lessons learned in my summer garden

Hopefully my notes in the above picture wont be too hard to read or remember.
A few lessons learned....
1)I learned last year that 5 determinate tomatoes was too much for one square of my garden...4 seemed a bit tight, but this year 4 is WAAAAAY too tight....next year I would like to stagger 2 per square and use the extra space to shade lettuce or spinach or maybe herbs in order to help prevent bolting.
2)last year I learned that 16 pepper plants was waaaay too many for one square...so WHY did I do it again? I have no idea! next year someone physically stop me from planting that many again...PLEASE! only 9 per square...make me do it....or maybe stagger 2 rows of 4 with 3 in the middle...maybe!
3)mini tomatoes apparently dont work in pots on my deck...they are just tiny and sad
4)for some reason arugula and mesclun have been pitiful in my pots, and riddled with holes in my garden. grrrr
5)continuously pick lettuce....dont get lazy...I had so much go bitter that I could have consumed if I had just gotten out there earlier! makes me so frustrated!
6)broccoli doesnt like my garden...and it doesnt like my tummy...I should just give up and move on...
7)apparently japanese beetles love basil...but they wont touch lemon basil...maybe I should companion plant those or something...very interesting!
8)dont bother planting carrots between the tomatoes, they just get too covered by foliage.
9)trying to be clever and planting tomatoes on top of and below my homemade upsydownsy pots just isnt a good idea....should have remembered from last year...the pots dont retain enough water to sustain 2 plants. stop being greedy and just plant 1
10)oh, and btw...so far I am not impressed with the tomatoes I planted upside down...they dont seem any healthier or better off than the ones I planted right side up....only more crooked!
11)training a cuke to climb a trellis is pretty cool...and it would appear that only 1 cuke is enough for my current trellis...guess mother nature knew better when she only allowed 1 to grow.

best time to harvest

when to harvest for peak flavor

another resource for companion planting

could be very useful for my small but mighty garden
companion/intercropping/interplanting

successful succession planting

along with interplanting/intercropping I know that succession planting is a great way to make the most of my little space, just takes some energy and some organization, and experience....so I want to do as much research as I can before formulating a plan

kids in the garden

I've enjoyed very small successes this summer with having my kids in my garden...the 4 year old really wants to be a helper, asks if he can help me dig my very organized, thought out raised beds with a shovel and a rake (gasp!) but he also enjoyed pulling up the radishes that were ready to harvest (but he refused to eat them because I admitted to him that I dont like radishes because they are so spicy...now he wont try a nibble either...what was I thinking?!?!)...I do most of my gardening by myself during nap time...its so wonderful and therapeutic for me...but sometimes it would be nice to work on it...at least water it while the boys are awake, and I discovered that having a fun sprinkler in the backyard will keep them safely entertained for a few minutes while I water and pull weeds...but I need more ideas

great greens

this is the first year I've done a whole lot with a spring garden of greens , and I've repeated a few mistakes(like keep your lettuce well picked before it goes to seed and you lose all of it due to bitterness...grrr!), and made a few new ones too (mental note, start kale and other greens much much earlier!)....sounds like I need some advice!
lettuce troubleshooting
kale
cabbage and company

sweet summer strawberries

If this years garden doesnt totally overwhelm me by the end of the summer, I'd love to put in some berries next year!

growing cool cukes

I could always use ideas on how to better grow cukes!

pests and diseases

plants to help with mosquitos!!! a big deal in our backyard
home remedies for garden pests and diseases
top 10 least wanted garden pests

herbs

I informed my husband the other day that I think my garden is "big enough"...for now...given the amount of time I have had to spend in it, getting it summer season ready...you wouldnt believe the state of the rest of my house, of course that would have NOTHING to do with the fact that I ENJOY gardening, and really DONT enjoy cleaning, laundry, dishes, straightening, etc. :) Anyway, I'm sure he was feeling a bit of whiplash when withing hours of my "big enough" comment, I told him that MAYBE I would put in one more bed next year dedicated strictly to herbs, although it would porbably do me some good to explore how to interplant and companion plant herbs with my veggies.
here are some articles to help with my herb garden
herb garden plans and 12 best kitchen herbs
best herbs for spring
growing rosemary
4 herbs everyone should grow
how herbs make you feel better
herb growing for untrained housewives
growing rosemary

a few helpful articles

on composting
on amounts to plant for a family of 4 (I do question the quantities listed...)
google search results about powdery mildew and another site
dealing with fruit flies in the kitchen (a result of storing kitchen scraps for compost materials) this idea took several days, but it worked!
companion planting list and another
growing garlic (I wanna try this! we love garlic!)

