I haven't written a post about my garden yet this summer... That is because is has been a complete disappointment. Honestly, I have been ashamed to post anything about it, especially photos. I had such high hopes for this year! I poured over seed descriptions and spent more than I want to admit on heirloom seeds. It was going to be the best garden I ever had! I was going to save all of my seeds and not have to buy any next year! That was the plan, anyway. Things always seem to work out differently than planned. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. This is decidedly one of those "NOT" situations. It seems to have been a "perfect storm" of events.
I bought a large amount of seeds at the end of last year and started planning for a much larger garden. I would like to get to be able to live primarily off of our homestead. Except for things like olive oil, flour, salt, pasta, rice, and things of that sort. I have even really been looking into things like maybe rendering lard to cut down on our olive oil use, and growing wheat with the help of my father in-law, to grind into flour and use to supplement poultry feed. Some of the corn I planted this year was supposed to go toward that purpose as well.
The first issue was that I was working until mid-April, which would normally have made getting my garden started more difficult, but a good deal of that was spent working 6 day weeks, and including quite a few 10 hour days. By Sunday I wasn't worth much, and not much got done in the garden until April. Finally I got the brush cleared from my new garden area, got it plowed, put up an electric fence to keep the chickens and turkeys out, and dug about 1/3 of the paths and raised beds. Then it rained.... not just rain, but a torrential down-pour... for days! On my newly plowed soil! If you garden you probably know how terrible that is. It compacted all of my formerly fluffy soil. Washed the good soil away leaving sand and clay. Turned the whole place into a mud pit. Then it teased me... not raining for a couple days and just when I thought that the soil was dry enough to try to rescue the mess it started raining again.
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| Catastrophic failure of corn and beans |
I built a seed shelf in my kitchen and suspended a shop light over it to start seeds early in the year. I started LOTS of seeds and was so excited! I planted over 60 tomato seeds, around 30 bell, pepperoncini, and jalapeno peppers, several eggplants, and lots of herbs. Almost all of the tomatoes came up. Most of the bell peppers did as well. The herbs, eggplant and pepperonini, not so much. NONE of my jalepeno peppers came up. I assumed that it was user error (hey, it happens) and so I planted more. None again! So I tried one more time with the last of my seeds... nothing. Bad seeds! And not just these. None of the lady finger popping corn, watermelons, 2 types of pumpkin, cantaloupe, sweet melon mix, winter squash mix, or zucchini that I planted outside came up either! I know that it was not user error because I replanted several times and never got so much as a sickly looking seedling. Nothing. Not even in my well established above ground beds. Needless to say, I'm very disappointed in that seed company and will not be buying from them again. I try to stick with small family run businesses, but perhaps this isn't one of the things I should do that for. I am not happy with the quality of amish paste tomatoes that grew either. That may be because of my gardening skills, or lack there of, or all of the other issues I have had with them, but I'm wondering if it is simply poor quality seeds. Some of my soil is pretty poor still, but those were planted in prime garden area and still aren't producing very good tomatoes.
I traded some of my tomato and bell pepper plants to a friend for fresh goat milk, thinking I had more than I needed. It continued to rain to the point that by the time I got a chance to put them in the garden, very few had survived. They just got too big too fast and I didn't have the room or equipment to repot that many plants. I reordered more Cherokee purple and some brandy-wine tomato, and some jalapeno seeds from Baker Creek and tried again. I just got those seedlings planted a few days ago. I fear that it was too late. We shall see. I think I will stick with Baker Creek from now on. I have hear a lot of good things about them.
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| Ponding in paths and overgrown area |
Being thoroughly discouraged already, and fighting daily rain storms, only half of my garden beds were prepared and the rest is unlevel, packed down, and overgrown with very tall weeds. The weeds seem to be loving all of the rain! I managed to get hay down in most of the beds a few days ago. We had a single rain free day. Keegan and I took full advantage of it! We got a TON of stuff done, though, nothing fully accomplished. About 1/3 of the yard was mowed, about 2/3 of the prepared beds in the new garden got hay mulch, some brush got cut to prepare for the electric fence that will be erected soon... It made me feel good to get something accomplished! The garden paths are still overgrown and usually flooded. I'm working on figuring out a solution to that.
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Kudzu-like bean vines took over the corn,
causing it to come crashing down |
I tried the "3 Sisters" method of planting this year. I planted corn, then pole beans to grow up the corn, then squash in between to act as ground cover. It is easy to tell the soil quality from one end of the row to the other. One end was super tall, lush, and healthy, and then it get shorter and thinner to the end of the row. The beans did the same thing. Oh well, they are going to undergo some lasagna type mulching and hopefully will be better next year. The main issue is that there was a catastrophic failure with the corn and beans. The healthiest looking section especially. The Florida Speckled Butter Beans took over, in Kudzu-like fashion. Not a single flower or bean pod in sight, but the vines are amazing! So much so that the corn just couldn't handle the weight, especially with all of the rain. The wet bean plants were just too much for the corn to support in the sodden soil and they all came crashing down. Right onto my cucumbers and sunflowers. Trying to right them just resulted in the corn stalks breaking. Luckily half of the cucumber bed is safe and I rescued the sunflowers, which aren't doing as well as I had hoped either, but at least have some small blooms on them. They are supposed to be 12-15 feet tall and the tallest ones are around 7 feet with very thin stalks. Most are much smaller than that. The rattlesnake pole beans are in bad soil, but are at least producing beans. Not many, but a handful every few days. I'm not happy with how stringy they are. I'm not sure if it is the type of bean or the terrible growing conditions this year. I also am not sure if the butter beans just don't do well in this area (it really hasn't been too hot this year so that shouldn't be the issue), if the soil isn't right for them in that spot (very fertile rich soil), or if it has just been the constant rain. I'm amazed at how well the vines are doing but that doesn't do me much good if it doesn't flower. Maybe it will soon... I haven't pulled them up yet just in case.
