What grew in your garden this year?...

[Nan in Mass]

I planted a whole packet of snap peas and not one of them came up. So I planted another packet. Only two came up! Perhaps it was our strange weather this year. The beans did beautifully, and usually those aren't as successful for me. Did anyone else have any unusual successes or failures?

-Nan

[KrissiK]

I've never grown it before, but I'm always up for an experiment, so we tried it. It turned out great. Much better than the store bought kind.

[Firefly]

Yes, the strange weather definitely effected my crop. The peas and lettuce thrived, but my heat lovers (peppers, tomatoes, zucchini etc) were sooooo late to come! And my cucumber plant spat out a few puny fruit and then died. :glare:

 

On top of that, I got some strange insect (I think it's called a pickleworm) that usually doesn't make it up this far north. But lucky me, they were hearty little buggers, made the voyage to CT and destroyed my entire pumpkin crop.

[Tutor]

Weeds.

 

Beefsteak tomatoes the size of ping pong balls.

 

Weeds.

 

Cantaloupe (*1* cantaloupe)

 

Oh, and weeds. :glare:

 

This was my first Dixie garden *and* the weather has been funky; I am hoping my fall peas and lettuces will come out better.

[gardening momma]

I planted old green bean seeds (2004). They didn't grow last year (or the rabbits got them), but they grew this year. I have about 6-7 plants, enough to grow beans for supper every now and then.

 

I have volunteer mini pumpkins from last year's semi-composted pumpkins.

 

I have volunteer tomatoes from last year's Sweet 100 grape tomatoes (this is a hybrid, so this year's tomatoes are actually more of a cherry tomato size). I had two regular size tomato plants last year, can't remember the name, and I have volunteer tomato plants from them too. I'm eating my first tomato of that type right now.

 

I had new onion seeds, and only one onion is growing.

 

I used old carrot seeds, and I have two growing.

[Miss Marple]

I had some pretty nice strawberries going until the deer got wise to them...end of the strawberry bed. And I discovered they like hosta, columbine, impatiens, and hydrangea plants. My gardens look pitiful this year.

[gardening momma]

I had some pretty nice strawberries going until the deer got wise to them...end of the strawberry bed. And I discovered they like hosta, columbine, impatiens, and hydrangea plants. My gardens look pitiful this year.

Sprinkle bloodmeal on the ground around your plants or over the area where you plant seeds. It'll keep the critters away (deer too). I did that this year, and the rabbits have left my garden alone this year.

[Kanga]

Here is my latest garden update: http://premeditatedleftovers.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-victory-garden.html

 

My biggest problem was rabbits. My husband built raised garden beds and we put chicken wire around them to grow most of our veggies. Our weather was similiar to past summers, but I have friends in other parts of the country who struggled with unusually cold/wet weather. I also have some friends who had a hard time getting their plants to produce because they had fewer bees than usual.

 

I was surprised at how well my strawberries and raspberries did, and disappointed in my gooseberries (rabbits) and blueberries (sun).

 

Using seccession gardening, I kept us supplied with salad greens and raddishes all summer.

 

The cucumbers and squash got a slow start, but once they started producing we were quickly over whelmed!

 

Firsts for this year that were successful and recommended by the hive: asparagus and Swiss chard.

[Nan in Mass]

Our dog eats my strawberries. She goes hunting for new ripe ones every day.

[ma23peas]

weeds...:glare:

[LibraryLover]

The chickens crawled in under the fencing for the strawberries, so hardly any.

 

I planted about 30 various tomato plants and they were sad and blighted. Very depressing. I got a few; we have been having some to eat each day, but not enough to can or freeze. I was looking forward to a stash of sauce.

 

Kale did well, not great. Chard did ok, not great. Pumpkins, blah. Acorn squash, a grand total of 4. ;) Last year we had enough acorn and pumpkin that my youngest set up a little stand and sold a bunch and we had plenty leftover for jack-o -lanterns, cooking, and midwinter chicken treats. We did get a fantastic crop of 25 butternut squashes that came up in the chicken compost. Nothing we did. lol I

 

Beans. The first crop was fine, but subsequent ones hardly came up at all.

 

Eggplant, ok. Cucs, not great, but some. (This is usually my best crop, disappointing summer this was).

 

Hot peppers, great. Bells peppers, not so much.

 

Onions did ok, not great. Leeks were nice.

 

I see hide nor hair of my garlic.

 

What else? Herbs, ok. Sage was the best. Next was Rosemary. Sad cilantro crop.

