A retrospective on gardening season...

[elfs]

Sep 25: The Amazing Snack Plant

I threw about $150 and barely twenty hours of labor into maintaining my garden this summer. That's ten minutes a day; some days I spent an hour or two, some days I spent none.

Was it worth it? I'd say it was. I got many good lunches of salad greens, both spinach and lettuce, out of the garden. Four heads of broccoli, two cauliflower, and two cabbage. Not many onions or carrots, and something kept eating the corn. The strawberries didn't produce much, and were a struggle to keep slug-free.

On the other hand, the tomatoes were spectacular. Despite having the poorest soil of all the beds, the four plants here grew tall and leafy and climbed up the wall and produced almost a table bowl full of tomatoes daily. These were amazing, sweet tomatoes, the likes of which you cannot buy. Even the one big "heirloom" plant produced a few huge, tasty results, thick with flesh and bare on seed, that combined with ground sirloin or bacon to make memorable sandwiches. You really have to click on the photo to see just how heavy with fruit these plants are.

I'll be adjusting the plan for next year. The beds are still a little productive, and there's still tomatoes to be had. I haven't dug up the horseradish yet, but that's coming soon. First week in October.

The weather is turning cool. We're already getting nights below 50°F, which is death for tomato plants. But still, it has been a good summer of eating and enjoying, and I and my family appreciated much of it.

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

I naturally planted a garden just before the worst drought in recorded Texas History. :( I got some tomatoes and cucumbers, which were delicious. But eventually I wasn't able to do anything about 107 degree days and had to abandon it -- water bills trying to keep it alive were so high I could have bought 10x the food for the money.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that kinda sucks. Droughts are no fun. One of the things that puzzles me most is how we're supposed to have an infrastructure that allows for moving food around, but an economic structure that forbids moving the money around to pay for it.

[bldrnrpdx.livejournal.com]

We did a lot more with land/hardscaping this year than we ever have (though next year we'll probably do at least as much to the other half of the yard, just to save it from noxious weeds gone wild), so we didn't do as much to the veg & fruit patch as we might have. Still, we got some lovely onions, garlic (including some we cured for later in the season), strawberries & blueberries, mustard greens & seeds, a handful of edamame, some spectacular small pumpkins, peas, and we're still doing quite well with fresh herbs. The one horseradish root we pulled was great, but unfortunately we didn't put as much time into using it as we should have, so much of it ended up being wasted. We didn't get much from the lettuce, asparagus, peppers or beans. And though we didn't plant any this year, I've found a handful of volunteer cherry tomato plants in the yard - the seeds hitchhiked along when I brought the compost over from my house to this house. It's weird seeing young (and still fairly healthy) tomato plants at the end of September!

[elfs.livejournal.com]

It is, but I'm not complaining. All I need is a few more days of sunshine to get the last of the heirloom beefsteaks to ripen fully, and I'll be happy.