So how did your garden grow?

[HeatherAtHome]

I've been going over the numbers and here's what I have:


Zucchini - From 4 plants I have picked 41 zucchinis. Most were eaten fresh, some were given away but I still have 17 bags in the freezer. Each bag holds 2 cups of grated zucchini to be used in soups, stews, sauces but mostly in baking. They're still growing but slowly.

Romanesco Zucchini - From 4 plants that were forgotten for most of the growing season I picked 2 HUGE zucchinis and 4 small. Looks like the lack of full sunshine or steady picking slowed them down.

Bush Beans - From one packet of green beans and one packet of yellow beans I picked roughly 23.5lbs of beans. I froze most of them.

Peas - Somehow we never grow enough peas to freeze. There seem to be only enough for eating in the garden.

Tomatoes - There are still plenty of green tomatoes on the vine. As of this morning, I have 32.5lbs of ripe tomatoes. Not counting what we ate fresh or gave away.

Spaghetti Squash - From 4 plants, it looks like I have about 10 squash. They grew really well and spread all over the place! I'm not super in love with spaghetti squash so the idea of eating 10 large ones is a little daunting. I hope they keep well.

Pumpkin - From 4 plants, I think there are 10 pumpkins. I'd plant even more next year so that I could give some away and still have plenty. I plan on making pies, custards, cakes and cookies. I also found an interesting pumpkin pancake recipe and would try to make a soup someday.

Buttercup Squash - Again, I have 3 or 4 plants (hard to keep track in that tangle) but this time I only see about 5 squash. Again, I would plant more next year because I had promised to give some away AND because squash cut in half and roasted with butter and maple syrup is delicious! They're supposed to store well.

Potatoes - Not sure yet.

Everything else not mentioned didn't produce enough to save (chard, spinach, peppers, cucumbers, etc) or have too many to count (tomatillos)!

I have a more detailed list with pictures on my blog.

Please share! How did your garden grow this summer?

[Alyantavid]

Mine did ok. My tomatoes grew pretty well and are loaded with green tomatoes now that are taking forever to ripen.

Peppers are crap. I have gotten lots of hot peppers, but only 1 green pepper. My puppy ate one plant and the cow ate another. The rest just didn't grow much.

Beans and sugar snap peas, I have tons. Still getting a good amount every few days, I have no idea how much, but alot.

My cucumbers are just insane. I jokingly told my kids they'd be eating cucumbers for every meal and now they ask me every time they eat where the cucumbers are.

Zucchini, I planted 4 plants and have gotten tons. No idea how much we've eaten fresh, but it's been daily for months. I froze 20ish quarts of them either shredded or cubed.

Cabbage did really well, except again for the cow. She ate one head but the rest are doing great and taste really good.

Pumpkins were another cow casulty. I've got probably 10 of the mini pumpkins but nothing else even came up.

My watermelons did great, I got probably 15 from 2 plants. My canteloupe didn't do so well. I've got 2 melons growing now but they won't be ripe before it freezes.

My fruit trees had a terrible year. I've got 4 plum trees and got maybe a handful of plums. No peaches, no cherries, no apricot, only a few mulberries. My pear trees are doing really well, we're just waiting for those to ripen. The apples are ok, not nearly as many as every other year. The grapes are doing good, but again, waiting for them to ripen.

[Owen'nZoe]

Mine grew well. Unfortunately, very little of it got harvested because the mosquitoes were just so bad. There was only so much I could take of going out with long pants, long sleeves, and a mosquito net hat in the heat and humidity and still getting eaten alive. I'm convinced I developed an allergy to the mosquitoes, because by the middle of summer, my whole body would itch, not just the spots that were bitten. This feels like the lost summer, because we spent most of it indoors.

[KristyDi]

Tomatoes-Thanks to the combination of a raccoon and grasshoppers I didn't get near as many as I was hoping. I managed to can 4 quarts and have maybe 5 or 6 tomatoes to eat fresh from my 8 plants.

Herbs-suffered some from the grasshoppers, but were mostly ok.

Sweet Potatoes-still waiting to see. I'm really hoping for a good harvest there. FIL was nice enough to share some of his last year and they were so delicious.

carrots-kinda sad scrawny things, I think the soil was too heavy for them. There are a few still in the ground. Maybe they'll be better.

pumpkins-nil, nothing, nada They came up fine, but just never grew much bigger.

peppers-did great. 2 bell, 10 or so Anaheim, and 6 or 7 gypsy from one of each type of plant. And I've lost count of the jalapenos from 2 plants 30 at least. Now that the hottest days are over (and I'm better about watering) All the pepper plants have blooms again.

strawberries- It was their 1st year so didn't expect much, but DD has gotten 1 or 2 bite sized ones a week to munch on.