 

Lettuce was great, but it's gone now and I didn't get out there to plant a second crop.

Edited September 9, 2009 by LibraryLover

[kdeno]

one pathetic pepper, still not ripe.

[DarlaS]

I'm another one with a bumper crop of weeds. :glare:

 

Did you all know that lambsquarters is more nutritious than most garden vegetables anyway? Too bad it's nasty. :tongue_smilie:

[elise1mds]

OK, well I know what happened to all the growth that your plants were supposed to be doing. It came here. I have mutant plants. My okra is currently about 7 feet tall and is still growing and still blooming and still putting off about a pound of okra every couple of days. I have 3 plants. I have about eight pole bean plants and picked 3 pounds of beans off of them today. I have tomatoes and bell peppers coming out my wazoo. Thankfully the squash and cucumbers are long since done. I am honestly not trying to brag - I am SICK of produce right now because I have NO time to deal with it all. I have already canned tomatoes, made tomato sauce, made salsa, and blanched and frozen pounds and pounds of okra and beans (and need to chop and freeze the bell peppers before they all turn). The basil is completely out of hand but I also have no time to make pesto (I've already dried a ton, given away plenty, and still... it grows).

 

I also do have weeds but choose to ignore them.

 

If anyone comes over and helps me deal with all this, I'll happily give you half of everything!

[LibraryLover]

I'm another one with a bumper crop of weeds. :glare:

 

Did you all know that lambsquarters is more nutritious than most garden vegetables anyway? Too bad it's nasty. :tongue_smilie:

 

 

LOL I am not a fan, either. However, we do have Purslane like mad! I never plant this...it's a weed. It's very nutritious. I put it in salads, and I like it just out of the garden with nothing. Dandelions, too, are highly nutritious. Foraging is interesting! http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/purslane.html

Edited September 10, 2009 by LibraryLover

[*Inna*]

Lots of weeds, basil, parsley, apricots, lemons and one gorgeous pomegranate. :D

[myfunnybunch]

What grew:

 

Strawberries

Spinach

Lettuce

Swiss Chard

Beets

Onions, Walla-Walla, to DIE for!

Potatoes

Snap peas

Shelling peas

Green beans (too many!)

Tomatoes, slicing and cherry

Basil

One eggplant

Hot peppers that curled as they grew and turned red once picked. Cool.

Zucchini

Cucumbers

Raspberries

Pumpkins

Squash

Watermelon growing from the compost bin

And some teeny tiny mystery melons, if an early fall doesn't kill them off.

 

Parsely, rosemary and thyme. (No sage. ;) ) And lavender and oregano.

 

Marigolds and zinnias, nasturtiums, four-o'clocks.

 

What didn't grow:

 

~Carrots :confused: I always get great carrots. Not this year. My fall carrots (new seed) came up in my front yard box, but the rest of my plantings, from spring on, failed miserably.

~Cabbage, fall broccoli--Something got them, pulled them right out of the ground and left them there. :glare: Not the kids, either, they were in bed.

~My fall chard, beets, spinach. The same something (I'm assuming) nipped them or pulled them. And it has been nibbling at one of my squash. Crows? Squirrels? Raccoons? The chickens, but only when I'm not looking? I don't think they're that smart--not the brightest bulbs in the bird box, chickens, and it's not like they can just flap themselves over the fence easily. Whatever it is, I am not happy.

 

Cat

[DarlaS]

LOL I am not a fan, either. However, we do have Purslane like mad! I never plant this...it's a weed. It's very nutritious. I put it in salads, and I like it just out of the garden with nothing. Dandelions, too, are highly nutritious. Foraging is interesting! http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/purslane.html

 

I have this weed too! Wow, my garden may have been more of a success than I thought! :lol:

 

I'll try just about anything in a green smoothie. Wood sorrel is actually tasty. It's kind of lemony and more delicate (not bitter or pungent) but no where near as prolific as the purslane.

[gardening momma]

~My fall chard, beets, spinach. The same something (I'm assuming) nipped them or pulled them. And it has been nibbling at one of my squash. Crows? Squirrels? Raccoons? The chickens, but only when I'm not looking? I don't think they're that smart--not the brightest bulbs in the bird box, chickens, and it's not like they can just flap themselves over the fence easily. Whatever it is, I am not happy.