making way for the summer garden

for about the past week I have been working in the garden for several hours almost every day, getting it into shape for my summer garden....one thing I had to do was make room for the summer veggies by clearing out my spring greens.

this is about half of what I harvested...spinach, radishes, kohlrabi (ony the greens were usable) radishes, and I'm pretty sure 6 cute little heads of cabbage were in there too.

 Even though I didnt get as much as I wanted from ALL that was growing in my garden, I was still pretty pleased with the harvest.

this is JUST the baby bok choy....by far the best producer...unfortunately, due to scheduling, this sat in my fridge for a day or 2 and got quite limp, I tried to revive it with cold water with moderate results. Because of our CRAZY week this week I havent gotten a chance to cook with this yet, probably not for another day or two, so I am praying that it will still be usable by then....I have a recipe for cashew chicken with baby bok choy I am anxious to try.
This reminds me of a lesson Ive learned and releared in my few years of gardening, you can work extremely hard for months and months to cultivate, nurture, and harvest your garden, but if you arent extremely careful with how you store your harvest, it will all be for naught. I need to do more research on how to store my veggies, especially these greens. So far the best way I've found it is wash them, spin them, let them air dry as much as possible, then store them in ziplocks with a paper towel in the bottom to catch excess moisture. my salad greens will store for many weeks like this. I've also recently heard to NOT use metal when harvesting/cutting greens because it will cause it to oxidize and get yucky.

The biggest disappointments were the broccoli (pretty much just sent straight to the compost bin) and the kale and kohlrabi.  The biggest producers were the radishes, spinach, bok choy, swiss chard and lettuce.
I could almost kick myself that I didnt take before and after pictures of my spring to summer garden. Maybe I'll remember next year!

