This was an exciting year for my garden. In years past I had a way too big and awkwardly shaped rectangle garden that was hard to maintain and reach around in. This year we made a new longer bed that allowed me to walk around all sides of it to maintain my vegetables and it made SUCH a difference. So I was excited to try new things in my garden and now I'm very excited to tell you how it all went, what I'll do different next year, and what I learned from this year's gardening experience.
New things this year that I'll do next year included:
New things this year that I'll do next year included:
I decided to try out growing sugar peas and it was so fun! I used the cucumber trellis from last year and I had such a great harvest of peas. They were very easy to grow and they are a crop you can start earlier in the season which was perfect for me because I'm always antsy to start gardening as soon as the weather even slightly warms up. Only thing different next year is I will make sure my trellis is tall enough. This year I had to add to it and tie everything together.
I had given up on growing zucchini before because nothing ever got pollinated enough and the zucchini plant itself took up SO much room. But this year I learned about a way to make a zucchini plant more manageable by putting a tomato cage around it so the leaves stay up off the ground. This was so easy for me to do! And I also learned how to self pollinate my zucchini flowers. The male flowers don't have the fruit behind them like the females. Anytime I saw a male flower open and there were no females open I would pluck it, wrap it in paper towels and store it in the fridge for 7 days. Once the female flowers opened I would take a q tip and apply pollen from the male flower to the female flower. This year was the first time I had hardly any zucchini fruit die before they finished developing. And the tomato cage saved me SO MUCH SPACE IN MY GARDEN BED! I will be growing zucchini next year for sure!
I also tried carrots and parsnips this year since I had more room in my garden bed set up and it was such an easy addition that I will do next year and all future years. They didn't take up too much space and they were also something you can start in your garden early in the year.
Potatoes were a new thing for me. My neighbor actually gave me a bag of baby gold potatoes from the store that he had forgot about and they ended up sprouting. In late March I put them into 3 pots near my veggie garden.
And guess what! In early July I harvested potatoes! They were so easy! Now that I know it works and is so easy for me, I plan to have potatoes in my garden every year. I like the container method because it was easier for me to add soil to the pot as the sprouts grew.
Things I do every year that I'll keep doing:
Again I grew lettuce and kale and that always goes well so I will continue to grow them in my garden each year. I did have a bit of an issue with slugs in late Spring but recovered pretty quickly.
I grew eggplant again (this time in a tomato cage instead of tied to a stake) and it worked very well. I had a harvest much earlier in the year than in years past but that's probably because the weather differs from year to year.
Peppers are something I'll always grow but this year I chose more gypsy bell peppers instead of regular California bell and they did really well. I again had an earlier harvest than usual but of course that could just be from the weather. I will say they didn't rot on the vine this year and I have no clue why but I assume maybe there was more space and airflow in my new garden bed than in years past.
Things I won't do next year:
I try every year to get a decent harvest of beets and radishes. I'm not a super big fan of radish but it's easy to grow which is why I always have planted radish seeds but they take up space so I think next year I will skip the radishes. The beets never seem to do well. There will be a few decent sized ones but also a lot that never develop enough so I think I'll skip them too next year and instead I'll just plant more carrots since I love carrots and they were so easy to grow!
How was your garden this year? I can't wait to start planning next year's garden!
No comments:
Post a Comment
I love reading and responding to comments but in order to get my reply you must ensure you are NOT a no-reply blogger. If you are, here are some quick steps to change that!
1. Go to the home page of your Blogger account.
2. Select the drop down beside your name on the top right corner and choose Blogger Profile.
3. Select Edit Profile at the top right.
4. Select the Show My Email Address box.
5. Hit Save Profile.