So last year I had a mini garden along with some pots…got lots of zucchini, the wrong kind of cucumbers nobody ate and one itty winter squash. In the greenhouse I had lots of lettuce and spinach as well as and a bunch of red, green and orange baby peppers.
What a difference a year makes
This year we had a horribly late spring/summer so I don’t know that this can be an apples to apples comparison. But here’s an update of where the garden currently stands.
Inside da house
I planted the same lettuce and spinach as last year along with a new variety of lettuce and they all failed. I probably needed to amend my soil before planting. There’s always next year!
That said, my bell peppers lived to produce another year despite my awesome fall off my cute ladder that took half of one down.
Strawberries yum
Last year I failed to grow strawberry plants from seed….and bare roots. Total fail. So this year I bought four established plants from a local grower and planted them in last years mini garden beds. They are doing great!
Tomato tomato
Last year I planted beefsteak tomatoes…the spring was pretty wet and most of them ended up rotting out. So this year I opted for cherry tomatoes (it’s easier to pick those out of a salad). Have I mentioned that I’m not a tomato lover?
Regardless of my indifference, the cherry tomatoes are doing pretty well! I’ve been pinching off any suckers along with yellowing shoots. No idea if that’s what I should be doing but…eh…tomatoes.
Tom-ah-toes…
Squash it
Squash is my favorite…can’t go wrong with a roasted squash. And you usually can’t go wrong growing them! This year….it’s a little questionable. Last year I grew zucchini and winter squash…they did pretty well considering most were in pots. I started everything from seed and had plenty of starts to give away. And plenty of zucchini. This year only three zucchini seeds germinated….wtf. So I overcompensated my planting a bunch of yellow squash (which will be coming out of my ears shortly). I Hail Maried a last minute zucchini seed but that start is still itty. Waaah.
My butternut squash seeds germinated well too so I planted four of those. So far I have one good size squash growing, one baby, and lots of flowers that just fall off and die. My bamboo for climbing is starting to fall over so I probably need a better trellis plan next year.
Oh cucumber where art thou?
I bought new non-pickeling cucumber seeds this year so all of them pretty much germinated. So let’s plant them all! Weirdly a couple were so much bigger at first but the others seem to be catching up. Lots of flowering but still no cukes to be found…hopefully soon!
Not so cool beans
These poor beans went through the wringer with the last winter. They started awesome and lively and even produced beans in my greenhouse. Then it snowed. The beans scoffed. Then they yellowed. Once I finally got them in the ground, they were miserable. I even paired them with some cucumbers for company and built an awesome trellis to play on. A couple didn’t make it but the rest are finally perking up. Hopefully the start flowering again soon.
All the pops!
Even though everything is probably 3-4 weeks behind, the pops are finally coming! And in bigger numbers from last year (minus the dahlias who got demolished by the evil slugs).
And happy bees…