I just put in some broccoli as a fall crop so we'll see how that goes.

[JamieCatheryn]

Carrots were good, tomatoes did/are doing really well though I got lots of split ones. Green beans were sparse, vine borers got the squash.

[GardenStream]

Not nearly as well as in past years. Zucchini did OK, but not much extra to freeze. That's it, everything was just OK. It was such a hot, dry summer here and I think that had a lot to do with it. Last year I got 700 pounds out of the garden. This year I'll be lucky if I get 300 pounds.

[SuburbanHippie]

I never thought of weighing my haul. I'm totally doing that next year though!

Tomatoes- We canned 45 quarts so far. There are still plenty on the plants, but I don't know how long it will take to ripen them. I've noticed my dog has been eating the ripe ones right off the plant too. Sneaky!

Green beans- We're just now harvesting them because we planted so late. We froze a gallon so far and ate the rest.

Onions- I planted them too shallow and they never really grew. I have a bunch of tiny onions now. Still usable, but very small.

Sunflowers- They just opened up today! I planted them super late as well.

Spinach/lettuce- I planted too much, too close. Most of it went bitter from being in the sun too much. Oh well.

Pumpkins- While I never planted pumpkins this year, our compost volunteered up about 50 plants. I trimmed them down to 10 and they grew all over my tomatoes. We ended up yanking them out so salvage the tomatoes. We got 6 large pumpkins, 2 small pumpkins, and 3 gourds from them anyway.

Hot peppers- I *finally* successfully grew hot peppers from seed. Each plant has tons of peppers on them. I was sad that none of the habanero peppers germinated though. I really wanted to try growing two kinds of hot peppers this year.

[lmonter]

Diddly squat this year.
Sigh.
Maybe next year if we're not in transition. I'd even attempted to can stuff this year, but with four kids and very little help (with the kids, with canning, with the house, pretty much everything), yeah. It ain't pretty.

[karika]

Not so well

I have a 10f x 20f patch out back. This is my second year attempting. As a child, I grew up around my Dad's garden, but he uses all the latest chemicals and dna hybrids from the seed company.

Last year I got a 3 zucchinis, some peas and beans (a few handfuls), a few sprigs of broccoli, and a few carrots.

This year, we bought some organic soil and put it down, then spread our backyard compost pile (literally a spot in the corner of the garden where I put all raw fruit and veg scraps) over the patch.

I planted peas, zucchini, acorn squash, yellow squash, spinach, beets, carrots, lettuce, potatoes, cucumbers, lima beans (from the bulk food bin at our store), green beans, broccoli, cauliflower.... I used the seed I bought in 2008 both years, and this year a few seeds I harvested from food we bought (all organic).

The green beans did not come up at all, nor the lettuce.

The peas grew okay and we got a few handfuls, we like to eat them raw just off the vine, though a few did make it into a few dishes on the stove. I used our chain link fence to train them on, so the sad part of that was I didn't think about how some peas would end up on the other side, lol

The zucchini came up but did not grow and flourish, all of them are small and no production, except one that came up in our compost pile. I harvested 1 zucchini and there is a baby one there now.

The acorn squash is from harvested seed. It came up but only the one in the compost pile grew. There were 3 so far, one stopped growing and I ate it, though it was only a few bites. Another was on a bit that grew up the fence, so the weight of the squash broke it off and I got it, but it was not edible. There is one more softball size one on that vine and I am hoping it matures. There are also a few on another vine but they are so small, and we are close to frost here.... : (

Only one yellow squash plant produced and I have harvested 3 squash (yay!) from it.

The spinach came up fine and I ate it through the spring.Maybe enough for 2 salads from two small plantings. They never grew big... I planted it in a row and now I think it is better to plant in a square.

A few lima beans came up from the dried beans we planted, but I haven't harvested anything yet. There is one baby bean pod on one of them.

The cucumbers didn't come up right away. But now there are 5 plants. 1 has a cucumber the size of a man's big toe, and the plant beside it has a baby on it.

The beets are still in the ground, but really small. I harvested 3 in spots I didn't plant any, so either a rain moved some seeds or the ones I never harvested last year somehow grew new plants.

The carrots are growing well. I have gotten at least 8 carrots so far and there are 20 more still in ground.

The broccoli looks lush. I have gotten a few nuggets from them (4 plants total, only 2 have had broccoli). I think I got the hang of broccoli, you have to cut the long parts that grow up with the flowering to get heads going?

