Year end eval of the garden

[woolybear]

 The tomatoes were a major bust, mostly due to my incompetency. I always try to start my own seeds but this year things got a bit mixed up and I bought my plants. Over half of the plants I bought were not what they were marked to be. The cherokee purple turned into some type of tiny cherry "things", with one plant actually being a purple that I got one tomato off of. The rest of the tomatoes were just a disappointment (thankfully I have enough canned from previous years that it won't hurt me any)
 Peppers were also very "eh". Planted one sweet pepper plant, and have one green pepper on it. Hot peppers did a bit better - I'll have enough hots to try my hand at making hot sauce.
 Butternut squash was the same disappointment. Got 1 squash off of 6 plants and it wasn't anything to write home about. Same thing with the watermelons, no melons from what I planted. But I did have one volunteer plant pop up in a raised bed in the middle of the summer (no idea where it ever came from) So I transplanted it and it has a medium size melon on it. Hopefully it has a chance to ripen before cold weather/frost hits.
 Zucchini - what can I say about you. Always every year for as long as I can remember they would die before late summer from the squash borer. This year I planted 2 hills, 1 hill came up. So I put the red solo cup around it to try and protect it from the bore. It must have worked, here it is the beginning of Oct and it's still producing zukes for me. Plus about 2 months after I planted seeds the other hill decided to sprout and is giving me a few more fruits. Those guys have been absolute work horses.
 Celery - my first time planting it and it has done well for me. I go down and cut off what I need and let the rest keep growing. I've been drying the leaves so I can grind those to add into soups. Plus froze a nice size bag of it. Will plan to grow it again next year.
 Onions - I have yet to grow any onions bigger than a golf ball. Will try it again next year.
 Green beans - I grew a 20 foot row of Jade beans. Got plenty to can and plenty to give to family and a couple of friends.
  And finally the corn - Bloody butcher and glass gem. 25 seeds in each packet. Got enough ears to have a great supply of seeds for next year. Bloody butcher was planted next to the soaker hose so got plenty of water. Grew great sized ears and 10-12 foot tall stalks. Glass gem was grown next to the house and I had to hand water...when I would remember. It's ears were smaller with spotty kernel coverage (poor pollination) but those kernels had some great colors. 

 So how did your garden grow this year?

 

[wildhorseluvr]

Ha! That’s a joke. Bought all my plants this year. Between being sick, surgery, recovery, etc. they didn’t get much attention. Than add in my lack of gardening knowledge and skills…equals a waste of time/money/energy. If this were a SHTF year, I’d have starved to death after 2 days. 🤣 Back “home”, there was a reason I traded goat milk to my neighbor for her garden produce. 😁 

There’s always next year but that probably won’t be much better than this year. Animals I understand…plants not so much.

I did get a few tomatoes, and I do mean “a few.” I think the squirrels (or just as likely, Crazy Dog) stole some ripe tomatoes off one tomato plant. Another plant finally produced a few tomatoes, I brought in a handful this morning, and there are some green tomatoes still on the plant. Plant #3 produced nothing…not a single blossom even. ☹️ So I was going to grab the tags off the plants this morning to remind myself which varieties were which, and ALL the tags are gone. I can safely bet Crazy Dog had something to do with that. 

[mzgarden]

Ah, first -- tell me about a red solo cup & vine borer?

Ok, our garden this year. Tomatoes are still coming in. Given away lots, canned up lots, frozen a bunch - still more coming. Green beans were a bust - too cold, blistering hot, too dry, too cold in that order, boo. Goat Eye Beans however were an experiment that paid off - will do those again next year. Peppers have done very well, pickled a bunch and they're still coming. Winter squash - oh my! I've got 25 butternut out of one patch that is done now. Another patch of Seminole pumpkins is going strong. Fall planting of lettuce is coming along. Got a fair number of figs from my two young plants. The big surprise this year was a Pineapple Ground Cherry - pretty little plant, lots of cherries and tasty too. Will plant more of those next year. Seed saving has begun - Roma tomatoes, the ground cherry, goat eye beans and butternut have already been put aside.

