2014 Vegetable Garden Review

I started planning for next year's vegetable garden over the Christmas break.  Figuring out what seed I need to order, where to rotate the crops to next.  I always find it helpful when planning ahead to look at the past year.  Reflecting on what went wrong and what went right helps to plan for what to do next.

A sample from the summer garden

Some plants I have *somewhat* mastered and know what to expect from year to year.  Once again I harvested more carrots than we could eat.  Beans, garlic, basil, dill and lettuce were in abundance as well.  The amount of cucumbers I grew was unreal.  We give away cucumbers like some people do with zucchini.  I grow Tasty Jade cucumbers and they seem resistant to mildew, bugs, hot, cold, wet - anything you can throw at them.  One plant produces a half dozen long english style cucumbers per week in peak season.  We did so good that I took bags of food to the Upper Room Food Bank this year on an almost weekly basis.

Pole beans covered the trellis in no time

Speaking of zucchinis, we didn't get a single one this year.  Not one.  It seems impossible.  They are one of the easiest plants to grow and they produce in vast numbers.  So what happened?  Well the plant grew and started to flower and just when I thought we would get a zucchini ...... I found mould. Fruit rotted, stems dropped off and the whole plant died.  Powdery mildew was to blame.  I had only planted a single plant so we didn't have a back up.  I was reduced to purchasing zucchini at the Farmer's Market.  the shame.

Another disaster was the asparagus.  I planted asparagus seedlings the first year we started this garden.  I've been hoping for asparagus every year since and I am finally throwing in the towel.  Next spring I'm digging them up and giving them away.  The plants are healthy enough but the perennial weeds in my garden keep choking them back so that they never produce enough spears for eating.  I can't get rid of the weeds without dousing the whole place in chemicals so the asparagus will need to go.

Each year I try to grow something new to me and stretch my abilities.  Sometimes it's a small change.  Like garlic.

I discovered a garlic grower here on PEI last winter.  Eureka Garlic grows around 70 varieties of garlic and I just had to try some of them out for myself.  I planted my usual crop of Music.  Then I purchased French Rocambole and Chinook to trial.  Another variety, Susan Delafield, was gifted to me.

 
Chinook was a miss, the bulbs never formed properly.  But I loved French Rocambole and the extra large bulbs of Susan Delafield.  Some of the best bulbs were put aside and planted in the fall for next year's crop.

A new variety of pumpkin was also grown this season.

Queensland Blue Pumpkins 

I've grown a new variety of pumpkin almost every year we've been here and have yet to decide on one I love.  I first tasted blue pumpkin years ago when I travelled in Australia.  It was my first exposure to pumpkin as a vegetable for eating and not carving.  My memories of those pumpkins drove me to search out Queensland Blue Pumpkin seed for this year's garden.  The vines were large and the yield was low but what a pumpkin!  Beautiful flavour when used in soup.  I am saving seed from these and will continue growing them in future.

I also tried watermelon this year.  It was a long shot but I thought some fruit would be a nice change.  The Yellow Doll seeds sprouted but the plants just never took off.  I collected a couple watermelons the size of golfballs and that was all.  Too cold perhaps.  I picked up some melon seeds at a recent seed exchange and will keep trying for melons next year.

Something completely and entirely new to me was soybeans.  I've never grown these before but will definitely be trying them again.

Gaia Soybean

I found these seeds at a seed swap and planted a half dozen plants to test.  My only problem was I didn't pick the beans early enough and they were starting to harden when I finally got to them.  These are best picked young and eaten with a little salt and butter.  YUM!

Another new to me plant was kale.  I know, this isn't new to most people.  For some reason though I've never eaten kale in my whole life.  Don't know how I missed it but there you go.  At the same seed swap I took a packet of kale seeds on a whim.  and now I love kale.

I've struggled with onions for the past few years.  Starting my plants from seed in the depths of winter, coaxing the seedlings along for months only to see half of them die as soon as they hit the ground.  This year I bought seedlings instead and although it was expensive it was worth it.

messy garage and string upon string of onions

We ate onions all through the summer, donated some and then I dried around 50 or so of them in the fall to keep for the winter.

You know what else did well.  Beets.

Bull's Blood beets have beautiful red leaves

Beets are one of those things I don't seem to have the knack for.  This year was an exception.  I bought new seed for Bull's Blood beets and they grew like I have never had beets grow before.  Maybe it was the fresh seed, maybe the soil is finally healthy enough to support them - I don't know the reason but we had beets galore....  and we discovered we're actually not all that fond of beets.  We don't dislike them.  They're lovely diced fresh onto a salad or roasted with other root vegetables.  But we don't like them enough to eat handfuls of them throughout the summer.

Same went for parsnips.  I finally grew parsnips and I was so pleased.  Not very many but more than we needed.  Parsnip is nice occasionally but not regularly.  Not sure I'll bother with these again.  I would rather plant extra of things we love than waste space on things we only eat occasionally.

Another veggie I try and try to grow well is rutabegas.

This rutabaga looked exactly like a pair of dancing legs to me

I had better success this year but my soil still isn't healthy enough to produce good specimens.  Brown-heart can be found each time I slice one open.  The issue is lack of boron.  I've read about adding Borax to the soil to alleviate this problem but it sounds dangerous as too much can be toxic.  I'm hoping that manure and seaweed additions to the soil will eventually solve this issue.

Overall it was another good season and we collected loads of food to eat fresh and store for the winter.  Today the weather is cold and the garden is sleeping for the winter but we're still enjoying steaming bowls of soup and slices of apple pie.

It doesn't get better than that.