timing

trying to figure out when to put out my seedlings....they are taking over my house!
our frost date is 4/15...a local weather guy gave his blessing to put tomatoes out at that time (something about in the past 30 years only having a handful of frosts after tax day) but I waited...mainly because the seedlings hadnt been hardened off (more on that later) and we were traveling and I wanted to be able to baby them just before and just after setting them out.....and then there were a few frost warnings (I dont think anything ever actually froze, but it certainly did get much cooler and I think I covered things up a few  nights, and there would be a few nice days to let them harden off....and then several days of crazy torrential, cold rains where I'm afraid to let them out....and nights that dropped below 50, and I've heard thats not good for warm weather crops either. so off and on this week I've been setting my seedlings out for one hour more per day than the previous day in partial shade, in the hopes that this weekend I'll be able to set them out for good. by some miracle (so far) neither boy has messed with them too much indoors or out. my tomatoes have gotten extremely leggy...but that doesnt concern me too much since they can be planted super deep and grow a great root system.....peppers can be planted a little deeper too...although I keep hearing different things about that...my squash/zuke/cuke seedlings have gotten really big too...I dont know if I will start them so early next year...seems like the longer they get and the more they are jostled around, the more I am losing to collateral damage...mostly their stems are getting snapped or as in the case of my straight 8 cukes, are just not as hardy to hardening off (no pun intended) . I'm not sure I have any straight 8 cukes to transplant, and I'm pretty sure I started out with at least 6. Bush cukes seem the hardiest and most compact....go figure. I guess I'll just plant some straight 8s from seed since they grow so fast. did I mention that my husband has fashioned a sort of trellis for me from some discarded deck railing? I'm interested to see how that works. vertical gardening, here I come!
my basil started from seed is progressing, but still soooooo tiny! I'm wondering if I should have started them back in january or something...and they look loads better than my oregano, stevia and mint....sooo miniscule. I may try one more time next year to start my herbs much earlier, and if that doesnt work, transplants from lowes may just be how I have to go....this is ridiculous! I semi gave up hope and purchased a few basil and oregano plants at a local market stand. sigh. so disappointing.
I am looking forward to harvesting some cabbage, bok choy, spinach and more lettuce this next week when I set out my summer plants and planning some meals around them, and the lovely radishes I harvested. I guess actually following the seed packet advice and thinning the way they recommend really DOES yield respectable results! whoda thunk!!?? I dont particularly enjoy the taste of radishes...but they really are a nice (almost) instant gratification veggie, and so pretty and it's fun to experiment with all the different kinds. right now the best ones are something called mexican white giants, and I've had some impressive champion and sparklers too. my mom and grandmother ate them right out of the garden (one spat on hers to clean it, the other peeled it with her fingernail...claimed it wasnt at hot that way....both said they were lightyears better than store bought) Jack, my 4 year old enjoyed helping me harvest them...but I accidentally gave him reason not to eat them when I told him about how I was scarred for life when I was about his age and ate a radish out of the garden, thinking it would be sweet like a tomato or cherry...and being extremely surprised and disappointed. Now he wont try them either.
I've reseeded some beans (I planted several over 2 weeks ago with almost no germination...2 plants sprouted pretty respectably...the rest didnt germinate at all or were just starting when I got out there to investigate. I reseeded and said nice, encouraging words to them...hopefully that helps! I also reseeded my carrots....not a fantastic germination rate there either...but when I was thinning those that did sprout, I accidentally pulled up a tiny baby carrot...so that gives me some hope! I also reseeded my mesclun....soooo unimpressive this year....we'll see how it goes. I know that last year when we went to FL (about 2 weeks from the date of this week...does that make sense?) I had some nice mesclun...not so much right now. 
my potatoes are extremely impressive...the vines have already grown past my trashcans and growbag, which are all 3 filled with potting soil....looking forward to reaping those rewards! maybe using all that diluted whey is working. It would have been interesting to not water 1 of them with whey and see if that is indeed making a difference...maybe next year.

my thoughts on my spring garden so far

not much in my container garden is doing well....
the bok choi from seed is doing ok...but the ones in the raised beds are much MUCH better....
same with the kohlrabi and kale...both are doing a smidgen better in the raised beds....I wonder if it's because we have been so unseasonably warm this spring that my spring garden thinks its summer..
the lettuce is barely ok....but the seedlings planted at the same time in the raised beds are nearly twice the size..
spring mix and arugula in the containers have barely progressed at all
I think the leeks appear to be making some slow progress in containers
my potatoes are planted in 2 trash cans and a grow bag and I am extremely pleased with how well they are growing!
raised beds are doing better
radishes seem to be doing pretty well...I picked a few this weekend to send home with my dear mil
as I said before, the lettuce is going great....I've already harvested and sent home some with my investors! :) I was also very disciplined in thinning out the seedlings...it didnt hurt too bad!
cabbage seedlings seem to be doing well
I doubt my broccoli will be ready for harvest when I need to pull it up to make room for tomatoes or peppers
spinach is starting to germinate...and I've heard mixed reviews about how well it does in  warm weather, so I dont have extremely high hopes...
some of my carrots have germinated...we'll see...same with onions both white and green...never grown those before, so I dont know if they are doing well or not
I am following what my week by week handbook says that I could go ahead and plant bush beans....so I planted 2 rows of bush beans called dragon tongue that takes 100 days to harvest and 3 or 4 rows of beans from previous years....with a note to check in 7-14 days just in case they dont take. we'll see.
as a foray into companion planting in the hopes of helping ward off bad bugs, I have also planted marigolds  and petunias around the beans to help with the mexican bean beetles and nasturtiums around where I will plant squash to help with squash bugs. and flowers are pretty and it will make jack happy....and supposedly nasturtiums are yummy in salads, I wonder if my family will eat flowery salads.

