2022 Garden Review

So how was 2022 for you? It’s not always easy to take stock of how much we accomplish in the heat of growing and harvesting. There really is something enjoyable, satisfying and inspiring about wrapping up all the hard work of the spring, summer and fall growing seasons and acknowledging how far you’ve come, how much you’ve learned. If you haven’t stopped to give yourself a high five or pat on the back, go ahead and do so now.

I’m a pretty Type-A person. I’m honestly not even sure what that means because I’ve never heard someone referred to as a Type-B person. Feels like we’re talking about blood type or something. In any case, I guess that means I like planning, organization, predictability. Some might call this a control freak. But I can proudly say this was the first year I really let a lot of that go and just enjoyed my time in the garden. It wasn’t about things looking perfect or going perfectly, it was about enjoying all parts of the process. It honestly felt like so much less work even though I did tons more. That’s the accomplishment I’m the most proud of. And because I’m still who I am, here’s my list of garden successes and lessons.

Success!

The tomatoes grew really well and stayed very manageable. The T-posts and fence approach is the way to go.
The jalapeno crop was super strong from eight plants. I think I canned 12 half pints of my cowboys.
Cucumbers were insane. Absolutely way too many. I’ll do maybe one plant next year.
Garlic did great! I just need to plant more of them and more closely – which I attempted to.
Beets were un-beatable (sorry – had to do it!). Twenty or so plants each of golden and ruby were more than enough to can and eat fresh on salads.
FLOWERS! The celosia, cockscomb, dahlias, gomphrena, and nasturtium were all fantastic. And I’ve planted nearly 500 bulbs for next year. Wahoo!

Pink tinged with yellow dahlia approx 5 inches across

Just Okay

The berry bushes and figs had only moderate production. We cut them way back last fall so I’m thinking they were recovering this year. I guess I’ll know next summer. We had a lot to eat fresh but not anywhere near enough to can.
Carrots were decent. I had enough for the whole summer but they weren’t very “traditional” looking. I will need to thin them more next season because I think they were too close together.
I only got 6-8 butternut squash from two plants before the squash borers destroyed them. I thought I was applying DE with success but that didn’t end up lasting. Still gotta figure out the right defense and management approach.
I had three okra plants and just love how they look. But three aren’t enough to have a good amount to eat at any one time.
The area I designated for the perennial flowers was tough to manage and weed. I either need to be more diligent about it or be more diligent about it.
Cosmos and sunflowers needed to be watered more and supported better (would say the same for the dahlias). These are fail proof flowers and I could have had way more production.

Whomp Whomp 😦

Green beans were sort of similar to okra with not enough plants to ever harvest a decent amount at once and can them. Also, I used a bunch of volunteer plants and didn’t know what variety they were and they were not what I wanted. I’m going 100% pole next year with Seychelle.
The spring weather was weird very wet and cold for a while so I never really got any lettuce.
I only planted two red and two orange pepper plants and one of each was on the struggle train all summer. For that reason, I’m going to plant three each next year.
Too many cherry tomatoes and not enough slicers.
I’m officially throwing in the towel on zucchini for at least a year. The squash vine borers have demoralized me enough to give up temporarily.
I planted my zinnias too close behind the celosia so they didn’t get enough sun early on and by the time I succession planted more it was too late to get a great harvest.

Zucchini plant stem attacked by squash vine borer

Fruit Trees? Yes, Please!

Spring is officially here, at least according to the calendar. The weather hasn’t really gotten the memo yet. The whole “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb” has been more like “this morning feels like a lion, this afternoon is sort of lamb-like, and the evening might be a rooster.” Honestly, it’s been so back and forth I can’t even decide when to try to put out my beet and onion seedlings and attempt to sow some carrots and lettuce.

One sure fire sign that Spring is trying to shine through are the trees coming to life. It’s such a beautiful transition to see the buds show up on the trees that have been bare for many months. They seem to reawaken with puffs of fluffy white, yellow and pink. It’s like an artist walked by and began dabbing splashes of color on all the branches. So pretty!

To add to the beautiful landscape of trees and expand our food production, we knew we wanted to plant some fruit trees this year. During the winter, I spent time researching different fruit tree suppliers, reading other homesteading blogs, and asking some of my landscaping and gardening friends what varieties they would recommend.

If you are thinking of starting an orchard or adding to what you have, here are some questions to help you decide what will work best for you.

