Last Year’s Garden Recap No comments yet

Romaine Lettuce

I’ve been meaning to write this up for some time. I actually had written something up for a gardening mailing list I’m on, but then couldn’t find it again and so I kept procrastinating starting all over again. So last year I started almost everything from seed. I also *completely* over purchased seed, in my excitement for a real garden.

Last year’s order from Seed Savers Exchange (all certified organic except the Fish Pepper). Those in italics with comments are the ones I actually attempted. Those in bold I’ll try again this year along with the new seeds:

1. Pepper, Chervena Chushka
2. Pepper, Thai Hot – Started okay but didn’t get enough light 
3. Pepper, Rooster Spur
4. Pepper, Healthy – Started okay but didn’t get enough light
5. Pepper, Fish – Started okay but didn’t get enough light, I’m just partial to them – don’t know why.
6. Pepper, Jimmy Nardello’s – Started okay but didn’t get enough light
7. Cucumber, Snow’s Fancy – Indoor starts only did moderately well (many rotted due to moisture), indoor starts that survived started producing sooner, but direct sowed plants were healthier. Not a high yield.
8. Cucumber, Bushy
9. Pea, British Wonder – Indoor starts did okay, but direct sow did much better so why waste the energy to start indoors? Produced well, needed more trellis.
10. Melon, Early Silverline
11. Melon, Noir des Carmes
12. Melon, Minnesota Midget – Small plants that eventually died off, not suited to this area
13. Watermelon, Chris Cross
14. Watermelon, Moon & Stars Yellow
15. Tomato, Austin’s Red Pear
16. Tomato, Current Sweet Pea – Did great despite the poor summer! Lots of fruits and held over in the greenhouse (making up for the poor summer) until November!
17. Tomato, Nyagous – Poor summer and not enough light took its toll. Will move to a sunnier location and try again.
18. Tomato, Hungarian Heart
19. Tomato, Crnkovic Yugoslavian – Poor summer and not enough light. Produced later than the Nyagous. Probably won’t try again until I have better luck with tomatoes.
20. Radish, Helios – Okay, grew well but actual radishes were small and very, very hot. Had a tough exterior texture.
21. Radish, Philadelphia White Box – Grew well and more balanced flavor than the Helios. Larger size and no weird texture.
22. Bean, Boston Favorite
23. Bean, Good Mother Stallard – Grew, well… like a bean, but drying beans on the vine proved hard with the moist fall/winter coming in.
24. Bean, Fin de Bagnol
25. Bean, Ideal Market – Did great! Would definitely plant again and even more. Probably one of the most productive plants in the garden.
26. Soybean, Fiskeby
27. Spinach, Monnopa
28. Lettuce, Green Oakleaf
29. Lettuce, Grandpa Admire’s
30. Lettuce, Gold Rush
31. Lettuce, Tango
32. Lettuce, Baby Oakleaf
33. Herb, Genovese Basil – Did well, held in through the fall in the green house with the tomatoes.
34. Herb, Cilantro – Died during starting
35. Herb, Grandma Einck’s Dill – Died during starting
36. Herb, Chives – Died during starting
37. Herb, Sweet Marjoram
38. Carrot, Danver’s Half Long – Didn’t get much. Seemed very slow to mature and never amount to a useful size. Suspect this is soil/light and not the seed itself.
39. Corn, Golden Bantam Improved – Transplants mostly rotted, direct sow did well but I planted them too late. Didn’t get anything out of it.
40. Corn, Stowell’s Evergreen
41. Corn, Tom Thumb Popcorn
42. Leek, Giant Musselburgh – Died during starting
43. Onion, Australian Brown – Did well but didn’t realize that onions need to overwinter so were harvested as green onions.
44. Onion, Borettana Yellow – Did well but didn’t realize that onions need to overwinter so were harvested as green onions.
45. Squash, Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck – Small plants that eventually died off
46. Squash, Summer Crookneck
47. Squash, Fordhook Acorn
48. Beet, Burpee’s Golden – Overwhelmed by weeds and died out
49. Ground Cherry, Aunt Molly’s – Did okay but probably needed more sun. Didn’t produce much.

If that looks like a lot, (it rang in at ~$150) that’s because it WAS! I was completely out of control. I only ended up planting a fraction of it and a lot of them were not suited to our region at all. We ended up being gifted lettuce starts and I don’t recall if I tried starting any of ours from seed. The starts did wonderfully though so I’ll probably try to start some myself again.
Ordered new for this year from Territorial Seed Co. a PacNW based company (I don’t think any are certified organic this year and several are hybrids – generally not my style but I want to take out some of the variables until I get better):

1. Squash, Cavili – summer squash that is early maturing.
2. Lettuce, Miners – Actually grows wild here so should do very well.
3. Cabbage, Parel – Didn’t grow cabbage because I didn’t see much value in it. Now that we eat seasonally the fact that it stores for extended times is a big bonus.
4. Bean, Soleil – A French style bean in yellow. It looks pretty when canned with green beans.
5. Peas, Super Sugar Snap – We wanted to do more peas this year so I needed more seed.
6. Kale, Winterbor – I didn’t think I liked kale until we kept running in to it as a winter veg. Have since realized if it’s cooked right I really enjoy it and it keeps well through the winter and in the fridge.

I still plan on planting potatoes, but there’s a local farm that provides most of the garden shops around here with seed potatoes and I now know I don’t need that many, so I’ll just pick them up locally.

Our backyard plot is something like 15 by 30? I was so afraid of crowding that I planted most everything really spaced out and therefore wasted a lot of space. So this year I’ll work on planting things closer together and thinning when necessary. We also realized that our front yard gets a lot more light. Bengt wants to build raised beds out there, but I don’t know if that’ll happen this year. We want them to look nice so they can be used as flower or garden beds and not detract from the appearance of the property, which means they’ll be a little costly and we have to think it through a bit. It just may not happen early enough this year and it’s not our highest priority project. Either way I’ll definitely be moving some of my zillions of large pots out front for tomatoes and things. We just have to keep the chickens out of them.

This year we also have the greenhouse. I may try to grow some tomatoes and peppers in the green house specifically, but it does get quite hot in there during the summer so I’ll have work on that a bit.

Next weekend I plan to start a flat of seeds for the herbs and things to get started. I’ll update you on how that goes.