What will you do differently next year?

Oh goodness, I went to Wal-Mart grocery dept yesterday and saw the little icebox sized watermelons priced at $ 3.47 EACH. Wow. I had no idea that I had such a valuable little gem in my "Sugar Baby" patch. I've been enjoying those little sweet watermelons for the last 3 or 4 weeks. I think I should plan to grow more of those next year. They are so easy. This year I just tossed them in as an after-thought. Next year, I shall make a concious effort and see what happens.

Next year I would like to try some different varieties of veggies and not be afraid to order them by mail if that's what I really want to do and not settle for the seeds I find at the local garden center. Maybe buy a cat to keep out the field mice and whatever else is eating everything. Plant more blueberry bushes made for Calif. (ie; Misty, ONeal, Sharpblue, and Southmoon) Plant strawberries. Finish my chicken tractor and never ever ever let the chickens loose in my garden again. They ate my acorn squash and ate/trampled all my cucumbers. I got one small tennisball sized acorn squash and did get some cukes after they recouped but not what it would have been if they hadn't been damaged. They got tramples and we reseeded and it all grew together and I'm not so sure which green ones came up: Straight Eights or Poinsetta. Redesign my garden plans to take in to thought the summer heat. The tomatoes that grew in the shade of the corn set fruit earlier and were less stressed. I tried to plant tall hollyhocks and foxgloves at the end of all the rows however the small and furry things ate them before they could grow. They also ate my sunflower forest for my kids. Did I mention getting an outdoor cat?
-Juli

Next year:

-make many, many more Earth Box-style planters.

-start spraying tomatoes with fungicide at the BEGINNING of the season.

-get something to control the little green worms in the broccoli (blech!)

-grow root veggies in containers to avoid having them get contaminated by my poopy kitty.

Rhonda

An add on to my list above. I won't plant as many zucchini plants next time around, and I will use a better system for caging my tomatoes as they have all out grown the large cages they are currently in.

The 'Tomato Field Tests' to determine the bestest tasting 'mater will not reopen next year...I will not have a garden full of Lyco's looking at me in the morning, with their red orbs glowing like lights on a Christmas tree, when I have just woke up from nightmares of killer tomato attacks; stuffed my family,friends and true enemies with the epicurian delights of homemade marinara sauce, salsa, canned tomatoes, stewed tomatoes and on and on...and even my compost heap is starting to lob the fruits right back at me,,,the insanity must stop!!! Best tasting tomato award goes to>>>>>>the first red-ripe fruit of the season.
Also, if anyone has stock with any seed catalogue, SELL, as I will not be ordering anywhere near the amount as I have in the past...
I will mulch more, sweat less and just keep telling myself that just 'cause I have ground with 5 feet deep topsoil, grass is nice...dd

well, it's next year, shall we re-read what we said?

tf

What types of materials is everyone using for their raised beds? I'd like to try organic gardening and want the raised beds b/c of Wisconsin weather. However, it's more like spring these days than winter. :O(

Was thinking about cedar boards, but wonder how long they'd last.

We just mound them up, like suggested in "Vegetable Gardener's Bible" by Ed Smith, and used drip tape. Had no problems. I do have a raised bed made of 2x12 boards (it's 24' x 5'). For those I used white pine and treated it w/ homemade preservative: boiled linseed oil, paraffin & turpentine.

We just used cedar posts from our wood lot for the raised beds. Messy, and we may need to change the posts out every 5 or ten years, but they keep the soil where it's supposed to be.

I so want to get into square foot gardening and raised beds. DH is old school. He and his Dad still use the big tractor and the garden is laid out in long rows. Way too much garden for us!! I hate the hoeing and walking on the uneven ground. I want a smaller garden right out the back door. Just can't talk him into it. He thinks my 3 raised beds with tomatoes is a disgrace and the "city-fied" [is that even a word?] way of gardening.

It sure would help my back to garden on a smaller scale.

well, just do it anyhow, tell them it is for "special" tomatoes that you need to save seed from. and it only makes sense to have herbs and edible flowers handy out the back door. tell him it isn't instead of, it is just a "cottage garden", that is an old victorian term, certainly NOT a cityfied one! let HIM break his back on the long rows, and you can sit next to your RBs and watch him ;-)

Stick a few flowers around the edge and tell him it's
not only a citified garden, but a girlie one too. And isn't he
glad. If you could garden like a man, he wouldn't like it,
you might not need him. LOL. I never let my DH know
that I knew which end of the hammer to use until we'd been
married 10 years........ I just let him think he was the only one
who could do the "big important stuff"......... he lapped it up
like a cat with cream.

Tamara and peggie- LOL!!
This man isn't soo easily fooled, I'm afraid. But I will try to sneak a few by him!

I have implemented a lot of the changes I wanted to.

1. Buy more Earthboxes. I am doing much more container gardening as I am having better results than in the ground.

2. Try more varieties of tomatoes to grow inorder to determine which ones I truly like. I have several different ones growing right now.

3. Invest in another light for seedling development. Done and having much less of a problem with leggy seedlings.

4. Grow my own vegetables from seed as they seem to be healthier. I was forced into doing this as many of my nurseries stopped selling cell packs and are charging $1.75 per lettuce plant.