I found a use for whey in the garden!

after researching more about what whey does to garden soil...and that my garden soil is slightly alkaline (thanks to the test at the extension office) and that some of my veggies like slightly acidic soil (namely radishes and potatoes) so I pour a 1/2 gallon bottle of when into my 3 gallon watering can, fill it up the rest of the way with water and sprinkle it on my potatoes and radishes...and they are doing AWESOME!
acid loving veggies
here too
and here too

gardening tips

a website of tips

an article about basil

basil

how to dry herbs with a microwave

here

some info on beans

beans and beans

the most profitable plants for my garden

this is very interesting...something I do take into account....along with whether it tastes better homegrown rather than store bought, how much we eat (ie how convenient it is to have it in the backyard) and how well it stores....and also whether I have ever planted it before and want to experiment , whether I can get specific varieties/colors etc in the store, and many other reasons.

Not sure about this....

not sure my husband would approve, but given all the dandelions in our yard, this has me intrigued....plus the sweet little old lady in this video has charmed me!
dandelion salad
now I want to watch her other videos!

kitchen garden site

from mother earth news
kitchen garden

weed control ideas

I've heard about the importance of mulching in the garden, and I've been reading up on newspaper mulch in an effort to recycle our sunday papers and save money, but I'm not sure about using it...will it make my garden look trashy? most of the websites I've googled just say that when you lay it down it just means that you can lay down a smaller layer or pine bark mulch. so it would save some money...not a lot.
I've also been researching using vinegar instead of round up. I bought to gallons at sams for less than $4 and put it into a watering can and sprinkled both of them on a section of the garden. it took a few days, but it looks like a good bit of the weeds are brown now....but those purple weeds, I think they are called deadnettle or maybe henbit...arent too fazed. Maybe I will try another application. I've also see online some recipes involving mixing in soap so that it will stick better.
I was hesitant to pour the vinegar on areas that I want to use for veggies, afraid the herbicidal effects would linger, but from what I can see some say it may slightly affect the acidity of the soil, but that it should wash away pretty quickly.
I've also read about a product called Preen...not sure what it is about organically....we'll see.

vine trellis

I REALLY want to try this someday...from my friend Jena's blog!
a great garden idea

first lesson of the season learned...

I've started making our own yogurt in my crockpot....works great....very tasty and cost effective! I've started using a gallon of milk at a time, and after the yogurt is done, I strain it to make it thicker, and thus have a lot of leftover whey....almost a 1/2 gallon of whey. I had read several online articles about what to do with leftover whey...including making ricotta cheese (tried it, a lot of work without a lot of ricotta at the end) and I had also read about using leftover whey to water plants....
well, I used some of my whey to water half of my cute little jiffy pellets...only half as an experiment to see what happened. I kept an eye on it for a few days, and after 3 days or so, I dumped more on the other half of my jiffy pellets....just as I looked over and saw white moldy furry stuff growing on the first batch. yuck! I immediately drained it, valiantly tried to dry it out, but moldy stuff started growing on it too....and it started smelling funky. oh poop!
after that I did more research and
1)I learned to water down the whey with water...1:10 ratio
2)it should not be used before the seeds germinate
3)it can be used on compost, but I am so paranoid about my compost being stinky that I dont think I'll go there...
4)it is acidic and can be used in the garden on plants that like acidity like blueberries and hydrangeas
5)can also be used to help with mosaic fungus
6)I dont think I will do it again....but I hate to dump it out!
websites for whey
whey uses in the garden
how to use whey for watering plants
16 ways to use your whey
use that leftover whey

a list of gardening blog lists to peruse

you know....in my "spare time"
veggie gardeners blog list
organic gardening blog list

diy cold frame

I actually have an old window and at least 1 brick o block that I have in mind to use with this...I jsut dont know the right place in my garden to put it...we'll see...
cold frame
another one here

frost dates

local frost dates...I assume these are based on the new zones

diy grow light

last year when I tried starting my own seedlings I noticed they were very very leggy....and I learned that was from lack of a good light source...apparently a sunny window sill just isnt enough....and I was APPALLED at the prices of grow lights...CRAZY! So I was excited when I came across this diy grow light set up...just the thing for my handy husband to work on one saturday...and he did! instead of it costing us more than $100 for a grow light stand PLUS bulb....it was more like 20-30 instead...not bad!
diy grow light

composting

a few sites about composting...
composting chart
winter composting
more winter composting
composting 101
solutions to 7 composting problems