[woolybear]

mzgarden, supposedly the cup prevents the vine bore moth from being able to lay her eggs at the base of the vine. I cut the bottom out of the cup and put it over the plant. I did not do that to the other squash that came up later on. A side note (knocking on wood) I did not see any squash bugs or bore babies anywhere this year. Last year my zucchini were covered in squash bugs so I had visions of massive infestations for this year. The only difference I made for this year was heavy mulching of old hay and grass clippings. Maybe those things prevented the bugs from emerging from the ground.

[Ozarks Tom]

We used to lose our squash plants to borers before Sweet Bride started sprayng the vines with Pyrethrin. www.amazon.com/Southern-Ag-10401-Pyrethrin-Concentrate/dp/B00VIALGTA/ref=asc_df_B00VIALGTA/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=216515106215&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=500319082759725038&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9023766&hvtargid=pla-354055365012&psc=1 The only aggravation is although it's a natural liquid made from chrysanthemum you need to reapply it after a rain, or if you got the vines wet while watering. It's a good insect repellent for all plants too.

We went to a "bucket garden" a few years ago, so our production is way down from some years back when the garden was about 5000sf. That's okay, the weeding can be done from a plastic lawn chair, and the watering of the 62 buckets takes less than 10 minutes.

Everything did fine this year with the exception of the bell peppers, and that was our fault. Bought a variety that only produces small fruit. Still make great stuffed peppers, just takes a lot more for a meal.

We grow Amish Paste tomatoes, they're heirloom and great for canning as they're very meaty as opposed to sandwich tomatoes. They'll grow and produce until the first frost, and although we only have four plants we're covered up with them.

We use canvas 30 gallon buckets, the bottom 4" is gravel, then about a foot of useless topsoil, and then about 6" of rabbit/sheep manure. I'll add a couple more inches of sheep manure this winter.

[Txsteader]

Lousy year here too. Just too blazing hot. Even with shade cloth, I'm assuming the ambient temp was too hot for plants that managed to survive to set fruit. I'm talking about okra that didn't even start blooming until the past couple of weeks.

I told the story about my tomato failure earlier this year - from seeds not germinating to bought plants not blooming. So not one lousy tomato this year. Squash plants started blooming but never set fruit before the plants quickly just melted. I got a few snap beans from my pole beans before they, too, stopped blooming.

The one thing that wasn't fazed by the heat at all was, surprisingly, Swiss chard. It has continued to crank out leaves since early spring.

[FeralFerret]

Once we got past the extreme heat the tomatoes picked back up and produced fair. Tomatoes won't set fruit when highs are above 90 degrees. The Cherokee Purple did fair. They were very flavorful this year, probably from all of the Epsom salts I used when I prepped the soil. We also have several plants of an unknown variety that are bearing quite a bit of fruit. The tomatoes are bigger than a quarter, but smaller than a golf ball. Very good flavor, also.

Something ate the cucumber vines. It was an animal, but not sure what kind. Likely a rabbit. Jalapeno peppers did fair, as did the cayenne plant. The Tabasco plants did well and are loaded again right now. Plowed under the area where the cucumbers were and planted turnip greens and mustard greens. They are doing very well. My wife is making her own Tabasco vinegar for use on the greens.

After we move in a few weeks, I will have to till the area in the back yard where we are going to have a garden next year. Gotta have my vine ripe tomatoes to go with my eggs at breakfast.

[laurazone5]

May and June were very cool. Plants didn't get the UV rays and heat they needed.
Squash boars killed every plant.
Peach trees produced zero fruit.
Grapes produced zero fruit.
Sweet potatoes zero tubers.
Pablano's zero peppers.
Cucumbers zero fruit.
Green beans, only a couple of handfuls.
Sunflowers never came up.

Tomatoes are producing......but the groundhog is fighting me for fruit.
Garlic did amazing.
Potatoes did amazing.
Hops did amazing.
Elderberry gave me some goodies. Planted the bare root in the spring.....so good harvest for first year.
Planted zucchini and summer squash in July...both produced tons of fruit!

2023 was a bust.

[Jolly]

Good year for some things, not so for others.

Corn, snap beans and butter beans did well.
Field peas and tomatoes were okay.
Cucumbers, bell peppers and banana peppers were fair.
Squash was sub-par.
Okra was almost a total bust. For some reason, it didn't make much and then the deer found it.

