Notes from the Garden

This year our garden was an experiment.  We haven't planted beyond some potted plants since we've lived in New England, and felt like it was past time to figure this veggie garden thing out.  So, we plotted, planned, planted, and tended our little garden.  Sure enough, some things grew, some didn't, and we'll give this another shot next spring.  Don't laugh as you read all that we tried to grow in our 4x6 garden....we're learning:)

Notes from this years' garden:

• Zucchini needs more sun than ours got.  They are supposed to be super easy to grow, and our plant was big, but nearly fruitless.  We'll plant zuke in a better spot next year.  This plant needs a lot of space to grow.  Ours was growing onto our driveway before I chopped it back, made space in the garden, and moved it...we'll see if the few little zukes growing will perk up.
  
• Grape tomatoes grew like gang busters.  Love 'em!  We'll plant those again next year.
  
• Romas did nearly as well as grape tomatoes.
  
• Celebrity tomatoes took the longest to ripen, but they did well in a pot.
  
• Cucumbers did great and need a lot of space to sprawl.
• Beets did well.  We'll plant a lot more of them next year.  The leaves are so pretty & edible too (I'll probably be the only one to try them).  We'll always plant beets in flower beds like the gardens at the Joseph Smith Memorial.
  
• Green beans grew well with netting around the Roma tomato cages.
• Green onions grew well and we somehow ended up with two harvests...early July and in early September.
• Sugar snap peas will need to be planted earlier.  None of them grew.  I'm hoping timing was the problem!
• Broccolli didn't do well, but we'll try again.  I think it needed more space and more sun.
• Ditto on the romaine.  What did grow was small and it got eaten up fast by whatever critter visited our garden periodically. (I spotted a chipmunk there today)
• All of our herbs grew well in planters.  Arugula was a new try and it grew beautifully.  Parsley, sage, cilantro did really well.
• Next year we need to plant a bigger garden!

We planted our garden to the left of our front door.  We handed out tomatoes to visitors and sent the kids to offer some to neighbors.  I like having a practical pretty space right at the entrance.  We planted marigolds and red petunias around the border, but the zucchini overshadowed the flowers at one end and those flowers didn't live long.  I love, love, love mixing herbs and veggies in with flowers.  We had pretty purple Sweet-Pea flowers climbing up one side of our garden and Cosmos in front of the tomatoes.  The Cosmos grew to be 4'+ tall.  We'll play with the layout next year, but repeating that idea of veggies & flowers being friends.  I may be the only one to eat Swiss chard, but it's going in the ground next to the snapdragons!

Before we started our garden, I spoke with several friends who have successful gardens in our area.  It's been fun collaborating with friends who were gardening at home this summer too.  I am thankful that we have good examples around us to learn from.  Additional resources I found helpful which I plan on using again....

Taunton-Find Gardening

Kids Gardening

Garden Guides

Edible Flowers

Earth Easy- organic gardening

Home Gardening (lesson in the LDS Priesthood Manual)

Container Gardening (FHE lesson)

We've probably got 3-4 more weeks of tomatoes and cukes, and then we'll be done for the season.  It's been fun, esp. with so much rain making it low maitenance, our childrens' helping hands in all phases of gardening, and yummy harvests.

You friends and family in CA are lucky to have such a long growing season.  Even with our relatively short harvest season, it's a worthwhile effort.

Happy Gardening!