concerns for my 2012 garden

I'm a little concerned about how much time I'll be able to focus on my garden this summer because this is my first year to have TWO mobile little people in my life...in 2009 there was just one mobile little person who took AMAZING LONG NAPS which was when I would garden....in 2010 there was just one mobile little person, who still napped well...and a newborn, who wasnt a great napper...but still slept a good bit of the day....in 2011 I still had my good napping older son, and not so good napping, but also not quite mobile younger son (so if I gardened during the older ones naptime, at least I could plop the younger one down in the shade with some toys so I could get a little something done). This year my older one has given up napping....but still has "quiet time" in his room every day, which most of the time can correspond with my younger sons nap time....which rarely ever lasts more than an hour...maybe and hour and a a half if I am lucky. I thought MAYBE I could get away with some gardening while the little guys play outside on their playsets, but little brother is very brave and is determined to climb the big green climbing wall whether I am there with him or not, so I'm pretty sure I cant turn my back on him to weed the garden for very long...or there maybe stitches in our future.
I'm also a bit concerned about my mini csa with my mom. I am SO thankful that she has invested in my garden....its helped my garden to grow and my enjoyment and motivation to grow along with it! The only issue is that for real csas deliver once a week or so....but I live an hour and a half away from my mom....and with gas prices threatening to be at FIVE DOLLARS A GALLON by memorial day....there is just NO WAY I can get her veggies once a week. We are almost always in town once a month or so...and I guess I can try to meet her at a convenient half way point one other time a month....but I figure with gas prices that high, it will cost us close to $40 in gas round trip each time we drive to town. YIKES! I dont want to stiff her though....because while she was extremely excited about all the produce she got last year, and super encouraging, with 2 baby girls born in our gamily during the summer last year and her traveling to do her grandmotherly duties, she missed out on the bulk of the summer tomatoes (and honestly, what is the point of a summer garden/csa if you dont get tomatoes!) and other fresh produce....I dont want that to happen again...I want to keep my one customer happy! :) Last year I tried to soften the blow by saucing up a lot of the tomatoes and giving them along with quite a bit of pesto in lieu of fresh produce...but I know that was just not the same! hopefully this year will be better. I've also promised her a loaf of homemade sourdough bread each time I make a delivery...if possible...and I've mentioned sharing the whey from my homemade yogurt so she can water her hydrangeas and my step dad could use it for his grapevines....maybe that will help ease my conscience too.

grand plans for my 2012 garden.....

I had such great luck with my raised beds last year, that this year I have bought 2 more sets thanks to my mom and step dad investing in my garden again this year!!! yipee!  I have big plans for those!

for my timing this year I found this cool looking "gardeners handbook"
http://www.amazon.com/Week---Week-Vegetable-Gardeners-Handbook/dp/1603426949/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330503912&sr=8-1
I found it at books a million and I;ve been wanting something like this for a while....turns out it got some good reviews on amazon, but not by many people who have actually used it...just who are excited about using it...reviews by people who have actually used it were very mixed...mainly that the authors gardening experience was limited to their climate in massachusetts....and their growing season is quite a bit shorter than other areas, like say, HERE! I had wondered about that too when they were calling the end of july "early fall" but I went through and tweaked the dates a little bit, so I hope that the timing will work out well....we'll see. I am mostly using it to tell me how far in advance to start seeds for my spring and fall gardens.

for spring
started in jiffy pellets:
brussells sprouts
kale
bok choi
lettuce
onions and leeks (new to me)
cabbage
I have planted mesclun and arugula outside in pots
I plan to start carrots, spinach, radishes, lettuce, chard, onions (white and green) mustard greens outside in raised beds within the next 2 weeks.
Since there was such an influx of compost to my raised beds this year due to my winter composting, I took some of my soil from the raised beds to be tested at the extension office....and it was such a nice dark rich brown color, they asked me if I was just testing potting soil....I hope that is a good sign that the soil is good. I just want to make sure that the ph isnt waaaay off and will fry my plants.