What grows well in your Zone? It used to be you bought only the plants, shrubs, and trees that were available at your local nursery and they were probably already known to grow well in your area. Now, there are so many options to choose from with everything being available to order on the interwebs. But just because you can buy something doesn’t mean you should. That’s how invasive species show up and/or you get frustrated that you’ve invested so much time and effort and the tree dies. If you’re not sure, go to a local “pick your own” farm and see what they are growing.
What does your family like to eat? This may be tied with the first question in terms of importance because if you don’t like to eat it, who cares if it grows well. And when I say you “like” to eat it, I mean you like to eat it in at least five different forms, e.g. apple sauce, apple pie, apple cake, canned apples, baked apples… you get my point.
How much space do you have? This needs to account for the size of the tree you plan to buy (regular, dwarf, semi-dwarf), how much space it will need once it is fully grown, and what other varieties you need to plant for cross-pollination to happen.
What’s your budget and timeline? How much money do you have to invest this year and over the next three years before you’ll even see fruit production? How patient are you?

As I thought through these questions, I decided on Candy Crisp, Granny Smith and Pink Lady apples. We eat A LOT of apples in our house and really only like them crisp. They store well and can well too. We also chose two semi-dwarf Sam and Stella sweet cherry trees. And lastly a Redhaven peach and Meyer lemon. These are the two wildcards in my mind because I’m not 100% convinced citrus will grow in the Mid-Atlantic or that we’ll have success with peaches because the plum trees already on our property have not succeeded and they are both stone fruit. I know cherries are too but they grow differently.

Once you’ve thought through all these considerations, here are some suppliers to look at.

Share with me what you’ve grown successfully and any tips and tricks we can learn from.

A Garden Calendar that Gives Room to Breathe

As another growing season approaches, I wanted to step back and think about the rhythm and timing of my plantings. For me, having a plan is essential so that I don’t get overwhelmed. But I don’t really want to live my gardening life according to a highly complex excel spreadsheet with tons of equations.

This year, I am not going to expand my vegetable garden and want to keep it pretty similar to what I did last year with a few tweaks. However, I am planning to really give a big push to flower growing thus I want the vegetables to be relatively simple.

I don’t know about you, but the whole “start this 8-10 weeks before your last frost” feels a little too abstract. I’d rather work with the natural demarcations in the calendar year that signal, “Oh, it’s Spring solstice, time to… [insert task here].” In the three short years I’ve been gardening, I’ve already grown to love these little tricks because Lord knows my memory is not superb.

Here are the broad strokes and signals that work for me in the Mid-Atlantic and maybe they’ll be helpful to you.

Valentine’s Day (or a weekend thereabout) is when I start peppers indoors. Think spicy romance!

St Patty’s Day is the time to start tomatoes seedlings.

Depending on when Easter falls, that’s usually the time to get my spring garden planted with the cold hardy crops – beets, carrots, kale, lettuces, onions and peas.

Then there’s Memorial Day to seed the summer garden and transplant the tomatoes and peppers that I started indoors.

4^th of July is a good time to start your fall seedlings indoors, like broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprouts.

Labor Day, in addition to being the end of my energy and enthusiasm, is when I start letting my beds rest a bit. Just some lettuces, radishes, beets and transplanting the brassicas I started indoors.

Halloween is usually the turning point from enjoyable Fall weather with sunny days to colder, gray days with rain and wind. Halloween is my signal to go buy some manure from the horse rescue that’s nearby to amend my garden and start putting everything to rest.

Thanksgiving to Christmas is the time to be thumbing through seed catalogues and singing “my favorite things” as I pick out seeds for next year’s garden.

Seeds and Trees

If you’re anything like me, you’ve received about a handful of seed catalogues or at least a dozen emails reminding and prompting you to buy your seeds. This typically starts back in late November or early December and for most of us the warm weather is still too far off to seem real so it’s easy to just page through them and dream. But don’t make the mistake of waiting too long to decide what you are going to plant, and thus the seeds you need to buy, so that you have a good selection to pick from. I’m already getting “back ordered” and “out of stock” notices for some of my top picks.

I can’t and wouldn’t tell you what to buy or not buy – that’s a very personal choice. I did write a post about this two years ago that gives some questions to consider as you put your plans together. Your plans don’t have to be set in stone yet. They can be rough lists on a notecard (warm weather vs. cool weather crops) or drawings scribbled on a scrap paper of your garden space. You are just going for a general idea of what you want to plant and where. [Mom comment: that’s where doing your “lessons learned” and notetaking throughout the season really comes in handy because you have already identified what worked and didn’t and what you want to do differently this season.]

If you’re new to gardening (I’d say anyone who has been gardening 1-3 years is in this category), this all probably feels very overwhelming. I assure you, by years 4 and 5 it gets better. You’ll have a template, you’ll know what you like growing, what’s worth the effort and what isn’t, and the crops you are determined to figure out no matter how many times you’ve failed (Cucumbers – I’m talking to you!)

Once you’ve hit the “not so new to this” phase, I would encourage you to ponder two additional options: 1) flowers and 2) fruit trees.

