Sunday, November 22, 2009

growing season overview

All in all, it was a good year for the garden. We got lots of tasty tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, radishes, lettuce, arugula, and a little bit of several other vegetables and fruits, including green beans, melons, carrots, cabbages, broccoli, eggplants, and squash. Also grew some tasty herbs including dill, basil, borage, and cilantro.

Things to work on next year:
  • Harvesting in a more timely fashion.
  • Being prepared to preserve the harvest as it comes in (can tomatoes, make pickles, make prepared foods to freeze)
  • Adding six new beds.
  • Growing more of the things that we like best.
  • Paying more attention to fall planting (we had a vacation in October, so that threw things off).
  • planting more flowers and herbs among my vegetables.
  • if my own seedings are not working out, then I will buy seedlings from the local nursery.
  • two more earthboxes for my front porch. Plan on growing lettuce, tomatoes, eggplants, and possibly a small squash.
  • More hybrids!
  • More perrenial flowers.
  • Pole beans.

Things I grew last year that I will not grow again:
  • Okra
  • Canteloupe
Things I learned;
  • I need to water more.
  • For many plants, the particular varieties do not taste all that different.

Reviews of some of the varieties of vegetables:
  • Beefsteak tomatoes: I had great success with Early girl. My other beefsteaks did not fare so well, and I intend to concentrate on hybrids for next year, as well as open pollitated varieties that are specifically noted to be heat tolerant. My hybrids were far, far tastier than grocery store tomatoes. I love them and still have a few left.
  • I loved all three cherry tomatoes I grew (Ladybug, Jenny, and Snowberry). I'd like to grow them all again and try some others.
  • Cucumbers: I loved cucumber pepino from Ferry Morse. They were wonderful, and I am definitely growing them again. The lemon cucumbers were cool too. A white cucumber I grew was fine but not worth growing again. I plan to try a variety known for making good gherkins next year.
  • Eggplant: I tried growing Black Beauty. They were tasty, but very low yields. Next year I plan to try two hybrid varieties from Park.
  • Cabbage: Tasty red cabbage Cairo hybrid. Broccoli Packman was good too.
  • Melons: I grew several, hated all the canteloupes, thought watermelon Everglade was pretty good. LOVED Amy hybrid, a canary melon.
  • Beans: bean festina did great again--only wish I had planted more of it. Next year, I plan to grow it in addition to bush beans. Not so fond of mon petit cheri--kind of bland.
  • Greens/lettuce: I love, love, love arugula. It tastes massively better grown at home in cool weather than it does when bought in the grocery store. I also loved my red lettuce mixes, and my heat tolerant mixes, and I have some ideas for extending the lettuce season further by growing it on my back porch during the summer, since it gets only morning sunlight.
I may update this as I think of more things...