I started my first seedlings today: hot Thai pepper, a mystery pepper that was a freebie from Sand Hill Preservation last year, Fairy Tale eggplant, Ping Tung eggplant, Dutch Darkibor kale, flat parsley, Genovese basil, Thai basil and cilantro. Sowed them in organic potting soil (Coast of Maine) and placed them under grow lights on a heat mat in my bedroom. So exciting!
Time for another gardening year review and for laying out the plans for the next year. This year was like no other, as COVID-19 changed life as we know it for everyone. Thankfully, our family made it through the year healthy, though my high school senior/now college freshmen daughter and my now high school sophomore son had a hard time with remote learning and with missed milestones and cancelled school sport seasons. For our community garden, the pandemic meant that for a long time we did not know whether the gardens would open at all. Finally, at the end of May, we got the green light and our water was turned on, so I got a very late start in the garden. As the garden coordinator, I put rules and measures in place to keep our gardeners safe. Everyone had to wear a mask inside the garden as long as other people were around and wear gloves at all times. Also, everyone had to disinfect the garden gate before entering and the shed lock and the water spigot and nozzle before use. I put a bunch of cloth rags (that I took home to wash after use) and disinfectant in the shed so gardeners could disinfect tools and supplies. All gardeners adhered to the rules and our season went smoothly. The plots looked the best they ever have, with tons of veggies and very few weeds, in part thanks to the pandemic, because almost everyone worked from home and had to socially distance and therefore had extra time on their hands.
We had a very cold and wet spring, so the growing season was delayed in general. The spring rains were a blessing for our gardeners who had planted spring crops. Again, I had been cautious and apart from sowing radishes, carrots and peas, I did not plant anything in the spring.
Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant, Cucumbers. It was a good year for tomatoes, but unfortunately I did not keep a good record of the varieties I grew. I started with four different types from seed (Break O’Day, Dr. Wychee Yellow, Green Zebra, Eva Purple Ball) and bought a couple more plants from the Neighborhood Farm in June (Green Zebra and two other varieties). I lost a couple of plants, not sure which ones. Dr. Wychee and Green Zebra plus some other “red ones” did well in the plot. For peppers, I only grew Thai hot peppers, and they did well, both in the plot and on my back porch. Eggplants did well in my plot, for the first time. I grew both Ping Tung and also a regular variety (gifted by another gardener) and while they had a late start they did well. The eggplant on the porch (Ping Tung) remained very small-fruited, so I am not sure I will repeat this next year. The two cucumber plants (one pickling, the other one a slicer) had a stellar start but then quickly wilted, I am not sure what happened.
Root vegetables. The porch radishes were amazing; the radishes grown in the plot had some “damage”. They clearly were eaten by something. The carrots were delicious, but it took a few rounds of sowing before they came up successfully. As usual, the fall crop did much better than the spring crop. Beets did well, in particular the Chiogga beets – I planted two rounds of seedlings (one gifted, one bought). The ones I grew from seed (golden beets) did not do very well. They were small when I transplanted them and most of them were eaten by something. I did not plant potatoes this year.
Summer and Winter squash. First time planting zucchini. Because I grew them from seed (late) and planted them late, I had a late harvest (August through October) but it was a great one. I really enjoyed harvesting zucchini this late in the season. The butternut squash did alright, I harvested three pretty big ones, the Delicata squash sadly died along the way. Somehow the stem was cut/chewed. Anyway, I love them and will definitely plant both summer and winter squash next year.
Legumes. A disaster. Both peas (I sowed three rounds) and pole beans (also three rounds) never made it past the tiny seedling stage before the resident rabbit got the better of them. The porch peas did well, but it wasn’t a big amount, just a small bowl for snacking.
Greens. The lettuces did amazing this year. I planted a lot of lettuce in the spring (grown from seed and transplanted) and then fall greens (direct-sowed in August), which I harvested well into December as baby greens. The Swiss chard had a stellar year as well. I could hardly keep up with harvesting. They did have some leaf miner damage, but it was manageable.
