The topic of my come-back blog (lol) revolves around what went well, what didn't, and what's worth doing again. We'll start with the bad news first...
Things that flopped
1. Timing, as in, my timing. I got my plants started on time this year indoors. But I didn't get the garden bed ready in time. My next door neighbor said he would till for me, then we noticed just how badly the back side of the garage was really peeling. So, we power-washed and painted it. By the time that was done and my neighbor had tilled other gardens, a part on his tractor broke and he was waiting quite a while for it to come in. But we finally got it done, and by that time my plants had been hardened off on the front porch, but I lost most of them when I forgot to water.
2. I had never experienced an episode of tomato late blight before. Because I didn't pay attention to my own plants and keep them watered, and because I wasn't ready to plant until the first week of July, I felt I should get larger, hardier plants from the store. Between peppers and tomatoes, I spent about $75 on big, robust-looking plants from Lowe's home improvement store, who got their plants from Bonnie Nursery. I read something about the late blight and Bonnie Nursery, but they had assurances that the plants in the stores by the time I purchased were free of disease. And besides, mine looked great! And they got even bigger! I planted some of my own seedlings when I transplanted the Bonny plants and mine really looked puny. A month later, I couldn't tell which I had bought and which I had grown. But all of the plants were then showing signs of of some sort of leaf spotting disease, not really that noticeable (this is in hindsight). It wasn't until they started to set fruit, which took forever in the cool weather we were having, and the fruit rotted before it ripened. All of it. And I pulled all of the plants and took them to the burn pile. No other way to state it: That sucked. I don't believe I will plant tomatoes next year at all, since the blight can live on in the soil.
3. The boring yellow tomatoes that came up as volunteers in the bed where I planted cilantro really pissed me off. Their texture is watery, their flavor is flat, and they don't get much bigger than a golf ball. But not even the blight could kill them or even slow them down. Nobody likes them, so I couldn't get rid of them, and they were hard to pull out once they got more than a few inches tall. I was especially careful when I cleaned that bed out this year, which is separate and isolated from my other tomato bed.
4. I mulched the squash heavily with old hay, and it was puny. I got two patty pan squash out of the garden.
5. Not enough time and not enough mulch to make up for it. Mulching cuts down on weeds and watering, and therefore on work and time spent.
The things that were successful
1. Asparagus. I'm very happy with the investment I made in putting in an asparagus bed. We both like it a lot, and it did quite well this year.
2. Kohlrabi grew very nicely even in it's crowded bed. We ate some fresh and have cooked itwith boiled dinner and chopped in soup. But it's not as spectacular as I thought it would be to eat, so I don't know if I will do much with it again.
3. Spinach was delicious, but short-lived.
4. Peppers were also good, but I think they needed more mulch, more water, and more nutrients to really thrive and produce. We had a miserably cool summer this year, and that may have had a lot to do with their late production. I will grow giant Marconi and Fajita Bell peppers again, they have great flavor! I may put all peppers in where I had tomatoes last year, but I need to read about this first.
5. I tried something new this year. I ordered and planted garlic sets, and having eaten some locally grown garlic from one of the other vendors at the farm market, I'm really looking forward to ours.
For Spring, how am I going to do things differently?
1. I'm going to use only my own plants this year, and start them around the beginning of April.
2. I'm going to get the garden in by the end of May. I mulched the beds heavily with leaves and grass and hedge clippings, so they should be easy to plant in.
3. Some of the beds are getting peat moss, manure, and perhaps some sand mixed in. Our soil is kind of sticky here.
4. Some sort of herbiverous animal poop never hurt a garden, and mine could certainly benefit.
For now, there's about 97 days left until the vernal equinox, so I have time to plan and plot...
If you live in the upper half of the United States, try to stay warm. See you again soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment