Monday, September 18, 2017

Not the best garden year

This summer has been very wet and cold so it's no real surprise that the garden didn't do all that well. Here's the overview:

Cucumbers: decent eating harvest though not enough to do pickles (at least not enough to do my own pickles - I gave Dad enough that he put up a few quarts of dills). I planted MarketMore cukes and wasn't overly impressed by the flavor as the skin was tough and bitter. I simply peeled them for salads but if I'd wanted to do sweet pickles I would have been pretty peeved. 

Cherry tomatoes: slow to mature, slow to set fruit, and slow to ripen. I put in six plants, lost one to a critter, and the rest have produced about six ripe tomatoes per day. That's right - six per day. They went straight into salads or onto pizza. The plants now have lots of green maters but they're rotting rather than ripening (still cold and wet).

Beefsteak tomatoes: Argh. Set fruit early but again, rotted before ripening. I've gotten maybe four tomatoes off six plants. 

Zucchini: good harvest and great flavor.

Summer squash: minimal harvest, great flavor.

Watermelon: two melons. Two. About the size of softballs. Haven't cut them open yet so not sure if this worked or not. I'm betting not.

Kale: self seeded last year and I've cut it several times this year. A bit bitter but pretty good.

Herbs: oregano went wild as usual. Basil did well after a slow start and I made enough pesto to last us through the winter. Lemon thyme finally started growing and I have high hopes it'll survive the winter. Rosemary is doing surprisingly well planted between the patio stones. Dill is awesome. Cilantro has survived judicious harvest practices and is still producing. It never went to seed. Parsley never came up. 

Potatoes: dug up one hill and got six wee taters. Will dig up the other two hills as soon as the plants die back some more.

That's it. Not exactly a stellar harvest season but the cucumbers and squash kept us well supplied through the summer. Definitely need to do some crop rotation next year and will see about making better use of the cold frame. 

No comments:

Post a Comment