The cauliflower came up and looked strong, but only weird pinkish stuff came that tasted bitter, it was not a compact white head like at the store.

Potatoes have given us a few potatoes, like maybe 10 small ones... some of the plants had nothing under.. but I did plant some skins with eyes only and some were potato pieces. Still have 4 plants in ground.

Oh and I forgot, I planted some melon seed, both bought and volunteer from a cantaloupe we ate... but no fruit and it is so late and icicle radish didn't make either, just weird stalky plants with pods, but no radish underground...

For mother's day, I got a bell pepper plant and some strawberry plants. A frost came a few nights after putting them in ground, which killed off all but one leaf on the bell pepper plant. It survived and grew leaves and has one pepper on it, but it is so small...

The strawberries gave us 6 berries so far. I planted 6 plants that were fairly mature on Mother's Day, in a different spot than the garden. They have spread nicely and my neighbor gave me 10 more plants which I put in with the others and 2 in the garden plot too. Boy they spread...

So given the fact that the best plants I have are the volunteers in the compost pile, I am gonna guess I need more nutrients in the soil. I also saw yellow leaves, which I think means too much water. There was also moss in spots, which I think means too much moisture too.

Another neighbor gave us 10 tomato plants, which I put some in pots (I made a planter out of some old plastic tubs actually because I didn't have any pots) because I knew they wouldn't come before frost. There are a lot of little baby tomatoes which is surprising because the plants are so sparse.

We also got a blackberry start and a raspberry start from each neighbor, and they are taking nicely, in a spot away from garden.

We have such a short growing season here (inland NW)... next year I am gonna focus on peas because they do so well and we love them raw, strawberries, spinach, beets, carrots, potatoes. I would like onions too, and garlic. I want to make some sort of pea fence to prevent losing some to the other side. I also want a few blueberry bushes and a grapevine.

The strawberry neighbor has a huge pile of pots out back now and she said I could have them, which will be good to start plants early. Like this year, we had good weather early, nearly a month and it fooled people into thinking it was okay to plant, then whammo a frost... you can't plant before may 31st here. That is why I like the things that come back every year like fruit.... they know when the time is right. I also had a toddler this year (that will not stay out of the garden and steps on my plants) and weeded around the plants only about 3 times through the growing season (when she was asleep). It looks like I am growing a patch of weeds... That may have affected growth potential also.

What a good idea for this thread, now I can copy this and keep it in my records...

[CookiePie]

Well this year I kept it simple! I planted garlic last fall & it was my first time & they turned out great albeit most are on the small side! Then I planted greens but my entire garden is full of greens now & I'm wondering if it is actual collards & kale or some weird weed that resembles it, because I didn't plant it everywhere, where it came up. Any ideas? I also planted sugar snap peas & got a few that we ate while weeding. My whiskey barrel herb garden did really well as usual and so did my perennials. Any clue if these greens I've been eating are weeds?

[verde]

Mixed results.

The good. I had a great strawberry harvest. The raspberries did OK although we got hit with Japanese Beetles and they loved the raspberries as well.

Peas were good although like you OP, only enough to eat, never enough to freeze.

Beans doing well. Beets and chard are great. Dill, rosemary, oregano and chives did well.

The fair. Tomatoes and cucumbers. I think they were not in the best place and didn't get enough light. We got enough but nothing extra.

A few squash.

The bad. Zippo for melons. Got 3 small and not particularly tasty watermelons.

The heartbreak: the basil. I tried 3 different batches in 3 different places and they all got zapped by the fungus. Last year I had glorious basil. This year absolutely zero.

I'm already working on a winter garden.

[sunnysandiegan]

Early this year, we had a lettuce bowl with two types of lettuce and a few spinach plants. Everything did great and I want to do it again! I have to wait since it is still warm here.

Our herbs had mixed results...some did really well and some not so well. I wasn't really good about watering, though. The best results were the bay leaf plant and the flat leaf parsley. I brought the parsley back from near death.

Our blueberry bush was sad, sad, sad. I did manage to bring it back to life and it looks pretty lush and green now. I am hoping it will produce some berries at some point.

The Tiny Tim heritage tomatoes are our biggest producers per square inch of plant space! We're still collecting handfuls. I eat them raw in my salads or straight from the garden. No extras, but I love tomatoes!

The six pack leftover tomatoes (several slicing varieties) from a friend are struggling....really struggling. I got some advice today from a knowledgable person and started the suggested protocol today. Here's hoping I'll bring them back to life...

Our beets did well in both a container and the ground. The container ones were ready first, both sets were large and yummy.