Flowers, whether you think they’re beautiful or not, bring all the happy pollinators that will support your garden and bring it to a whole new level of abundance. I happen to think flowers are completely perfect. Their symmetry, colors, and textures take my breath away. And if there is anything I wish we would all appreciate a little more, it’s the magnificence of nature. Flowers and sunsets illustrate that for me time and again. You don’t have to go all out either. Pick some perennials – black eyed susans, coneflowers, cosmos, or alliums – and plant them in and around your garden space. For fun and color, maybe throw in some zinnias, sunflowers, and marigolds.

magenta coneflower in front of picket fence

Summer evening sunset with fence and field

Beyond your garden, I’d encourage you to look around your space. Do you have 10-15 square feet in your yard or a shared plot in your neighborhood? If yes, great! Plant a self-pollinating apple, cherry or pear tree. If no, what about a patio, front porch, or balcony? Then you could plant a dwarf option in a container like a Meyer lemon. I’ve chosen a few trees from Stark Brothers this year in the hopes that we’ll have a sweet little orchard going in the next 4-5 years.

2021 Garden Successes and Lessons

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!

Okra blossom… Nothing prettier.

Five petal light yellow with maroon center okra blossom

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.

Look at that tomato fence!!!

Thirty feet of fencing with tomato plants growing vertically

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.

Starting a Garden? How to Plan for Success

Oh joy, oh joy, oh joy!! I never thought I would geek out over seed catalogs but I have been giddy with anticipation. I wasn’t sure where to start but I knew I only wanted to order heirloom seeds, so that was my search term “heirloom seed company.” Here are the ones I found –

Annie’s Heirloom Seeds
Baker Creek
High Mowing Seeds
Johnny’s Selected Seeds
Seed Savers Exchange
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Beyond finding the company, I wanted to be able to receive a hard copy catalog and not have to search through a website. I know, not very earth friendly but since I’m a newbie to gardening I wanted to be able to thumb through pages, write notes in the sidebars, dogear pages, etc. I also wanted to only get one catalog to avoid giving myself so many choices that I would never be able to make a decision. I landed on Baker Creek and it is gorgeous!

However, let me give a warning that if you sit down with a 150-200+ page catalog you are going to get overwhelmed. It is best to start with a list of the vegetables and fruits you know want to grow.

How do you know what you want to grow? Start by asking yourself a few questions.

What do I like to eat? What does my family like to eat? If you are someone who makes a weekly menu or meal plan, look back at what you’ve eaten for the last 6-8 weeks. You’ll likely see some trends. Do you have a meal with tomato sauce/base once a week? Do you eat a big salad with dinner once each week? Do your kids love to snack on carrots or cucumbers with hummus? If you don’t make a meal plan, what are the 5-10 recipes you make most often? What are the ingredients you could grow yourself?
Do I want to grow vegetables, fruit or both? This may be less of a “do I want to?” question and more of a “what do I have space for?” question. I would caution against trying to do too much your first few gardening seasons (talking to myself here too). But doing five or six veggies and getting one to two blueberry bushes in the ground is very doable. Aiming to build slightly off of each previous growing season is good approach to keep things realistic and allows you to learn from your successes and misses.
What do I have space for? Do you plan to grow directly in the ground, raised beds or containers? Or a combination? The spacing instructions on a seed packet are pretty accurate. You can try to tighten things up a bit but then you may limit your harvest.
What do I have time for? This is extremely important and also difficult to answer. I can’t tell you how much time 15 green bean plants, 10 tomato plants, five pepper plants and three different lettuces will take to tend to each week. Again, I would say err on the side of assuming you have less time and then you’ll be pleasantly surprised if you are out in the garden more and everything grows super well.

Now that you’ve answered those questions, you can open up the heavenly pages of whichever seed catalog(s) you chose and let the angels sing in the background.

From my year one garden lessons, I pretty much knew what vegetables were on my list, I just needed to decide on my bean, lettuce, pepper and tomato varieties. Here’s what I decided on.

Two seed packets for Calima and Golden Butterwax beans from Baker Creek

Two seed packets for german pink and Martino's Roma tomatoes from Baker Creek

Two seed packets for echinace and Russian red kale from Baker Creek

Beans – Calima and Golden Butterwax
Beets – golden and red
Carrots – St. Valery
Cucumber – Muncher
Kale – Blue Curled Scotch
Lettuce – Parris Island Cos (Romaine), Buttercrunch and Spinach
Peppers – Bell, Fish and Jalapeno
Tomatoes – German Pink and Martino’s Roma
**Bonus – Baker Creek sends a pack of mystery seeds for every seven packets you buy. I got a packet of Russian Red Kale and Echinacea – SCORE!!!

Next time, we’ll walk through deciding how many of each to plant.

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