South City Confidential

Garden Wrap Up

This nasty weather keeps me checking the 10-day forecast to see when the first frost will be so I can rescue what tomatoes are still on the vine.  It’s also kept me from cleaning out the dead plants, digging up the last of our carrots, and getting some cuttings to take indoors.  Stupid cloudy cold rain bullshit.

Our expanded gardening was a success on many fronts.  I think, had I been at home over the summer like previous summers, we probably would have had even more success.  As it was, was took on a more laissez-faire approach to the garden.  We could have thinned, pruned, and weeded more.  As the outdoor growing season (for us) comes to a close, here’s a little recap and look forward to next year (Yes, I’m already planning for next year. I like to geek out with a seed catalog).  I would have taken pictures but it’s cold outside, kids, and I’m still in my sweatpants.

The Good

• Tomatoes. From the beginning, I knew that we would use more tomatoes than any other item we could grow, so I made sure to get a variety of seeds and transplant many more seedlings than I thought I would need.  During the height of summer, I felt like we had a better variety of tomatoes than you could buy at any farmers’ market (see photo).  We had  red cherry and grape tomatoes–the grape were our first to come in and we’re still getting a few.  In addition, we had giant orange beefsteak-types, green zebras, purple Russians, black tomatoes, and a few types of paste tomatoes.  I ate tomatoes in salads, on BLTs, in pasta, and raw with just salt and pepper all summer long.  I was able to put away several quarts of tomato sauce, which we will use all winter long on pizza, pasta, and soups.
• Tomatillos.  Good lord, we had a lot of tomatillos.  These things are prolific and hearty.  I’ve put away a few pints of salsa verde and will probably be able to put away a few more.  I will definitely grow these again.
• Cucumbers.  If I learned anything, it’s that I need only one cucumber plant to have more than what we need to eat.  I’ve got lots of pickles put away and we don’t really even like pickles.
• Lettuce.  How great is it to go out and pick your salad for dinner?  We never tired of a quick caesar salad with our summer dinners. The Rocky Top mix from Baker Creek seeds was easy to grow and delicious.  I’m going to try to grow a flat inside under lights over the winter.
• Carrots.  We grew a purple variety that were beautiful and delicious.  I’ll probably grow more next year, and I’m going to try to grow some in a cold frame over the winter.
• Herbs.  I froze more pesto than I think we can use, and parsley, too.  I also dried a ton of mint, which I am already drinking as a tea.  Mint basically grows like a weed; I grew mine from cuttings from a friend’s yard and it’s still going in a few spots.  I had one chamomile plant whose flowers I dried for tea; I’ll grow a few more next year.  We also had plenty of thyme and rosemary.  I’m trying to get some transplants going inside.

The So-So

• Our melons and squash didn’t work out so well.  We only had a few tiny melons, a few small-ish pumpkins, and one massive spaghetti squash that I thought was a watermelon.  Next year, I’ll start these earlier and I’ll need to pay much closer attention to the blossoms and how many are on each vine.
• Potatoes.  We got some potatoes from our tire-planter experiment, but we needed to be more vigilant in the maintenance of the adding of the tires to make it worthwhile.  We will do it again next year, but mind the plants better.
• Edamame.  These actually grew really well; we’ll just grow much more next year.
• Peppers.  Aside from one banana pepper plant and one jalapeno plant, I had trouble even getting pepper seeds to germinate.  Hotness FAIL.
• Spinach.  I’ll grow more and pay more attention to it next year.
• Sunberries.  I liked them, but they’re too small to do anything but eat them out of hand.
• Raspberries.  We actually still have some producing fruit; I ate a handful yesterday.

The Ugly

• Swiss chard and other greens. I think I had maybe two plants that produced anything.  I need to look into what I can do to make this more prolific.  I might do better at this if I had any skill at all at distinguishing between other greens and weeds.
• Garlic.  I totally fucked this up by trimming the plants too much.  Luckily, I went to a garlic-growing workshop at Schlafly and feel as though I can’t possibly not have a great harvest next summer.  If the sun would come out, I might be able to plant the seed bulbs I’ve collected.
• Strawberries.  I think these take up more space than they are worth.
• Broccoli.  Only one plant developed florets, and even that plant only produced a paltry amount.
• Eggplant.  Total failure.

Like I mentioned, we’re going to experiment with a cold frame and indoor growing over the winter–just lettuce, greens, peppers (which will probably not work) and carrots.  I need to spend some more time with my various vegetable gardening books to determine what exactly I could do better with certain plants.  What, me have problem with follow-through on a project?  No!  I’m not losing sleep over it.  We grew a ton of food, and I know I have to approach gardening with patience–it’s something you learn to do well over years.

Tags: DIY, gardening, urban homesteading

KBO posted this article under Food, Garden on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 12:13 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a comment or trackback from your own site.