"pat yourself on the back" - what went RIGHT for you this year?

[Rosalind]

Good year for hickory nuts and maple syrup. I brought some maple syrup to my brother the ex-arborist's house for breakfast, and he pronounced it quite good.

Got a reasonable amount of winter squash. Last year they all died of mildew before they set much fruit, so, moving up in the world. I found exactly the sweet spot in the garden for summer squash, where it is just shaded enough to not be very productive but just productive enough--good for a few stir-frys, a few loaves of zucchini bread, and that's it.

Got a reasonable amount of cruciferous veggies and found the perfect kale for my garden, Blue Scotch Curled. Stays as tender and sweet as Lacinato/Dinosaur, doesn't bolt in summer, keeps producing despite slugs and woodchucks and various other evil critters.

I defeated the woodchuck that torments our neighborhood with pepper granules, rabbit fencing and about a zillion aluminum tent stakes. He buggered off and ate the neighbors' flowers instead of my veggies.

Got my first peaches and nectarines, and they were delicious. Ditto raspberries and blueberries. DH somehow failed to mow four of my blueberries!

 

[journey11]

I finally had enough tomatoes to can! But I found I did not have the stamina to can all of the tomatoes.

I hear ya!

Well, let's see...

I got very ambitious and started most of my plants from seed indoors rather than buying the limited varieties of seedlings available around here. That paid off and was much more fun!

I started a strawberry patch... Best $9 I ever spent. Definitely kept the toddler happy.

My compost pile has finally grown to the point where I have plenty of black gold to distribute to my plants and even have a little left over. (Special thanks to my lovely chickens!)

In planting my strawberry patch, one of my neighbors drove by and saw me double-digging my patch with a shovel and thought my 'mean-old husband' was making me turn the garden by hand, so he offered to come back with his tractor and till the garden for me (and yes, I did explain that I had a garden tiller..haha). It took him 5 minutes, did a great job, and I even got him to double the size of my garden plot (which I crammed full of even more wonderful veggies!) He wouldn't take any money for it, so I brought him a bunch of big ol' tomatoes, a cantelope and some other goodies from the garden.

I tried my hand at growing cantelope this year and had a bumper crop. Boy were they good! Since you can only eat so many cantelope at a time, I gave many away.

Most gardeners in my area really struggled to grow a tomato this year due to disease problems (too cool and wet), but I had a good crop and canned many. I think living on a sunny, windy hilltop gave me an advantage, along with a good mulching.

No procrastination for me this year! October is still in and I have my garden cleaned up and ready to go for next year and already have the cold frame going for winter. Could this be a mark of maturity? LOL

 

[Broke Down Ranch]

I actually did pretty good this year. Here is a list of the good and bad....lol

The Good

Spinach - I planted regular and curly leaf together in the same row. My gosh, I could not keep up with the stuff!

Leaf Lettuce - I planted Romaine and Buttercrunch mixed in the same row. Same as the spinach, there was loads more than we could eat!

Beets - OMG, did we ever have beets! And I planted twice for 2 harvests.

Green Beans - I would literally pick three 5-gallon buckets FULL every 3-4 days and picking was an ALL DAY thing. And there were only 2 rows less than 25' long. Never again will I do bush beans tho - my back would be KILLING me before I was done

Peppers - I grew bells, serrano, jalapeno, corno di toro, habanero, pablano, and green chile. Again, more than I could keep up with. The bees LOVED the pepper plants.

Zuccini - Gave buckets of the stuff away.

Cucumbers - I had slicers and picklers. Gave aways buckets again. Next year I will only grow picklers since they actually have a better fresh flavor than the slicers.

Shard - I swear this is something that anyone can grow. I still have it coming up in an area that hasn't been worked for 5 years!

Tomatoes - My favorite thing in the garden. I can't count how many times I would snag a tomato and a handful of spinach and munch while working. We had ubber loads of 'maters until I let the aphids over take them. I founght back, the vines are VERY happy now -- I am praying for a very late frost to harvest all the liitle greenies at least once....


The Bad

Cauliflower - Not a single head did I harvest - even now they are just trees out there...lol!

Broccoli - I got a few miniscule heads but mostly it bolted (we got hot real fast)

Cabbage - I harvested a couple of large heads (avg 4-5 pounds) but most got munched by the bugs or rotted during the torrential spring rains.

Okra - I got this planted MUCH too late and it just never did much. I'm allergic to the leaves so DH had to cut. As a result most of it got too big...




Anyway, my flower beds all did pretty good considering the neglect they received. I think that's about it for what I grew....