What Are you Going To Change Next Year?

[so lucky]

It's the old "Hope springs eternal" thing. We never quit hoping for the perfect growing season, high personal energy level and absence of bad bugs each year! Funny, waaaaaaaaaaaay back, hoping for lots of energy would have been unheard of. Now, well, some days I have the energy to pick the produce or prepare it---not both!

 

[Jared77]

Next year with us moving to a permanent home we're taking next season VERY easy. We'll be only planting what we want fresh any canning will only be from the U picks we frequent to make jam etc. No salsa, sauce or soup. So its a very scaled back 2013 garden. The 2014 garden will be in a new place and starting from scratch. Im thinking maybe 4 or 6 total tomato plants, and lots of pairs. A pair of teepees for pole beans, a pair of zucchini plants, a pair of summer squash, a pair of pea teepees, a pair of cucumbers, skipping potatoes, skipping most of the greens too. Just won't have time. I will be doing carrots again though. Its weird to only be planting so little, but when I think about everything else I hope to be doing I know I can't commit to a big garden.

So to fill in the space I'm doing a big batch of pumpkins. They are a great use of space, and help keep weeds down, and Ill have plenty for our daughter, our nieces and nephews and a few close friends with kids too. We bought some REALLY nice pumpkins at the cider mill since this year I didnt do pumpkins (was saving space knowing the 2013 garden we wouldn't be canning from) but I saved the seeds from the pumpkins to plant next spring. The ones I saved seeds from was 74lbs! Nice thick walls, great shape, overall a really good example of what I want to grow next year. Talked to the farmer who grew them and supplied the orchard and he said he didn't do anything special, he didn't even water them what came from the sky was what they got. He said he had pumpkins twice that size too. I was impressed so I saved the seeds and figured Id go from there. So we'll see.

Those are the changes I'm going to do for next year