for summer
started in jiffy pellets
peppers
eggplant (also new to me)
I plan to start tomatoes within the next month or so
I also have seeds for bush beans, pole beans, lots of zuke, cuke and squash, and potatoes! Also mint, oregano, and stevia. I'll try to update these entries with specific variety names as soon as I can...just not now at 2:23am. :)
I've been doing some reasearch about intensive gardening methods such as succession planting (which seems like it takes a fair amount of experience to perfect....so I'm definitely learning by doing) and intercropping or interplanting. I'll share more about that research later.
I plan to post a diagram of my gardening plan, I just have to figure out how to get it from my pencil and paper sketch onto the blog....not sure if I have it in me to input it into the computer somehow...maybe scanning it?

lessons from my 2011 garden

thanks to my mom and step dad investing in my garden this year as a mini csa, this was my first year to venture into raised beds! woohoo! I found a GREAT deal on a raised bed kit at sams....greenland gardener, 3.5x7 bed kits made from composite lumber for less than $40! After some shopping around I found a local place that sells potting soil for a GREAT deal...so I bought 2 raised bed kits, a TON (well, not quite...but my back sure thought so) of soils....I ended up mixing potting soil, top soil, and mushroom compost to fill my beds....they worked GREAT!!
I used square foot gardening guidelines...kinda sorta....for the plant spacings.....probably should have followed them a bit more closely...but despite that, I was still pleased!
again this year I planted most of my summer veggies from seeds, but a lot of the fall stuff was from transplants
here is what I planted in 2011:
summer
tomatoes in raised beds (5), hanging baskets (4) and a few deck containers (2)
peppers mostly in raised beds (at least 10 plants, maybe more)
bush beans in raised beds
squash and zukes in raised beds
pole beans in the same place as last year
lettuce and mesclun, chard and spinach in pots
cukes in a side bed

fall
brussells sprouts where the pole beans vacated
cabbages in raised beds
chard in raised beds
radishes in raised beds
kale, bok choy, mustard greens, lettuce, mesclun in containers

lessons I learned:
1)peppers take FOREVER to grow into seedlings and even longer to produce....but once they do...whew! next time I grow serranos, I should only do 1 plant...because with 2 I was covered up with those little hot peppers!
2)I wonder if my overcrowding my peppers affected yield this summer...at least with my bell peppers. they just seemed to take forever and weren't all that impressive. I'm not willing to give up yet, because those pretty peppers are expensive in the store....but I need to tweak something....
3)5 bush tomato plants in a 3.5x3.5 square was just too much...next year I will just plan to do 3 per square
4)I am intimidated by indeterminate tomatoes....but 99% of the cool heirloom tomatoes are indeterminate...so I decided to try those in hanging baskets...something called an upsy downsy where I could plant in the top AND bottom of the pot...and I planted the same amount of plants that they called for...if not less...but yield was pathetic! I had semi good luck with the pot that had yellow pear tomatoes, but I never saw a mr stripey or big rainbow, and I think I only got 1 or 2 amana oranges that year. bummer. I want to try again...but with tweaking.
5)I did a tiny bit of "interplanting" this year with putting mesclun around the perimeter of my container tomato plants (may have done this in 2010 as well...cant remember) and that worked pretty well....
6)I was covered up with radishes from doing a whole 3.5 square bed with them....and I'm really not a radish fan....but I discovered a recipe for radish top soup that was interesting....probably wont do a whole bed of them next year, but interplant them instead.
7)I LOVED growing kale....now I just need to learn how to cook with it! :)
8)I purchased a "strawberry pot" this spring, and I think it is entirely possible that I planted those little strawberry bare root crowns upside down....so no berries this year...I am DYING to try strawberries sometime in a raised bed...not sure when I'll have the spare space....but the strawberry pot was a waste of money :(
9)this summer we had a hail storm that really affected my garden...especially my squash plants...you should have seen how sad those big beautiful leaves were when they were ripped to shreds ! As a result of that storm, we had to get our roof replaced, and as a result of that, we had some wooden pallets laying around. I took them and made a compost pile in one of the vacant squares of my raised bed....and I was a bit nervous doing this is OCTOBER when it was just starting to get nippy and frosty....because compost needs HEAT...but I decided to try anyway....and it worked GREAT! I felt very "green" by taking our kitchen veggie waste outside, putting our fallen leaves in there, even our shredded sunday paper and paper plates and dryer lint. cool, huh? I just dismantled it in mid february 2012, and although there was still a fair amount of stuff that hadnt yet decomposed....I am certain that a whole bunch of it did! probably thanks in part to the wierd warm winter we have had....barely any snow at all....so the stuff never really froze all the way through....but it was cool enough that the smell never got offensive and the bugs didnt seem to pay much attention at all...and boy you should have seen the size of those earthworms when I was dismantling it to transfer it to the new spot....they were MASSIVE! good sign! it was exciting to be able to spread all that nice dark brown goodness to the other beds!
not sure if I will do it that way again since I invested in one of those black plastic compost bins from sams and put it near the trashcan.....I'm a bit nervous how much I will like having a compost bin this summer when it is nice and hot and buggy.....we'll see