 

It bears repeating: try sprinkling bloodmeal in and around your garden. The stuff stinks and will keep the critters away. You will notice an odor when you open the bag--don't stick your nose in the bag to get a better whiff to find out why it keeps the critters away. I'll save you the time (and the agony)--I already did. It smells like blood (of course) and urine (to me). :ack2:

[NCMom]

It was a weird season here.

 

Lots of peppers! Squash and zucchini for the first time since we've been here (usually borers get them). Bumper crops too. Cucumbers produced for a few weeks and all then all of the vines and varieties up and died.

 

Some melons, some strawberries.

 

No carrots, and many of the spring crops, mostly greens, drowned. :glare:

 

Lots of potatoes but not as many as we should have gotten. Whites outdid reds.

 

White onions were awesome, red onions did not make it. Go figure.

 

Lots of herbs. Every herb we planted did well. Fabulous year for flowers too. My dd14 must have rescued and rehabilitated 20 plants from the Lowes clearance and-all-but-dead flower racks. But we lost all but 1 of the elephant ears that my youngest grows. Even the ones she brought inside did not work out.

 

Tomatoes were well below average yields.

 

Broccoli did fabulous but cabbages got eaten. Nice bonus crop of kyoto mizuna though.

 

Eating grapes croaked but we have lots of muscadines. SO many muscadines...

 

Beans ok.

 

We lost at least 100 nectarines (I told dh it was too cool and damp here in the spring, lol) to brown mold. But hey we've got 3 apples on the tiny little apple tree!

 

Looks like the sweet potatoes will be a bumper crop again this year. Wish I liked them, lol.

 

There was other stuff but I hardly remember this summer. Kinda glad it's over!

Georgia

[tdeveson]

Nothing yet. I'm on zone 10 and my grow season begins in mid-October. I dig out my last crops in May, although I've had tomatoes stick it out until early June.

 

Last year I had a bumper crop of weeds. It was my first year growing crops directly in the ground. The weeds were brutal. This year we're going back to 8 X 4 X 12" raised beds. Dh will build them at the start of October and I should have my first crop of "winter" veggies in by mid-October.

 

This year I'll plant:

 

Tomatoes (slicing and cherry)

Peppers (mostly sweet, some hot)

Carrots

Beets

Cabbage

Lettuce and salad herbs

Pole beans

Bush beans

Squash

Cucumbers

Peas

Strawberries

Onions (last year's were delicious)

Mulberries (our tree has fruit practically year round)

Avocados (amazing -- best I've had, the tree is full of them now)

Bananas (our tree is small, we should see the first hands this year)

Mango (the last hurricane took our mango and mamey, but we're replacing the mango this year)

 

And my herb garden:

Parsley (curly, flat, and purple)

Sage

Rosemary

Basil

Mint (for tea)

Catnip (for the cat!)

[OrganicAnn]

Despite the strange weather, we have had a great year (and it is still going).

 

Peas- good. We only do early spring peas.

 

Beans - this was our first year to grow them. Yum. We will definitely grow more next year in succession.

 

Cucumbers - not too good. Cucumber beetles caused wilt. We used floating row covers, but too late. Next year.

 

Squash - pretty good. We have squash borers but still had a pretty good year.

 

Carrots - great year. Wow. We grew yellow, white and of course orange. Froze several pints too.

 

Potatoes - we never grow enough. Yum.

 

Onions - good. I finally wised up and planted 'keepers' and figured out how to take care of them so they will keep. We're going to try planting some seed this fall to see if they will over winter. I never have luck starting the seed inside, but will try outside.

 

Shallots - great.

 

Peppers - our peppers are just starting to really come in now.

 

Tomatoes - we've had a steady but meager crop until now. We have a full counter of tomatoes. We've put up about 8+ pints of spaghetti sauce.

 

Cantaloupe - not good. Something got them. Maybe the cucumber beetle.

 

Watermelon - a couple little ones. Not too bad, but not abundant.

 

Swiss Chard - our first year. Pretty good. Nice substitute for spinach.

 

Eggplant - we just had one. We decided that squash is more versatile and can be used in most eggplant recipes, but DH bought a plant this year on a whim.

 

Herbs - basil - good Parsley - good Cilantro - good but ended too early. Rosemary - good. Dill - we need to move it to a better location.

 

Beets - good. Yellow beets are fun.

 

Radish - good early. Next year we'll try Daikon.

 

Garlic - we had a good year, but we needed new stock so just placed an order for garlic. We could probably grow about 60 - 80 heads, maybe one day.

 

We have turnips, cabbage and carrots in for a fall crop.

Edited September 10, 2009 by OrganicAnn