What Were Your Boons and Busts for 2019?

[digitS']

The Scotch kale does fine each year if the aphids leave it alone. (The Siberian kale has big trouble with those bugs no matter where it is.)

Growing collards in the open garden in 2018 really made the aphids happy. I should have sprayed them but I was still trying to decide if I would like collards. Not so great to be trialing it for taste and not want to eat it because of bugs. Well, anyway ...


I tried a "better" location this year. Here it is today after the snow melted off it .

This is just about the shadiest location in my backyard garden. You can see the chives just behind these plants. It's protected from the wind and had only a little trouble from the slugs (which wrecked my very late bok choy planting nearby!).

We have harvested from it several times. I think that I'm beginning to like collards. That we did NOT grow Portuguese kale this year is forcing me to be more receptive ... DW has decided that she likes collards. Me: I was very happy to stay with the Portuguese kale - which is very similar, admittedly.

location/location

Steve

 

[digitS']

Carrots!

I was really surprised when I started to pull carrots this week. They are the usual Sugarsnax that DW likes. I could grow those looong things without much trouble in a somewhat sandy garden which was part of my "gardening on other people's property" mix. Even where the soil had a good deal of pea gravel, they weren't bad. Growing longer, Imperator types like Sugarsnax to nice smooth maturity didn't seem possible in the current garden.

Altho they weren't straight in the big veggie garden's rocky soil -- most extended right down beyond the depth the tractor guy tilled back in the spring!

The difference between the other seasons that I tried this there and this year might have been fertilizing. I used bagged composted chicken manure twice, about a month apart. Probably, our see-saw June temperatures delayed the young plants and I became impatient and applied more fertilizer. I had no idea that those Sugarsnax would grow more normally in those rocks.

Steve
who will get a picture the next time he is out with the spading fork

 

[thistlebloom]

It's great when you get a nice surprise like that.

 

[digitS']

Yeah, things are working out for DW .

She has carrots that she considers worth peeling and cutting up instead of the Nantes Half-longs that I would grow if'n it was up to me.

She has collards which probably run to a photo finish with Scotch kale in her estimation. (Thankfully, she likes/tolerates many leafy greens.)

She has Jade beans instead of some knobby climbing bean with more flavor. Heck's Fire, I didn't even plant any Royalty Purple beans this year.

She has Yukon Gold potatoes. Last year or the year before was the first year that I grew potatoes in that rocky ground. Yukon Gold had done so poorly in another garden that I was setting up some serious resistance to growing them, at all. In my "potato garden," they must have been at the bottom or nearly so in production out of all the varieties that I had grown there. They do just fine in all those rocks! Perhaps not as well as Red La Soda but plenty good.

Steve

 

[Zeedman]

Big Bust:
- My rural garden, which never even got turned over this year due to constant, record-setting rainfall. So no sweet corn, no zucchini, no root crops. The bean, squash, & gherkin transplants intended for there died waiting for dry conditions which never came.
- Garlic. Planted 18 varieties last year at the highest point in the rural garden, two of which did not survive the winter. The rest languished, from the rainfall (garlic doesn't like wet feet) and from late weeding due to the wet conditions. Most bulbs are 1/2 size or smaller. It remains to be seen if I will even be able to replant the survivors, since record-setting rainfall continues... we are in uncharted (and flooded) territory.

Little bust: peppers, which just languished this year. Granted, they were planted late (like everything else) but constant rain also means a lot of overcast days, probably too little sun for them. That they were on the edge of a mulberry tree's extended root line probably didn't help either.

Boom:
- Okra!!! Started as transplants for the first time, in peat pots... 32 pots, thinned to 3 seedlings per pot. These were planted in double rows 2' apart, on the South side of my back pole building. They really responded to the extra reflected heat, growing to 5-6' tall - even after being transplanted late, over the July 4th weekend! Started picking almost exactly 30 days later, and picked the last pods Tuesday, the first time they ever lasted into October. Made a lot of pickled okra, ate a lot, gave a lot away, and even got a fair amount of dry seed. More mature pods are ripening, so chances are the total dry seed harvest will be respectable. Pentagreen has proven to be a reliable variety for the North, I'd be happy to share some seed.
- Eggplant. Nine plants of Gretel (6 in pots, 3 in the ground) started early, and produced enough for fresh eating, freezing for the winter, and supplying family & friends.
- Fortex beans. Accidentally planted less than intended (a planning error), but it turned out not to matter. Froze enough to fill half a freezer, made some dilly beans, and gave a lot away. To my surprise, even got a fairly large amount of dry seed so far, in spite of the late start. No frost in the forecast yet, harvest of snaps & dry seed continues.
- Serbian Pole beans. Over a pound of dry seed, and several quarts of shellies, from a 12' row.
- Yardlong beans. Like the other heat lovers, both varieties produced heavily. Froze a lot, tried some experimental batches of yardlong dilly beans, and gave a lot away. Got a lot of dry seed for both Chinese Red Noodle & Chinese Long Green.
- Hopi Pole lima. Wasn't optimistic about it succeeding after the late start, given that it originally pushed the boundaries of my season; but this was the third time I've grown it, and it continues to acclimate itself to my climate. DTM this year was about 3 weeks earlier than when I first grew it! Have about a pound of dry seed so far, and harvest continues. The vines are loaded, so should get plenty of frozen butterbeans after I cut off the dry seed harvest.
- "bush" Buttercup squash. Heavily infected by SVB early, but I was able to kill most of the larvae in time to save the plants (those of you in the West, you don't know how lucky you are not to have squash borers). Managed to get a pretty good yield in spite of the borers, 3-4 small buttercups per plant. "Bush" was stretching the truth, as the vines stretched about 6-8 feet.
- Bitter melon. What can I say; of all the vegetables I grow, this seems to be the most reliable year after year - nothing slows it down. That's probably one of the reasons I enjoy growing it (it sure isn't the flavor ). The bees love it, it makes a great wind break for part of the garden, and we have Pacific Island friends who will gladly take all that we give away. It is a really healthy vegetable, once you get past the bitterness. I hope pickling (which we are trying this year) turns out to make them more palatable.
- Grape tomatoes. (!!!)(!!!) Couldn't ask for a better year, we've been picking buckets & the harvest continues even now. We've been giving so many away the neighbors are getting Zucchini Syndrome, and are afraid to answer their door. Took enough to work a couple times for the whole plant!