5. Carefully watch everything especially cucumbers & tomatoes for signs of diseases. I am having a heck of a time with powdery mildew and grey leaf spot.

6. Try using Messenger to help ward off any diseases. Tried it and didn't notice a huge difference.

8. Maintain a detailed record of planting times, germination, flowering, fruiting, etc of all my food crop plants, and keep records of favourites so I know what to grow the next year. I always start doing this and then just gradually stop. Proud to say I have been keeping up with this.

9. Learn more recipes for using my veggies rather than just giving them all away because I don't know what to do with them. I have been collecting and using recipes much more. But stuff I end up not liking, I still give away, like brussel sprouts.

10. Stop getting freaked out over the bugs. I can now see an icky looking bug and just knock it away without freaking out.

11. Give away some of the billion seeds I have but don't want. I just had a seed trading afternoon brunch with a friend of ming who has a 1.5 acre organing garden for a backyard.

12. Order more seeds that I really want. I haven't started ordering seeds yet, and now that I have received new seeds from my friend, I won't order that many seeds.

congratualtions!

tf

Wow, kanita! That's what I call accomplishing some goals. Good for you! And I'm certain your garden will be even better and more productive this year.

Kanita LoL now that you know what to do come do it for me I enjoy work I could get use to watching it all day long especially the results and I will see your seeds and raise you some lol. Ernie

Hey, Kanita, you're one of those folks who follows through w/ resolutions. Admirable!

Oh, I hope to do almost the same as last year. It was so good. Perhaps I will plant a few more of the best performing watermelons and cantaloupes, but I did all the stops last year!!

Got another couple:

9. will do more succession planting to combat the dreaded squash vine borer.
10. will be diligent about daily letting chickens into the garden in the a.m. to eat Japanese Beetles I knock off the beans/sunflowers.

Zeppy,

JBs don't bother my annual vegetables. However they do like plum trees, new raspberry shoots, ripe peaches, grape leaves, hibiscus, and roses.

Well, they do have their preferences. The roses, beans, plum tree and okra take a beating around here.

Thanks all. It was hard because I am really busy work wise during the fall, but I have really tried to be diligent about everything because last year I was just all over the place growing a bit of everything everywhere, and while it was fun, I was not as productive as I could have been. So far from the winter garden, I have harvested tons of Kentucky Wonder pole beans, broccoli, peppers of all kinds, spinach, celery & lots of cucumbers.

Eweed, I'd love to come and help. That's the fun part for me, but you'd have to feed me though.

Also, if any of you are looking for some seeds, or just want some, email me.

KW pole beans in a winter garden? oh, i am moving in with YOU!

Zeppy- How do you stop your chickens from eating the veggies?
-Juli

They like borage and kale best, so they can have what they want of that. But they like bugs more than those, even. After I knock down beetles and they immediately eat them (this takes 5-10 min), I go fill their feed dish and they always follow me out for that. Then I close the gate.

gates are good!

I guess I'll break down and let DH add more guineas to keep our one old guy company and to eat the JB's that took me so much time to kill (patrolling twice a day) last year.

I'll plant fewer tomato varieties and figure out how in the world I keep mislabelling. I thought I had it down last year, but ended up with too many surprises again! (Any suggestions, greatly appreciated. I know it shouldn't be rocket science, but in the first transplanting of seedlings to pots, somehow I keep messing up.)

I'll plant flower borders along more of my raised beds. They're square foot garden beds, and even though it's giving up a large proprotion of the space to have flowers in each, I think I'd like that more "girly" look.

I'll make better trellises this year that are more decorative and not just functional. But when I start adding the nylon hose slings for butternut squash, that just ruins the decor! :)

I'll plant lettuces earlier, use shade cloth to extend their season, and learn more about interplanting crops to make better use of the space I have.

I'll copy this list down and pay attention to it!

Hooray!!! ............... one thing I vowed to do different, I've done. I got my peas planted on Feb. 1st. I never seem to get them in early enough. Now I just hope it;s not too early LOL.

Good for you PeggieK, my peas won't go in for another month or so.You're probably not too early unless it gets cold and wet for several days. I'll also plant chard, beets, onion sets, cabbage, brocolli and radishes when I plant the peas. Our weather gets really hot fast here about the first of June so I hope to get a good start on my cool crops before it is time to plant the tomatoes, beans, corn and other things that like it warmer. If I plant those cool things in June they get too hot to do much. Last year the brocolli made 2 inch heads and got bitter, and then the aphids attacked them.

Last summer's vegetable garden was a disaster. Nothing grew properly. The vegetables were few and small. This spring I am going to do soil tests to determine what is going on out there. It couldn't be me, could it.:)

Sorry, golddog. That's rough. Soil tests are a really good idea. That Ed Smith guy who wrote "The Vegetable Gardener's Bible" said that once he had a terrible garden where nothing grew higher than a foot and hardly anything fruited, though the soil looked and felt rich and perfect. Turned out it had a pH of 4.5 and almost nothing would grow in that acidity. When they added lime the next year, the pH went up to 6.5 and they had their best garden ever.

I always remember that story when I'm digging a new plot and thinking, huh, bet I don't need to test this... :)

Hi Zeppy,

The only major amendment to the garden was 2 years ago. 2 large bags of worm castings.

Huh. That's pretty weird then, that it would be so bad last year.

Like I say, it is probably the operator.