The broccoli was delicious! Four large stalks from one plant.

The pole beans were tasty and plentiful...one six-pack gave us several side dishes and a gallon ziplock for later and handfuls to share with two families.

The peppers got blossom end rot, but we didn't know and ate them anyway (cut off the "sunburned" spots. They tasted good roasted and pureed into sauces and sliced raw for salads. I'm working on fixing the problem and the plants are still growing strong.

The sugar baby watermelons produced two sizeable fruits...one was picked too early and the other was downright DELICIOUS! Blossom end rot seems to be a potential issue for this plant, too, so I'm working on reviving this plant.

We ended up with several volunteer garlic bulbs (YUM!) and random "onions" and potatoes, also.

[WindyCityMom]

Horrible. Simply put. My strawberries stopped growing early on- plant lived though, no blooms. Plenty of bees and cross pollinating going on. Idk what was up.

My peppers flowered at the beginning and then stopped only until recently.

Eggplant kicked the bucket too.

I got about 5 cucumbers.

I got a bazillion cherry tomatoes though And green beans! Yum.

I think that the #1 thing that contributed to my poor season was DHs Grandfather STEALING MY STUFF! HE EVEN STOLE MY LAST SUNFLOWER!! And I had promised DD she could have it for her nature table. *sigh*.

[onthemove]

While we had a couple things that didn't produce well, leeks (only 1 came up but may not have been patient enough and ripped out weeds and planted more carrots), peas we have eaten a few and have two large bags frozen, and the celery in the greenhouse was eaten by mice but we planted some out in the garden and it is doing well.

As usual way too many beans, zucchini, spagetti squash, kohlrabi and swiss chard.

Had the best cucumbers this year, peppers, tomatoes are all doing well.

We were able to dig up our potatoes in July and plant a second crop which are ready to come up shortly, (we dug up 80 lbs the first time) storage onions, carrots, garlic all did well.

My little greenhouse is so close but has not ripened any tomatoes yet, but the leaves haven't started coming off the trees yet so there may be time. The big greenhouse has done amazing but was planted with already started plants whereas the little greenhouse were all seed saved and started by me.

Oh and the corn oh my is it tasty but what do I do with it all? Every year we plant it and the season isn't long enough, hot enough but this year was perfect and we have so much! I suppose I could freeze it, does anyone know how long to blanch it before freezing and do you leave it on the cob or take it off?

[redvlagrl]

Can I join?

This year we had to plant extremely hurridly because I had a baby right at planting time. Plus we didn't do *any* maintenence watering or anything really.

Our tomatoes are great except that they were mislabelled and were all cherry toms not regulr (grrrr). We have loads. DD loves picking them to eat though so it's fine. But who needs 20 cherry tomato plants that are uber prolific?

Zucchini was not good (presuming not enough water) - we harvested about 4 from 2 plants. The small zuccs grow to finger size them wither.

Chilli Peppers - great! Loads of banan peppers and hot long red ones. We ate the first crop of bana peppers stuffed with sauage then with a tomato suace on them. Scorching. The rest of the reds and banana peppers will go into the freezer, be made into chilli oil etc etc. I may make some chilli vinegar to give as xmas gifts.

Herbs did v well. Also planted a pot to bring inside for the winter.

That's all we had this year because of said baby.

NExt year I'm going to get handy and make some raised beds (would 2 4'x6' beds be good?) to make it all look a bit neater, though our soil here is very nice.

[half-pint]

This was my first real garden, other than a few pots on the roof of our last apartment. June was cold and awful, we called in Juneuary so everything got a late start (vancouver bc weather)
I planted one zucchini , it grew huge and we have had 1-2 everyday since mid july.
Brandywine from seed (I think that's what they are it was a mixed heirloom pack) plant grew into a huge jungle and I now have about 25 tomatoes on the vine, all green and various sizes. Don't know they will ripen at all which would be a cryin shame. Looking into various ways to keep them ripening when the weather really goes. Also a smaller round variety of tomato in a pot on the deck, have gotten one red tomato, all the rest green. Aphids all summer due to cool temps.

Basil did pretty well, planted some with the tomatoes and the tomatoes grew so big that it totally covered the plants. Herbs in a box on the deck thyme, rosemary tarragon, basil all happy and thriving.

Planted beans and have harvested over the last month, getting enough for dinner 5 times so far.

Hot peppers -one on deck did well. Learned they like to be stressed a bit. One in the tomato patch was shaded by plants too much.

Looking forward to next year with what I learned this time around!

