could have, but I still got a good amount of really tasty tomatoes.

Lettuce: SUCCESS! Grew like weeds and not a damn thing ate them. Besides me, of course

Broccoli: Failure. I tried growing them in the heat and that zapped the life out of them.

Cabbages: FAILURE. Same thing as the broccoli, but I could absolutely not get them to grow fast enough and the cabbage worms took a severe toll. Plus flea beetles, which abounded due to the other 5 coles I had put in

Kale: Success! They grew vigorously, even though I left them too close together, and are still growing strong despite a good amount of cabbage worm damage.

Turnips: Failure. Same thing as some of the radishes and beets, few roots, just leaves.

Peas and beans: Success. Generally good yields. I think next year I'm gonna start out planting some different varieties all over my garden.

Peppers: Success and failure. I got some bad plants from one nursery that didn't do anything. and some better plants from another nursery that did fruit, even though I was paying very little attention to them.

I think that's it. I still have kale, mustard, and carrots growing. Hopefully the carrots don't have a root problem like most of my other root crops. Garlic is in and I'm waiting to see if it sprouts. Next year I'm gonna focus on much fewer crops, namely legumes, tomatoes, kale, and squashes/melons.[/b]

Maybe you are deficient in some nutrients. My bulb plants are doing pretty good right now. I am gonna plant garlic in about a week. I do worry a little they will not bulb up good since they spend a lot of time in the ground. Which means they will be feeding for a long time. It's a good thing I have compost and some organic fertilizer. Maybe you need to add some compost or ferts.

[Tilde]

OK, I was curious if I could use facebook as a photo server. Apparently not.



So, here is the photo from a different server.

fixed that for you:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hp ... 0960_n.jpg



Need to pull the correct coding. A number of browsers have a "right click" option to copy or view the image source url. You were trying to "image" a link to a page.

Nice haul, btw!

[Tilde]

Tomatoes - got a few big ones and a couple pints of little ones. Mostly wanted to get the kids back into gardening and it worked. Cut off one of the cherry tomato indeterminates and planted it with a couple onion bulbs to see if it will re-root and grow.

Ah, here are some of the tomatoes from the end of May, the first of the bitty tomatoes we harvested before summer really kicked in.

This tomato plant was leggy even back then, didn't have enough surviving stems to cut back and try and replant.