Alliums. Great year for garlic (51 heads)! Some of those heads were humongous. The leeks did well too, I left an entire row for overwintering. And I have those Egyptian walking onions that show up all over my plot. They always do well and are delicious, shallot-type onions.
Brassicas. The only brassica I grew this year was kale. I started with three varieties: curly, Tuscan and Red Russian. I pulled the Red Russian because it was infested with flea beetles but the other ones did well. I only had one plant each in my plot, which was enough for my family’s needs as with my daughter now in college I am the only kale eater. There were some aphids, but very manageable. The Tuscan kale on my back porch stayed very small, I guess it need a bigger pot.
Herbs. I had basil and parsley (and borage) in my plot. The parsley turned yellow after a while and died. This is the second year in a row this happened and I really want to know why. Another community gardener had the same experience. The porch herbs did great as usual, I had a ton of parsley and all the other common herbs. In late fall, I moved the two rosemary plants and the thyme inside to my kitchen and I still use them in my cooking.
Perennials. There are only two: asparagus and rhubarb. I have only a tiny asparagus patch but it did well. The rhubarb was very anemic and I did not dare to harvest any. I am not sure what is happening.
Porch. This year, as in previous years, I grew a lot of herbs on my porch. It is so nice to have your culinary herbs just a few steps away when you make dinner. I grew parsley (underplanted in two big pots growing tomatoes and peppers), sage, thyme oregano, rosemary, nasturtium (did not use them in cooking though), mint, chives. I also had radishes (which were amazing), lettuces (good), kale (not so great), hot peppers (great), eggplant (meh), Swiss chard (meh), tomatoes (meh). Next year, I will focus on herbs, greens, hot peppers and flowers.
Flowers. Dahlias, cosmos, nasturtiums, marigolds in the garden; some dianthus and nasturtium on the porch. The dahlias were really late this year, so I was not able to enjoy them as long as in previous years. I will definitely plant more flowers next year.
Plans for 2021. I had a total of 8 tomato plants and that was a great number. I picked the varieties so they were fruiting at different times and that seemed to have worked well. I do need to amend the soil as some of the plants only had a few fruit. I will definitely plant more hot peppers next year, maybe some shishitos as well. Definitely Thai and jalapeno and perhaps some other varieties. I love eggplant, and I will have another two to four plants in the garden next year, maybe two Asian and two Mediterranean varieties. Definitely will be planting cucumber again, one slicing variety and one or two pickling (those pickles were delicious!). Definitely carrots and radishes next year. The porch radishes were great, so I will do those again, maybe more and in a bigger container. For carrots, definitely rainbow. One zucchini plant was enough, so that is what will happen next year, plus two or three winter squash. I love sugar snap peas and pole beans, so I will try them again next year. Fingers crossed the resident rabbit has moved on. Lettuces from seed and transplanting them worked well, I should try to stagger them better so I have a constant supply. One row of Swiss chard is plenty. The garlic is in the ground, the Egyptian walking onions are doing their thing. So, I will plant one or two rows of leeks in the spring, from purchased seedlings. Two or three kale plants are enough. I will likely not grow any other brassicas because of the aphid problem, but maybe I will change my mind. I will have the usual assortment of herbs on the porch, but would really love to have more parsley in the garden. I will research the yellowing issue and hopefully find a solution. Also, as always, tons of basil in the plot, and this year I will make pesto again. I am hoping, the rhubarb will recover but I think it has to do with my pill bug infestation. They just are having a feast eating all the roots. I am not mulching with straw this year and over the winter and hopefully that will make them go away. The asparagus will just give me a few handful of spears as every year and that will be fine. On the porch, I will have culinary herbs, hot peppers, flowers and lettuces. That just seems to be the best use of the space and my pot sizes. As for flowers, there will be more dahlias in the plot, I will try sunflowers again and cosmos (maybe zinnias?), and of course nasturtium and marigold.
