The Garden

This year has been a very unusual year for the garden.  There have been several factors involved that have made for challenging gardening.  The bugs have been awful due to an unusually warm winter last year.  It's as if none of the bugs died off over winter, making it extremely tough time for trying to grow organically.  The cucumber beetles and squash bugs decimated the squash, zucchini, and cucumber plants.  I got 2 cucumbers (compared to last year's 100's of cucumbers), about 3 zucchini, and maybe 6 yellow squash.  I very well may just take a break from planting those plants for a couple years to see if I can discourage the bugs from hanging out in the garden.  I had a bad year for squash and zucchini last year too due to squash beetles and squash vine borers.  The lack of a huge bounty of these vegetables has made the "canning" season seem much less hectic, which is nice in a way.  We've had plenty to eat with time to either take a break from canning or focus on some of the other foods that tend to get forgotten because I don't have time for it.  For instance, I put away a good variety of peach products including peach pit jelly, blueberry peach jam, peach chunks, and frozen peaches for smoothies and cobblers. I got a semi decent crop of broccoli, but worms just love broccoli. I have to soak it in salt water to get them out, so that kind of discourages me from growing too much of it.  Enough to eat, but not enough to want to freeze a bunch.  I'll leave that to the local commercial farmers that DO spray.  Then I just pick after them. :P

 This is my first year for growing corn since the first year we were married 10 years ago.  I'm just starting to pick and the corn is pretty tasty! I'm not sure if there will be enough to can or freeze any, or if we'll just eat it all fresh.  I'm pleased though with it so far, as I was thoroughly turned off with growing corn 10 years ago.  I grew three varieties, one of which is a pop corn.  I'll be interested to see if we get any poppable corn. :)

 This is the corn as it's just starting to tassle.  The asparagus did extremely well this year; it's on the left hand side of the photo.  With this just being the second year for this patch, I only lightly harvested it this spring, leaving most of the shoots to feed the roots this year.

 Ain't it purty?

 In an effort to save space, I planted the green beans with the corn so the pole beans could grow up the corn.  I've got a late crop of rattlesnake beans coming in, as I had to replant since my blue tips didn't germinate. :(  I just canned my first 7 quarts of green beans yesterday from the few contender beans I planted (a bush variety) that mature before the rattlesnakes.

 The weeds really got ahead of us this year.  It's amazing how quickly that happens.  While you're watering your garden to try to keep the younger tender vegetable plants alive, the weeds are taking all the water!  The kids and I have finally gotten the worst of the weeds after weeks of weeding after rains when the soil is soft.  We spread newspaper and straw down the rows of asparagus and corn.  This provides a weed barrier, a moisture retainer, and a soil enhancer as the newspaper and straw turn to compost!

This is my first year ever growing sweet potatoes.    I didn't know how much room I'd have or how well they would do, so I started with just 25 sweet potato slips.  After sitting in a bowl of water for 6 weeks on the front porch or in the kitchen while I was waiting for the time to plant them and the soil to warm, I really didn't have much hope for them by the time I got them in the ground.  They're doing very well though above the surface.  Who knows what they're doing below the surface.  I also planted yukon gold and kennebec potatoes that are almost ready to harvest.

I had a very good crop (for me) of beets, sugar snap peas, lettuce, and spinach.  We had plenty to eat as well as enough to put a bit away in the freezer for later.  The beets keep well in the fridge, though I do want to try dehydrate some.  We ate all of the greens off the beets as well which are basically the same plant as swiss chard.  I just had no idea.  Thanks, Amanda. ;)

Tomatoes?  Pretty much a bust for long term processing, but we've had some tasty tomato sandwiches and have snacked on plenty of sungold tomatoes and ground cherries.  My herbs did well, but I just didn't use them much this year.

I thought I was going to have a fantastic onion harvest.  But I learned at least two things that I hope I'll never forget.  One, if the onions start blooming, clip the blooms.  All the energy goes into the massive blooms, thereby leaving pathetic onions beneath the surface.  Despite a mostly tiny white onion harvest, I got 46 lbs of onions between the yellow and white onions. Which brings me to number 2.  Never ever EVER trim the greens (leaves) off of the onions at harvest time.  Regardless of whether or not you think you will braid them, the onions need to cure for several weeks before cutting the greens off.  I for some reason forgot that tidbit, which I knew in years past.  (You see, I was trying to be proactive by clipping the greens now rather than waiting and doing it later!)  So, after a couple of weeks of curing in the basement, the onions were rotting.  Rapidly.  I spent three days peeling the rot off the onions and putting them up.  In the end, 1/3-1/2 of the onions were  a loss, but I froze over 2 gallon bags of diced onions, made 6 1/2 pints of onion relish, and dried 4 dehydrators full of onions which resulted in nearly a gallon of packed dried onions.  The upside?  I don't have to peel an onion for months!

Thus far for fall, I have October beans growing and carrots and swiss chard that have germinated. I've planted more beets, radishes, turnips, spinach, and kale.  We'll see how it goes.  I've planted more than I ever plant for a fall garden.  I've always wanted to plant a fall garden, but I'm usually so busy putting up tomatoes, green beans, and other stuff that I don't have time for a fall garden.  I hope it will continue to give us produce well past frost!