New Mistakes

John Hammond: Don't worry, I'm not making the same mistakes again.
Dr. Ian Malcolm:No, you're making all new ones.

That was from the movie, Jurassic Park II. Not a great movie, but I love the quote. And I'm quite sure it will apply to this years veggie garden. . .

And with that in mind, I'm working on planning this years veggie garden. Here is the list of what I'm currently thinking of planting:

Spring

• beets
• carrots
• scallions
• onions
• celery
• lettuce
• spinach
• radishes
• kohlrabi
• peas
• turnips
• potatoes
  

Summer

• beans
• cucumbers
• watermelon
• cantaloupe
• summer squash
• winter squash
• tomatoes
• sweet peppers
• hot peppers
• sweet potatoes
• tomatillos

Fall

• beets
• carrots
• scallions
• onions
• lettuce
• spinach
• radishes
• kohlrabi
• peas
• turnips
• broccoli
• cauliflower
• Brussels sprouts
• garlic

Herbs (annual)

• parsley
  
• cilantro
• dill
• basil
  

Yikes, that's a big list! There is no way it will all fit in the square foot garden beds. The summer squash has to go somewhere else. The sweet potatoes may have to as well. And the annual herbs may have to go in the bed with the perennial herbs.

I may find there are some things that just won't fit. (Can I dig up the front lawn?)

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.

Review of Last Year's Veggie Garden (Part 2)

Parsnips - These were a total flop. They didn't germinate well and they were overrun by tomato plants. Still debating whether or not to try to growing them again.

Onions (Walla Walla, unknown red) - I started seeds for these inside. The never got very big. I plan to try again from nursery plants for this year. I may experiment with starting seeds in the fall for next year. I actually still have a few in the garden, will see what they do.

Turnips (Purple Top White Globe) - Another crop I need to give a little more time to grow and not have to remove for summer crops. I want to plant some for fall as well.

Rutabagas (American Purple Top) - I think I left them in the ground to long. I was saving them for fall, and they got HUGE. May try again, then again I may not.

Kohlrabi (Early White Vienna) - These took forever! Anyway, plant more. I also have some Purple Vienna to try. Want to plant for fall as well.

Peas (Little Marvel, Sugar Snap) - Sugar Snap were tasty and productive. I think they would have lasted longer in the season if I would have kept picking them. Little Marvel are a bush type pea and produced so-so. For garden peas, I think I plant a taller pea.

That was all the cool weather crops. Now on to warm weather crops.

Beans - (Bush Blue Lake 274, Kentucky Wonder - Pole, Pencil Pod Wax Bush, Royal Burgundy Bush, Anasazi, Lima) - The Royal Burgundy were amazing producers. They out produced the other bush beans by a mile. The Blue Lake and Pencil Pod were okay, but I doubt that I will plant them. They rivaled the pole beans! And the poor pole beans, I was so overwhelmed by the time they started producing I didn't keep up with them very well. I only got a few lima beans, they were a victim of overcrowding. The Anasazi beans were a bit of an experiment. I had some in the pantry and threw a few in the garden to see if they would grow. If I'm really going to grow and harvest them, I need to plant earlier.

Corn - Too much room, corn smut, failed crop. I'll buy it at the farmer's market.

Eggplant - Bought 2 plants of different varieties. They grew well, but we don't like them well enough to plant in the garden. Also, had an occasional bitter one.

Melon (Cantaloupe -Heart of Gold, Watermelon - Sugar Baby) - Total failure. Victim of crowding. Also, the cantaloupe was planted in a section of bed where nothing grew well. This particular section was not dug and amended properly. It has since been corrected.

Cucumber (Lemon, Spacemaster, Boston Pickling) - The lemon cuke grew really well, but was tangled with tomatoes and I couldn't harvest them like I needed to. The pickling cukes just didn't grow well. They had room, but I don't know what went wrong. Doubt I will plant them again. I discovered other things to pickle (lemon cukes, beets, green tomatoes). The spacemaster needed a trellis. I think I may try an Armenian cuke instead. Just don't want to plant that many of any cukes - we eat a few, but not a lot.

Tomatillo - My seed starting for these failed. Bought plants from a local nursery. And they grew and produced and sprawled and grew and produced and grew and sprawled and . . . I'll attempt to grow them on one of the trellises this year.

Okay, we need to go walk Rosie. I still have sweet potatoes, peppers, squash, potatoes, asparagus and TOMATOES to jibber about. And a little about herbs, flowers, strawberries, fruit trees and some general random thoughts.

Review of Last Years Veggie Garden (Part 1)

This is what my veggie garden looks like today. The beds are 2X6 fir. They probably won't last long, but they were relatively cheap (compared to redwood or cedar). The cement paving stone pad is for the green house. We have been working off and on as weather permits.

I've been working on what veggies I want to plant this year. I think I need to do a bit of review of what I planted last year. Tragically, a lot of the info I had from last year is on a dead laptop. I went through my seeds and compiled a new list of what I have. I finally found my green garden notebook which had some printouts of last years veggie layout. I have moments of organization and then it all falls apart, lol.

Okay now to the review of last years plantings:

Beets (Tall Top Early Wonder and Cylindrical) - These were so yummy! I need to plant more this year. I also need to give them more time to grow - I had to pull them all when there were real little to make room for summer crops. There are good as babies, but I would have liked some larger ones for pickling.

Carrots (Red Core Chantenay, Purple Haze, Rainbow Blend) - Purple Haze is only purple on the outside so if you peal it, it's orange! No more purple carrots or rainbow things, just plain orange carrots. And like the beets, I need let them have time to grow and not have to pull for summer stuff.

Radishes (Cherry Belle, Sparkler, Watermelon, Icicle) - Cherry belle grew the best and Watermelon was the worst. I won't bother with that one again. Sparkler, I don't remember, lol. And Icicle I would like to plant in a spot to give a little more time to get a little bigger. They are supposed to get 5", but I didn't have any that long. I wonder about the quality if they are that size?

Greens (Mescalin, kale, spinach, chard) - I planted greens from a package of mixed greens. They worked better being directly planted than from starting inside. I did start some other lettuces for a second crop but they got crowded by tomatoes and eaten by bugs. I'll use up the mix, but after that, I'll plant separate. The mix included some kale that bugs destroyed later in the season. I need to keep a closer watch on it. Spinach was a dud - I'll try direct sewing instead of starting inside. I've never had much luck growing spinach. And chard is as about as easy as it gets to grow. Only need a few plants - I would rather plant more beets.

Cabbage - Not going to bother again. We don't eat it that much, however the bugs loved it.

Broccoli, Broccoli-raab, Brussels Sprouts - I'm willing to try these again for a fall crop, but not for spring. The broccoli-raab was pretty bitter. I've grown it in So. Cal. in the winter, but I don't remember it being that bitter.

Well, I'll have to finish this later. Rosie has to go to the doggie doctor for a check-up and rabies shot.