lessons from my 2010 garden

this was a very eventful summer. my second son was due the end of july, but I still REALLY wanted a garden, so I figured a container garden on my deck would be easier to manage than one in the ground...and maybe it would have been if I had actually stuck to that plan....but of course I didnt! I still had squash and zucchini and carrots and beans in the ground, and a LOT of lettuce too...eventually I had 20 heads of lettuce in my garden both in the ground and in containers!!!
Anyway, I stocked up on containers, and I also ventured into the world of starting from seed. I learned about the more compact varieties of plants, and I knew those would be better suited for my petite garden space and containers. So I started seeds in those little jiffy pellets...and I was pretty pleased with my results. I even managed to grow "bush" cucumbers in pots...which ended up having to trail down my deck...not very bush like at all.
When I said it was an eventful summer, I really wasnt kidding! My son was born 4 1/2 weeks early and spent 24 agonizing, stressful, faith building days in the nicu an hour and a half away. thankfully we were able to stay with my parents who lived about 10 minutes away from the hospital....but for those 24 days, I was away from my garden (my husband was able to come back home for a little while to work, and kept it watered....kinda). I had arranged for our sweet elderly neighbors to water the garden in the 4 or so days I was planning for us to be gone....and they kept an eye on things and watered as much as they could for the duration of our time in nashville, even mowed our lawn 2 or 3 times...such wonderful people....but it just wasnt the same.
I was pleased when I got home that most of my plants had survived pretty well....
that summer I had planted:
squash and zukes in the ground and in pots
tomatoes in  pots, and eventually in the ground too
basil in pots
cukes in pots
lettuce and mesclun in pots and in the ground
pole beans in the ground
bush beans in pots and in the ground
peppers in pots
carrots in the ground and in pots
potatoes in a trashcan
here is what I learned:
1)tomatoes, squash, zukes, cukes, peppers, carrots just dont do well in pots....at least not that summer...and while there were extenuating circumstances that may have affected yield...I probably wont plant those again in pots...although I will probably try some "patio" tomatoes in pots again.....because I am a glutton for punishment.
2)I love basil, lettuce and mesclun in pots
3)bush beans were nice and easy to plant in pots...but yield was better when planted in the ground
pole beans were a pleasant surprise...I planted them near the deck and attached some trellis netting to the deck, so they grew up the netting and then up the rails of the deck...pretty cool!
4)I wasnt super impressed with my carrot yield, and I ended up taking a year off from carrots...but I'm thinking a shady location may have been to blame this summer...so I may try again this year.
5)I had read several places about trying potatoes in a trashcan....so I tried it....it seemed to work pretty well until all of a sudden the leaves just DIED! one day...out of the blue....or maybe because I had sprayed for weeds nearby and they may have been collateral damage....so my yield wasnt great...and it took a TON of potting soil....but it was really cool to dump out the trashcan and fish out all these cute little potatoes from the dirt...and oh my goodness....they were SO GOOD....tender and tasty....amazing.....I wasnt brave enough to try them in 2011....but I am gearing up to try again for 2012 with TWO trashcans....and something called a "potato bag" that only cost 6 or 7 dollars and the picture shows an abundance of potatoes...might be false advertising like those upsydownsy tomatoes thingys....but I'm willing to try since I found such a good price on potting soil....and I'll keep the weed killer far far away....maybe just maybe I'll manage to grow some more yummy potatoes that dont cost over a dollar a piece in the end!!!

