Review of Last Year's Veggie Garden (Part 3)

Getting into the home stretch!
1/18 - 12:13 pm Edited to add parsley

Potatoes (Yukon Gold) - I can't believe how productive these were! I planted 1/2 a bed worth and they took over! Well, I planted them stupidly - half on one long side, half on the other, and peppers down the middle. Can we say FAIL? So one whole bed this year, just taters.

Sweet Potatoes - Total crop failure. I tried starting slips but I didn't start soon enough. I bought some at the farmers market. They sulked the entire summer. Again, they were crowded by other plants. Going to try planting again this year.

Winter squash(Spaghetti Squash, Burpee's Butterbush) - Both were victims of overcrowding. I really want to try spaghetti squash again. We usually eat it quite a bit, although it's too expensive to buy right now (but then, all produce seems to be too expensive now). Apparently the Butterbush squash are pretty itty-bity. If I decide to grow butternut squash, I'll pick another variety.

Summer squash (Grey Zucchini, White Patty Pan, Rond de Nice) - Planted to close to each other and too close to the bush beans. Also had squash bug problems. I got a few squash, but not a lot.

Peppers - I failed at my seed starting with the peppers. I started hardening them off too early. Also didn't water enough when I started hardening them off. Ended up buying pepper plants from various stores and nurseries. Bell peppers did okay considering they were crowded by potatoes. Cayenne peppers did well. Also had a mystery pepper that did okay (I think it was a serrano). The rest failed - Anaheim, Habanero, Jalapeno and whatever else I planted. Crowding issues for some; locations issues (not in raised planters) for others.

Tomatoes - At, last the queen of the vegetable garden! Some of these were started from seeds and some were bought as plants. Most of my productivity issues were from overcrowding. Except for Brandywine, I think that plant hated me.

Brandywine (Bought plant at farmers market) - This is a tasty tomato, but I only got 3 off of one plant. It refused to set fruit. I've had trouble trying to grow it in California as well.

Amish Paste (Bought plant at farmers market) - This one might have produced better if I had trained it. I put it in the ground and intended to cage it, or something. . . I think it would be good for canning, but I didn't care for it fresh.

Stupice (started from seeds) - Tasty little tomato, but it wasn't productive as some of the other tomatoes I grew this year.

Beefsteak (started from seeds) - Tasty, but not terribly productive.

Sweetie - (started from seeds) - These were sooooo good. And very productive. I planted 3 and they were very productive, and tasty. Did I mention that they were very productive?

Chocolate Cherry (Bought plant at farmers market) - Was an okay tomato, but Sweetie was much tastier, and productive.

Oregon Spring (started from seeds) - Some of these were huge and some weren't. It was like there might have been more than one variety involved? Was hard to tell because everything was a mess!

Juliet (Bought somewhere. . .) Very tasty and very productive. Roma shaped, and a little larger than a cherry tomato. The vine itself was all over the garden!

San Marzano (started from seeds)- Small paste tomato. Very productive bushes! Didn't care for them for eating fresh. Pretty good dried. Because they are so small, they would be a pain to peal for canning. But I suspect they would be could for sauce or ketchup or something that would be run through a strainer?

Roma (started from seeds) - Last year was the best luck I've ever had these! Good for drying, canning (ok, the only tomato canning was salsa and it was with whatever tomatoes I could find at the moment), pizza. Mmmmm, pizza.

A few more random odds and ends.

Asparagus (Purple something or other) - Planted 24 crowns. They took so long to start growing I thought they were dead. But slowly, they came up one by one and all sprouted. Hopefully we will get a couple of tastes this spring.

Basil (Sweet, Dark Opal Purple) - I interplanted with the San Marzano tomatoes. They were doing well until the San Marzano's took over (think: Little Shop of Horrors)

Cilantro - Easy to grow in cool weather. I think its one of those love it or hate herbs. I love it! A lot of it went to seed and there are seedlings out there now!

Dill - Also easy to grow in cool weather. And like the cilantro, I have a lot of seedlings out there now. I can't seem to have dill to go with the cukes and cilantro with the peppers, tomatoes and tomatillos.

Parsley - Grew really well. I lost one plant, but I think Rosie the Garden Dog had something to do with it. The plants are still out there, and I'm guessing the will bounce back in the spring and then flower?

My biggest problem with last years garden was planting too much too close. A lot of my failures were from overcrowding. Although, don't think I could have done anything to get a corn crop. I planted a lot of tomatoes very close. They crowded out a lot of plants including the basil, parsnips, spaghetti squash, etc. Also, I lost a lot of tomatoes because I couldn't get to them to harvest them. I couldn't get to the lemon cukes because they were tangled in the tomatoes.

The bush beans smothered some of the summer squash. And the summer squash were too close to each other to begin with. And that made it impossible to battle the squash bugs.

One thing I seriously miscalculated was how long it would take from seed to harvest for carrots, beets and turnips. I harvested some of them pretty small so I could plant summer crops. And the ones I didn't, got over ran.

So now what? I'm working on what to plant (and almost as important, not what to plant) for this years vegetable garden. I have 6 raised beds that are 4X8 and I can only plant so much! I need to make some decisions based on what we eat or don't eat and what is the best productive use of the space. Do I try growing parsnips again which have to be in the ground for next to forever? Or do I plant more beets? And how do I deal with tomatoes? These are the kinds of things I'm trying to work out in terms of the vegetable garden. But, I can't let it turn into the jungle I did last year. It got pretty frustrating. So much so that I did not want to deal with it by fall.

So, its a new year and a new veggie garden.