[Laurienna]

We had our best year yet: about a hundred pounds of tomatoes at least, pounds after pounds of zucchini... we are so tired of zucchini I pulled the 2 plants out today, around 15 butternut squash, tomatillos... so many tomatillos..., eggplants and cucumbers had a really slow start but did well in the end. The strawberries did not do well... it's time to replant the patch. The basil did not do great: the plants stayed pretty small. The squirrels ate every single sunflowers I planted and they are now feasting on our figs. Good thing there are so many of them! We started on the winter garden today

You can see everything on my blog: http://www.practicalmagiceveryday.blogspot.com/

[LaughingHyena]

Not so good, but I think a lot of that was because I have not been feeling well and haven't watered stuff as much as it needed. I also planted too much in my in ground bed.

Cucumbers, in grow bags - got several cucumbers but most were to bitter to eat. They didn't get watered enough

Peppers, those in grow bags did OK, only got one pepper from the plants in the ground. That said these were my reduced to clear, 20p for 6 plants peppers.

Aubergines, nothing doing and I won't bother growing any next year

Corgettes, grew 4 plants which took over the veg bed. Kept forgetting to pick them so had a couple of huge ones and not a lot else. Will only grow a couple next year.

French beans, these were really easy to grow and we got lots of beans. Ive ended up throwing away a lot that got to big and stringy.

Runner beans, buffered from black fly early in the season so we didnt get as many as I hoped. Will still grow next year as I love runner beans.

Tomatoes. Again these have suffered from my lack of care in not tying them up enough. Still we have had lots of tomatoes and there are still plenty ripening.

[CariOfOz]

Originally Posted by atobols

Not nearly as well as in past years. Zucchini did OK, but not much extra to freeze. That's it, everything was just OK. It was such a hot, dry summer here and I think that had a lot to do with it. Last year I got 700 pounds out of the garden. This year I'll be lucky if I get 300 pounds.

That's amazing!

Heather.... I think you & I follow each others blogs... if you do follow me, do a search for Thai pumpkin soup, I'm pretty sure I've put the recipe up and it's amazing stuff.


My garden is just hitting high gear, as we just ticked over into SPring down under I only have a very small garden but I'm loving it.

We picked about a dozen strawberries today, a couple of black russian tomatos to finish ripening inside (the plants were vigorous for a while, then started dying. I've started new ones in the garden bed AWAY from whatever killed these I hope!) I have 4 yellow button squash that are about 2feet tall... starting to finally see male flowers so maybe the many teeny wannabe squash will get pollinated and grow! I also have many chard/silverbeet, some baby carrots, shallots, peas, purple king beans and some random things like bok shoi & lettuce. Plus my 4 very happy new tomato plants!

Seeing the awesome gardens you mamas have is SO inspiring to a total beginner hehehe.

[cschick]

Peppers: bell peppers sucked. Apparently one red got to ripening while we were on vacation, and my neighbor (who was checking on the house and told to take any ripe produce) got it. Haven't had another mature bell.

Hot peppers: two plants, each have produced a decent number.

Tomatoes: last year, I did 5 plants which got so big they collapsed their cages and got enough tomatoes to fill up 12 wide mouth bell jars with sauce. This year, I did 4 plants, and did 2 jars of sauce My plants were tiny all season.

Broccoli: I planted 4 plants. They nicely matured one big head per week in July (so, four weeks of fresh broccoli). Then I just let them grow, and each week since I've managed to harvest enough florets for one dinner serving.

Beans: I did Kentucky Wonder pole beans, and Bush Lake Bush beans. I kind of abused the Bush Lake beans--they got overgrown by pumpkin plants in one area and overgrown by cucumbers in another. I have no idea how many pounds of Kentucky Wonders I harvested.

Peas: I actually got them started late, yet they produced enough through JULY (!!) to get a handful thrown into dinners every couple of nights, and for the kid to eat 4-5 pods every night with dinner for weeks. They died while we were on vacation, and I just planted more.

Pumpkins: 4-6 plants (not quite sure) took over the garden. I got 12 pie pumpkins off them before they dissolved under the onslaught of powdery mildew.

Cucumbers: We've had 3 cucumbers; they've also been badly impacted by the powdery mildew although they seem to grow leaves faster than the pumpkins and have stayed "ahead" of it.

Herbs: my herbs are always happy. I have large enough plantings of thyme and oregano, and always do 3-4 basil plants. Last night, for example, I probably used about 6 tablespoons of each herb, chopped, and you wouldn't even guess that I'd cut anything off any of the plants.

I tried a non-flowering basil this year along with my sweet, and the non-flowering one has just kind of sat there though. It didn't really grow, didn't die.