Cucumbers & chard both did well, but nothing exceptional.

Meh: All larger tomatoes. They started very late, and the yield has been low. Only starting to get a larger amount of paste tomatoes now. Late in the season, slug damage becomes excessive - so a lot of discards. I might get enough good ones for a batch of canned salsa, if I can beg enough peppers from some of my co-workers.

So in spite of my main garden not being planted, had plenty to eat & give away; so I guess it wasn't a bad year. Count your blessings.

 

[digitS']

I must like this thread , can't get off of it!

... (those of you in the West, you don't know how lucky you are not to have squash borers). Managed to get a pretty good yield in spite of the borers, 3-4 small buttercups per plant. "Bush" was stretching the truth, as the vines stretched about 6-8 feet.

I grew a bush buttercup several years ago. Probably in one of our drought years. The plants nearly all died! Bush? What remained in my garden, I would just think of as puny.

Bitter melon. ... nothing slows it down. That's probably one of the reasons I enjoy growing it (it sure isn't the flavor ).

My thoughts entirely on the flavor. But then, I do NOT like bitter cucumbers (does anyone?). And very late - the fruit begins to glow, cutting into a mature bittermelon - everything around the seeds is almost a fluorescent red. Terrifying !

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

Steve, I think it's so nice of you to accommodate your wife's preferences. I bet she really appreciates you!

@Zeedman , it sounds like you had success enough to make it worthwhile. Sorry about the continued garlic fail. Next year will probably be a spectacular weather year for everyone's gardens. It's bound to happen eventually!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

My thoughts entirely on the flavor. But then, I do NOT like bitter cucumbers (does anyone?). And very late - the fruit begins to glow, cutting into a mature bittermelon - everything around the seeds is almost a fluorescent red. Terrifying !

Steve

And at the very end, the outside turns florescent orange.

But seriously, that red stuff is actually good. It's sweet (unlike the melon) and high in vitamin A (bitter melons are in the same genus as Gac fruit). In India they use that red stuff in desserts.

 

[flowerbug]

And at the very end, the outside turns florescent orange.

But seriously, that red stuff is actually good. It's sweet (unlike the melon) and high in vitamin A (bitter melons are in the same genus as Gac fruit). In India they use that red stuff in desserts.

i like learning about this sort of thing. so keep on, keepin' on!

as far as failures due to weather @thistlebloom this year my garlic was ok even with all the rain we had and also the fact that it was grown in fairly heavy soil. the main part of what works there is that patch is one of the raised beds inside the fenced area so that it does not hold any water for long. it is about a foot above the pathway a 3 feet by 20ft area or so along the south edge. i have been planting garlic in parts of it the past few years and just finished the rotation so i'm not sure where i will plant it for this coming season.

originally i wanted to remove the pathways and to fill that end of that fenced garden all in (to get it above the flash flood water level as shown in:

)but we just don't have that kind of fill available. the pathways are pretty much the drains of that space and there is a few drain tubes installed to remove the water without taking away any more topsoil.

on the whole, even with all the weather oddities of the year i'd say we did pretty good. all of the main crops did well enough: peas, garlic, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers. the squash didn't do as much as usual because we didn't plant as much but also because it was much later than it should have been. it looks like the whole crop is the kabochas, i see none of the buttercup crosses we have had before in this harvest. i'm not sure if they are gone or not for good.

beans have done well enough for the efforts put in. i do think i have to downsize my experimental plantings though because i get a lot of marginal production from a lot of those so i should plant more productive plants in more of the gardens and limit some of the experiments. it's a bit too much here in my room trying to keep track of about 100 flats as they are drying down and another bunch that have various other things going on at the same time. hard to resist planting them though when it really is the only way i have of answering questions.

 

[digitS']

I want to comment on that, but first:


Steve