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Rigged up tomatoes. You can barely see them, but there are
smaller Cherokee Purple and Brandy-wine plants in the back.
There may be hope for some tomatoes yet... |
The corn isn't the only thing that came crashing down. I have had a terrible time keeping the tomatoes up. I need to try putting up a fence next year, and trellising them. Indeterminate tomatoes get too tall for cages, and even most stakes. The heavy plants kept weighing the stakes down and making them fall over. The wet soil didn't give the stakes much support, regardless how deep I drove them. Some of the more deeply driven stakes broke in half. The vines were damaged in the fall. Some had to just be pulled out. Then I think they contracted something by laying on the ground. Only the Amish paste tomatoes were effected. The others weren't big enough yet, so they were safe until I devised a make-shift way to keep them up. I put up a couple of pallets, secured a pole between them, and attached the tomatoes (stake and all) to the pole. It worked in a pinch. I really need some more t-posts but don't even have enough right now for the electric fence that needs to go up.
I had to replant the cucumbers twice, but they finally came up and looked wonderful! Full, bushy vines! Tons of flowers! They are barely setting fruit though. I think perhaps, the rain has kept the pollinators from doing their job properly. A large deal of the cucumbers that have grown have started to rot before I get to them because of the puddles they are sitting in. The vines on top of the bed (safe from puddles) are turning yellow and dying, and all of the fruit and healthy looking vines are growing in the paths where it keeps flooding... ugh. I have managed to bring in a couple every couple of days and we have really been enjoying them. We may not be getting many, but the ones we have gotten taste great!
On a happy note, the peppers are doing amazingly well! They are big bushy plants and have set a bunch of big healthy peppers! We haven't been using the peppers we put up from the you-pick, and have been exclusively using our own! They are thick-walled and beautiful! Now enough about that... I don't want get too excited... please don't smite my peppers!
I haven't done much with by established above ground beds... that is, after planting them and having nothing come up but weeds. Two beds are doing well. The jack-be-little pumpkins and gourd mix have put out a few plants and even have fruit set! The chickens or turkey hens have found a few of the gourds and taken bites out of them, but over-all they look good. You have to look hard to see them though! The weeds have taken over and I'm afraid to clear them and mulch for fear that the it will draw the chickens' attention and they will perish. I will clear them soon for cool weather crops. I hope they do better than the summer crops have... None of my pie pumpkins have come up in the garden, but I spread a bunch of seed that I saved out of pie and jack-o-lantern pumpkins that I bought at the store, in "the bottom" (the lowest part of the front yard which is rarely mowed but collects plenty of watershed from rain). Quite a few came up so I'm going to mow carefully and hope that we get some pumpkins from there this year.
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| Jack-be-little pumpkins |
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| Gourds with bites taken out of them |
I hate that we will have no food stores to put up for winter. It breaks my heart and is so disappointing. Especially the lack of tomato sauce. I dreamed of a large store of thick, red, beautiful, hearty pasta sauce that would last us through the winter.
I feel terrible about having spent to much money on seeds when I have so little to show for it. Brad, being the wonderfully supportive love he is, keeps reassuring me and telling me that it is alright. "Things happen! You will try again next year!" he said. He is right. I will. And I have had lessons learned. Thinking back, none of my gardens did well the first year. I will be adding compost and mulch over the winter, so the soil should be much better next year. They have already had a large deal of the turkey coop contents added to them. Hopefully, it will also be less work. Above ground beds are amazing like that. I prefer them because it builds better soil. Because the soil isn't tilled it doesn't break down the soil composition. It is also much easier after the initial building of the beds. These are side-less beds (just mounded soil) so hopefully they stand up over time. The rain hasn't washed them away yet, so that is encouraging.
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| Pumpkin plants growing in "the bottom" |
On another positive note, the electric fence around the garden has been doing a great job keeping the animals out. The dogs learned immediately, although other than digging a few holes, they weren't a problem to begin with. I was worried about the chickens and turkeys, and any deer or wild animals that would like to eat my plants. The roosters learned quickly that the zap on their comb wasn't enjoyable and wouldn't go in after the first day. The hens took a bit longer. They have a smaller comb and their feathers save them from the zap. They don't wander far from the roosters though, so after a few days they stopped coming in completely. The turkeys took a few days longer, the toms learned before the hens. The hens still sneak in on the rare occasion that the fence is off. They seem to know when it is down and are in the garden immediately. Too bad the fence doesn't work on flea beetles, aphids, and tomato worms! I'd be all set!
Sorry about the rant. This post has been largely for my records, and partially to vent. It helps to look back and see what worked, what didn't, and how weather and such have been each year.
