How’s everyone doing? Another year for the record books, right? In my life and my job, much of this year has felt like two steps forward and one step back. Progress overall but not smooth or linear. I will say that it’s hard to know if you’re making progress though without taking notes or keeping track. Every gardening book, article and podcast will tell you to take abundant notes. And yes, in principle, that is true and in a perfect world we would have a little notepad in our gardening belts. I’m also a believer in looking for trends or highlights without having to write down every detail. But do whatever works for you – your preferences, your priorities, your abilities. Either way, if you’re learning, you’re still living 😊

Without further ado, here are my 2021 gardening successes and lessons to save you, my dear friends, any extra work I can.

Seed Starting with Grow Lights

Rocked it!	Gonna rethink it
All my tomatoes and peppers did excellent. I started a total of 30 tomatoes (five different kinds) and 24 peppers (6 different kinds) and they all grew into hardy seedlings that transplanted well.	My tomato plants in 6-count seed cells did get quite tangled and jumbled. I will plant them in the separate 3” round cups next year.
My onion starts were incredibly strong and had really high germination.	My broccoli and cauliflower starts all inexplicably dried up and died over the course of 5 days.  I was so sad.
All my herbs – basil, parsley, oregano – turned into fantastic plants that lasted until October.	Nothing, nada, nyet happened with my lavender seeds. So disappointing but I’ve heard this is a tough plant.

Direct Sowing

Rocked it!	Gonna rethink it
Spring: arugula, carrots, kale, peas, and spinach all did great.	My beets had a really low success rate. I think I didn’t water them enough but we had a wet Spring so I am just confused and disappointed.   My garlic (that I had planted in Nov 2020) was a total fail. I did not start with large cloves though. I started with the baby seeds from a large bulb. I also believe I didn’t water these adequately.
Summer: okra and winter squash	No success at all with my cucumbers, cantaloupe, rhubarb, and watermelon.
Fall: arugula, kale, and radish are still cranking.	This is my second year in a row of nothing to show for brussels sprouts and broccoli. I will try starting them indoors in mid-July next year and if that doesn’t work (along with a row cover) I may be ready to toss in the towel on these two crops. They just don’t grow. I tried collards also and those failed simply because I had them in a big planter near my porch that the deer could get to.  Lesson learned!

Care and Maintenance

Rocked it!	Gonna rethink it
My soaker hoses worked great for the beans, peppers, and tomatoes.	As plentiful as my onion starts were in the beginning, they amounted to about 6 onions in the end. I definitely didn’t water them enough.
I barely had to weed anything this entire year. I put down enough mulch that everything stayed really tidy. That was amazing.	I gave the squash bugs a good fight, but in the end they took out my two zucchini and two pumpkin plants. Pretty frustratring

Garden Planning and Design

Rocked it!	Gonna rethink it
My tomato wall and pea fence were really successful and well supported.  Doing this again for sure!	I’m going to do long vertical lines of beans next year and try for a few more pole beans so that I’m not squatting as much to do all the picking. I had the best harvest from my golden, jade and calima beans.

Takeaways

• Watering helps. Ha! Writing this summary has helped me see that the majority of plants that didn’t do well were located in beds that required me to water by hand and I didn’t do that consistently or enough.
• Less is more. Instead of trying five different crops in a bed, next year I’m going to focus on 2-3 instead and really pay attention.

What were your biggest successes this year? What will you do differently? Cheers to all your hard work and effort. It’s worth it.