2013 - the year of winging it
In the spring of 2013, we started seeds indoors, rototilled and planted. We'd ordered probably $500 worth of seeds, and got as many of them in the ground as we could. We had no idea what/how much we'd like/use and what we wouldn't, so the more, the merrier.
We were pretty clueless. (Remember, we weren't gardeners of any sort, and never had been.) We got 3 rows of potatoes in the ground, and as we were leaving the garden, feeling quite satisfied, I turned to Mike and said, "Uh - how will we know when they're done?!" Clueless.
The potatoes did well, and the tomatoes produced more than we'd expected. Sadly, we had no root cellar for storage, and had no plan in place for harvesting and storing, so there was a lot of waste.
We spent 100-150 hours that winter figuring out what went wrong and what we could do differently the next year.
I made charts and lists of everything, including what we bought to can and how many jars we got, what seed packets we still had left, and what we'd have to order for spring planting.
2014 - the year of doing marginally better
In the spring of 2014, we'd sifted some of the rocks out of soil, but it was in serious need of amending. Again, we planted and watered and weeded and tended and nurtured. The tomatoes were abysmal - except for the cherry tomatoes which seem to thrive in adversity.
We also did marginally better with harvesting, but storage was an issue. Mike had built a root cellar, but it wasn't yet vented. We put the squash in there with the potatoes - and they all moulded. Turns out squash don't like root cellars. They much prefer a drier, warmer home.
We spent 100-150 hours that winter figuring out what went wrong and what we could do differently the next year. But we were starting to get a handle on how much of each we needed to plant. Really not much point planting things neither of us liked - unless we were going to do a market garden, and that wasn't happening any time soon.
2015 - the year of starting to have a clue - and seed saving, foraging, and fermenting
In February of 2015, we moved a large shelving unit in front of our south-facing bedroom window and started loading it up with seed trays on heating mats. (We start everything except potatoes and sweet potatoes from seeds.) Much better! Tons of tomatoes and peppers, onions, celery - you name it, we had it.
I also started herbs. Those went into trays on mats in every south-facing window through the house.
Less success with sweet potato slips. I followed all the instructions for starting your own slips, but the sweet potatoes just didn't root and eventually rotted.
By April, a lot of seedlings had been transplanted to peat pots. I still hadn't figured out which plants are happy to be transplanted and which aren't, so it was still pretty much hit and miss.
Now the garden was starting to look more like a garden. Weeding was still a challenge, despite the landscape fabric that we'd put between the rows the previous year. The sun and weather deteriorated it, and the weeds came right through. But it was still a vast improvement from 2 years ago. In fact, a friend of mine who has glorious flower gardens referred to me as an "illustrious gardener." What?! Clearly she hadn't seen Martha's garden!
Cabbages were a disaster. Out of a couple of dozen red and green cabbages, only 1 of each survived. Bugs ate them all. The nappa cabbage did well, but you couldn't really tell that's what it was. (More research needed.) The bok coy however thrived. And if you don't cut it too far back when you harvest, it keeps growing.
The peas were a big success, but next time I would plant different kinds in different rows. Snap peas and shelling peas look remarkably alike! And they were planted a bit too close together, which made finding and harvesting them a challenge.
The strawberry patch thrived and gave us enough strawberries this year for jam. As of this writing, some of them are still in bloom!
The asparagus astonished me. What had gone is as tiny little plants in the spring of 2014 are now tall, strong, vigorous plants. We'll be able to start enjoying them next spring. I can hardly wait! Fresh asparagus roasted with olive oil, salt, and fresh garlic. Yummy!
Tomatoes and potatoes were a bit of a sad story. Blight. (More on that in another post.)
The corn didn't do so well. It developed late in the season and was dry, mealy, tasteless, and not at all sweet. And many of the cobs never fully developed. (Apparently they weren't properly pollinated. More research required.) I managed to get about 4 dozen cobs which I blanched, cut off the cobs, and dried for making dried corn pudding. We'll see how that turns out.
We also planted climbing green beans amongst the corn - maybe not the best idea because they took over and caused some of the corn stalks to buckle under the weight.
Garlic did well, but we need to find better storage techniques because some of them dried out and some moulded. We should have plenty for planting (100 the first year, 200 the second year, and 300 this year), but we won't have much left for our own use.
The squash grew alarmingly well, and threatened to take over 6 rows in the garden. Yikes! They're getting their own garden next year, well away from everything else.
We planted 32 pickling cucumber plants, complete with trellises. Some of the first planting died off or were eaten, so I just stuck seeds in the ground where I pulled out the dead ones, and they did just fine. We got enough pickling cucumbers for 2 dozen jars of dills.
And I finally have an herb garden, planted between the spokes of old wagon wheels. Very aesthetically pleasing, but not terribly productive. Maybe not enough sun, maybe poor soil, or maybe they just need another year to get properly established. I'd like to start a larger one in a sunnier spot with better soil in the spring.
Luke dropped off a load of horse manure in the summer which will be worked into the garden shortly. And Isaac and his grandson came over this past week and ploughed the garden with a pair of horses. That was something to see! - both the process itself and the finished result.
Our knowledge expanded this year to include seed saving, foraging, fermenting - and vacuum sealing dry goods, which I'd never heard of before. And these were all so exciting that I'll dedicate a post to each of them!
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