I took advantage of the nearly 70 degree weather today (mind you it was snowing just a week ago) to clean out my plot. I harvested the last carrots and radishes, weeded and cleared all the plant debris. I also dug up the dahlia tubers. Currently, there are only leeks, kale and baby greens growing, plus some shallots. I planted garlic today, about 60 cloves – half of them hardneck garlic the other half softneck from my biggest heads saved from this summer’s harvest. I decided not to add hay or straw this winter (except to cover the garlic) because I am having a big pill bug problem and I am trying to get rid of them. I suspect they might feed on all the decaying mulch and hay.
Yesterday, I spent some time in the garden taking out the spent cucumber plants and the Red Russian Kale, which has a pest problem. I also transplanted my three pole beans (ha!) to make space for fall planting. I don’t have any hope for those. I sowed radishes, fall greens and arugula. I do not have too much hope because of the resident rabbit, but I plan to add row covers to perhaps helps some of these plants survive. It has been a strange year in the garden.
I also harvested some tomatoes and a monster zucchini (I had not been to the garden in three days).
… and last lettuce (for now). I also pulled some more onions. The garlic is almost ready. I spent a couple of hours in the garden this morning weeding and trellising the cucumbers. I also planted more beans. Only a few came up and most of them had their little leaves nibbled off. I am blaming the woodlice, of which I have many in my plot. It is probably all the decaying wood from the plot borders that keeps them happy (as apparently are my tender seedlings).
Spent some time in the garden this beautiful Saturday morning harvesting almost all of the remaining lettuce and planting pole beans, more rainbow carrots (some I sowed earlier have actually come up, yay!) and three more tomato plants (Paul Robson, Jaune Flamme and Black Krim). The garden plot is getting there, but most plants are still small because I did not really plant anything until we had water about a month ago.
I harvested a nice bunch of overwintered leeks, a big head of lettuce and some volunteer hard-neck garlic that grew in the wrong spot. The strawberries are from a plot neighbor.
I spent three hours in the garden this morning weeding and pulling the mint that had taken over the better part of the back of my plot. I tied the asparagus and planted more Chiogga beets and a few dahlias, marigolds and cosmos. I also had meant to sow pole beans, carrots and more lettuce (in between the tomatoes so it can grow in the shade) but forgot, ha!
The garlic will be ready in a few weeks and I will need to harvest all the lettuce very soon. I also need to take out all those volunteer onions. The squash and cucumbers have settled in nicely, the chard and beets are looking good as are the new leeks. The kale is being eaten by something, but seems to manage to survive. Quite a few nasturtiums are coming up as well. The tomatoes have some flowers but not very many. I am worried that I overfertilized again, despite only using seaweed emulsion (once!) and sparingly so. Fingers crossed.
I did some more planting yesterday. In the plot, I planted chard seedlings, two types of squash (butternut and delicata), a hot pepper, a zucchini and three cucumber plants. All of them were grown from seed. I also harvested some lettuce from the back porch and replanted that container with chard seedlings.
Finally! Two days ago, the water was finally turned on in our community garden. Yesterday, the kids and I spent two hours in the garden weeding, planting and watering. We needed to pull a large amount of onions to make space. They are currently curing on the front porch much to the chagrin of my daughter who has to live with the smell as her bedroom opens to the porch. I planted most of my seedlings: 6 tomato plants, 3 basil plants plus kale, chard, different lettuces and leeks. I also sowed nasturtiums.
We harvested some of the radishes. The peas never came up, not a single one but I know that some of the seeds germinated. I suspect the birds, which have been very active in the garden. The carrots sadly also never came up.
Still no water in the garden. So, currently I have radishes, carrots, lettuce, beets and parsley growing in the plot. The seedlings are strong and ready to go in the ground, but I will wait a few more days hoping that we will get water soon.
I replanted two tomatoes, one hot pepper, eggplant, parsley and basil plant each on the back porch. There are also two lettuces in medium-size pots and a variety of herbs. The front porch has dwarf peas, lettuce and kale as well as mint, chives and cilantro grown from seed.
