Been quite a while since i have been on this site, i've decided that i need to put more time into my account on this site though so i'm looking forward to seeing all of the great content on here again!
This year has been a great (and wild) gardening year for sure i have to say! One big positive is that i scaled up the size of the garden to about double what the last one was. It was a slower process than i would have liked, given the situation of things this year, but i was able to still get the chives and other perennial herbs, and native flowers for the pollinators moved in to it. There was even enough time to manage a radish harvest and some carrots and kale later on. Partially thanks to the freak late cold snap that kept them going longer without bolting i believe.
Then some time about early summer, it hit! When my dad tilled over the plot we apparently didn't thoroughly remove all of the leftover yard grass roots and they came back with an absolute vengeance and i fought it pretty much all summer long. We eventually did get the grass situation under control and we threw down some mulch over the walking paths to smother out any leftovers.
I did have tomatoes planted but that late freeze that came through around the end of may totally zapped those out and i never bothered to replant. The usual safe planting date apparently didnt apply for this year! Surprisingly the sweet corn bounced back from it and i still got 4 gallon bags full. I grew a variety from pinetree called "Delectable" that has so far been the best producer for me.
We also planted some yellow straightneck squash and i ended up with a mystery squash that had a green end on it (as seen in the second picture), however the cold snap had weakened them all so that the harvest was very pathetic. I also had to re sow my blue lake bush beans and henderson lima beans but they eventually did really well despite the later start.
One of the real all stars of this years garden though were the pickling cucumbers. I think in total we finished up about 32 quart jars worth of them and they still just kept coming, we were tired of pickling by that point and just started using them in salads. We also planted some bell peppers and jimmy nardello peppers that were slow to start but then later on took of like lighting.
Once it was time to get the autumn garden in gear i put in a second planting of those squash which did so much better than the spring planting and lasted well into late october. I also planted a small batch of collard greens that did pretty well. The fall planting was my garden's "last hurrah" before petering out, giving me the biggest bumper crop before everything started suffering from the cold. At one point we started getting tired of all the peppers coming in!
I am honestly really surprised with what this year gave me with such a freshly made garden plot.
Whew, sorry about the mini novel, lets hear about how your gardens all went!