I had to water a good bit early. The fall garden is horrible...Haven't had two inches of rain in nine weeks.

[woolybear]

Well it's really the end for the garden, weather service is calling for low 30's tonight, tomorrow night and 20's Wednesday night. I harvested anything/everything... got around 8 small zucchini and 1 larger one, a handful of green beans, 2 watermelon (going to cut the small one later and see how it tastes), 1 sweet potato plant - got about 6 small taters but they will make a meal or 2, and the late potatoes. The potatoes were planted about July and were what was left from last year... shriveled up taters with 2+ foot long sprouts. I just chucked everything into 2 of my raised beds, covered them up with some dirt and topped that with grass clippings. I'm sure that they were really over crowded but this was just a "lets see what happens" idea. Kept them watered during the heat of summer. They grew wonderful, big thick, tall stems. I got almost half a 5 gallon bucket with a large number of bigger than a golf ball size and quite a few of about the size of my fist. I'm not going to complain about that. Between what I bought this year (half bushel) and what I harvested earlier in the summer I have plenty to keep me fed and happy. All of the small ones (marble size) and green ones I'm tossing back into the bed, will cover good with dirt and top with some straw and hopefully next season I'll have more taters.
I also dug up and potted up 2 of my celery plants to see how well they tolerate being inside in the cellar under lights for the winter. Hopefully I can have celery all winter, can cut it fresh and not have a bunch from the store that always rots up on me.
The swiss chard is so happy to see the cooler weather now and has started growing well again. So I can have fresh greens in the winter. Need to start some romaine seeds and pot those up under lights and see what they can do.

[mzgarden]

First hard frost expected tonight at 28F. Got the remaining tomatoes off the vines and all the pumpkins. Got 2 wheelbarrows full of the 2-4# Seminole pumpkins. Many are still partly green but I've been testing by harvesting a few in the last few weeks and setting them on the table and daggone if they didn't turn orange and pretty tasty. So, we'll see how many 'orange-up.' If they don't, chickens will have something fresh through the winter. In the greenhouse are pots of spinach, lettuce and dwarf snow peas to get us started into winter.

[Txsteader]

Okra has finally starting producing, I'm harvesting almost every day. Mind you, I only have about a dozen plants because that's all that managed to germinate but they'll make enough for a pot of gumbo and to put in pilaf until they stop making.

Snap beans that I replanted are starting to bloom so they should start producing soon. I planted a few bush cucumbers at the same time, just to see what they'd do, and they're growing great but no blooms just yet. Don't know if I'll harvest anything from them before our first frost, which can be anywhere from late Nov to early Jan.

Having a hard time getting my broccoli and cauliflower seeds going. They germinate and just sit. I'm going to try adding some worm castings to the starter mix and see if that'll give them a kick.

Waiting for cabbage & lettuce seedlings to get big enough to plant out. Just planted spinach, carrots and onions that aren't up yet.

Aaand I placed another seed order. Like I need more seeds. Actually, some of my stash is getting pretty old and even though most seeds are still viable, I'd feel better having fresher seeds. Our lives may depend on them.

ETA: Update - I hadn't been out in the garden for a couple of days because we got a cold front and I'm a sissy but I've got cucumbers! They're only 1" long but lots of them. A new variety for me I'm trying this year called Bushmaster, especially suited to growing in containers. 

[farmgirl]

Tomatoes-I lost count of everything I canned from tomatoes.
Peppers-best year ever.
Squash and zucchini- success
Carrots- good but I hope to do better next year.
Beets-good but I hope to do better next year.
Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage- best year ever
Onions, garlic- best year ever
Lettuce-not great, but ok
Asparagus-first year harvest, so good
Potatoes-best year ever
Spinach, kale-not good
Watermelons- looked ripe but not inside
Cherokee tan pumpkins. I planted 6 seeds and harvested over 50. Definitely successful!
Strawberries-I redid the June and ever bearing so got next to nothing from the June bearing, a consistent handful every day from the other.
Red, black, yellow raspberries did amazing.
Blackberries-success
Apples-best year ever
None of the peach or cherry trees produced anything, only one pear produced.
Hops-successful

Overall, a good year with lots of room to improve.