lessons from my 2009 garden

1)even though the seedlings are itty bitty....they really WILL grow big! very big!
2)dont plant more seedlings than you need....the cucumbers came in a pack of 9, and I just couldnt BEAR to waste some of those seedlings, so I planted them ALL in various spots around the garden, and I was positively covered up with cucumbers that year....they took over the planet (and they were delicious...I learned that homegrown cukes are ALMOST as tasty as homegrown tomatoes....who knew cukes actually had FLAVOR!) I deduced that it would have been a WHOLE lot easier to toss a cuke seedling or 2 rather than storing and eventually tossing the bushels of cucumbers that took over our garden.
3)melon vines and cuke vines NEED ROOM...lots of it. I kinda already knew that...but foolishly I thought I could train these vines to grow in the direction of my narrow beds...nope....not a chance, they grew out into the yard no matter how hard I trained them, so my sweet hubby mowed around them....it was a jungle out there....and stayed so damp that almost all of the melons ended up rotting on the vine anyway...bad idea....probably not going there again anytime soon.
4)when growing herbs, it's in my best interest to grow ones that only use a few leaves when used in cooking....most of the time I use cilantro, I use a whole bunch (we love fresh salsa and cilantro in general) so it was a big demoralizing to spend all summer growing this beautiful plant, only to use it all in 1 maybe 2 dishes. Basil on the other hand, I grow a lot....I love the flavor....and it freezes well both as is, and as pesto...YUM!
5)lettuce grown in the ground gets DIRTY! I did a bit of a fall garden and the lettuce I put in the ground was very tasty, and super convenient to access....but took FOREVER to clean from all the splashback. I learned a)to plant them in containers, thus keeping them at least a little bit cleaner and b)to pick and wash well ahead of time, because it just takes too long right before a meal. I also learned how tasty buttercrunch and mesclun lettuces can be! Much tastier than iceberg, and much more cost effective than those bagged fancy schmancy lettuces in the store! definitely a keeper!

my gardening progression

I used to joke that plants died in my very presence! Even fake ones would give up the ghost! I mean, I actually managed to kill an ALOE PLANT....impossible, right? That's what everyone told me....but in college, I did! A few years later, my sweet in-laws gave me a large pot of some beautiful succulents....yep....killed those too...so sad. I think a good part of my issue was with over or under watering houseplants....kinda still is....
Fast forward 5 years or so to 2009, I am a stay at home mom of an 18 month old, and while I adore my job of keeping house and raising an amazing little boy, I still felt the need to LEARN something new...plus we had just moved into a new house, and for the first time I had a YARD, so I decided to take a risk. At our previous rental home, some sweet neighbors planted several tomato plants, but hated to eat tomatoes, so they were happy to share their yummy homegrown goodness, and smelling those fresh from the vine tomatoes reminded me of childhood memories of a small vegetable plot in my parents backyard....and everyone knows that homegrown tomatoes taste no less than 1000x better than store bought tomatoes...plus this neighbor basically did NOTHING to his plants...just bought them, planted them, and voila, they grew. SURELY I could do that....right? I mean, God would take care of at least SOME of the watering, right???
So a few months after moving into our new house, I scope out a few vacant spots in the yard, then I venture out to Lowes and start picking out plants. I have no idea how much money I spent that summer, but after 5 tomato plants (stuck in a 3x3 bed) and about 12 peppers (in another 3x3 bed), NINE cucumber plants (they took over the world!!) a few basil and cilantro plants, some melon and squash vines  planted in some ridiculous places, and lots of garden soil, potting soil, and several tools etc....I had a pretty decent beginners garden. I was a nervous wreck that I would waste all our money on this venture, but I actually LOVED it! I made several mistakes and learned some valuable lessons about how much room these itty bitty seedlings would eventually need, and I've been vegetable gardening ever since! I've not done much at all with flower gardening, because honestly, if I'm going to sink this much time and energy and money into an endeavor, I'd better get SOMETHING out of it!
More later about lessons learned from my gardens so far