garden recap 2024: winners, surprises, learning experiences,
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2024 7:16 pm
I just finished shelling some California #5 black-eyed peas, a definite winner. So far I have a pint jar of beans, from an area maybe 3x5, and more are coming. These plants took no care, I planted the seeds directly, and at one point there was a gopher hole in the middle of the bed that didn’t seem to affect them. I originally got them because they were not susceptible to nematodes. As a bonus, I can walk down the adjacent paths in the garden -- unlike the paths surrounded by tomato jungle!
As for pole beans, I planted all the pole beans near each other, and I can’t tell which is which. In the past month I’ve picked tons of purple beans (either Blue Coco or an unnamed purple I got from a friend as a single dry pod) and long beans (both Thai Soldier and Red Noodle). The romanos produced almost nothing. I found a great way to cook a bunch of beans at once, roasted with a tahini-based sauce.
Winter squash is another winner. Most years I don’t get around to planting any or don’t have room, but this year I figured out that I could let 3 kinds of winter squash vines run in the asparagus bed, the blackberry patch, and the perennial kale bed. It has worked out wonderfully. The biggest producer is Polaris F1 (iirc recommended by someone here). From a $2 packet of seeds I’ve so far picked 9 large butternuts, with at least a couple more on the vine (all from 2-3 seeds).
Tatume vining summer squash and Armenian cucumbers are also very productive. I planted the Tatume inside a 2-ft. diameter cylindrical cage, and I’ve kept it mostly contained. I really like the oval squashes, but it’s producing more than we can eat. Ditto for the Armenian cukes -- giving away a lot of those. It has taken over the whole cucumber trellis, and I don’t know if it’s overshadowing the other varieties of cucumbers or if it’s just not a good year for them, but I’ve gotten almost nothing from these other vines. I slice the cucumbers and put the container in the fridge, and we eat them like chips, with hummus. No bitterness!
Peppers! The bed where I planted 8-12 inches apart has been very successful, and the plants there seem to be doing better than the ones with more generous spacing. It seems like I’ve picked a hundred peppers from that bed in the past couple weeks or so (8 varieties, 17 plants), with many more coming. I added shade to all my peppers this year, which has helped prevent sunburn. I haven’t done taste tests yet, just eating/cooking random peppers. For next year (iirc I write this down every year), I need to plant each pepper plant with a sturdy stake and tie it to the stake as it grows. As usual, a bunch of plants are flopping from the weight of the peppers. I planted peppers in late May, which was perfect timing this year.
Tomatoes are a mixed story. We had temperatures over 100F in early June, most of July, and part of August, and the balance mostly over 90F. I planted a nematode-suppressing cover crop, Kodiak mustard, in some beds and by the time I chopped and incorporated it, and waited 3 weeks, it was getting later than I like to plant. The result was that tomatoes planted in early May did much better than those planted in late May, and early-mid varieties did better than late varieties. My goal for next year is to have the garden ready to plant by mid-April.
As usual, Benevento F1 was a winner for taste and productivity. It has tied for first place with Polaris the past few years, but this year, I got only 3 tomatoes from 2 Polaris plants (that was by far my biggest surprise). The best surprises were Magic Bullet, a pretty striped plum with a sweet flavor, and Cowboy (maybe a cousin of Polaris?), not as sweet as Polaris and only 3-5 oz., but quite prolific and a good sandwich tomato. Bush Early Girl F1 and Raspberry Lyanna, both small plants, have been steady producers. Other good producers were Purple Boy F1, Jersey Breeze (nice red), Black Plum (short shelf life), Kellogg’s Breakfast (sweet, but too juicy to be a good sandwich tomato), Chocolate Sprinkles F1 (beautiful firm tasty cherries), Sun Sugar F1 (best when bright orange and eaten in the garden), Black Cherry (prolific, super-dense plant but late fruits have bug damage), and Rosella cherry (tasty, but plant was wispier and buggier this year). That handful of varieties saved my tomato year, and I have had plenty to share with friends. Also got enough to form an opinion from California Sungold, Pink Champagne, Belle du College, Picus F1, Tommy Toe, One Trick Pony, and Thorburn’s Terra Cotta. I expect to be picking for another month, more or less.
Wrong varieties: Hawaiian Pineapple from Bounty Hunter (got a few yellow cherries), Orange Jazz from a trade (so I wonder if Pink Jazz and Thorburn’s Lemon Blush may be wrong as well), Purple Midnight (got a seedling, couldn’t find info on it; possibly Midnight Snack F1).
Harvested only one or a few fruit from Taxi, Green Tiger, Prairie Fire, Pruden’s Purple, Damsel F1, Maglia Rosa, Ruby Slippers, Taste Patio, Sheboygan, Pink CherryWine F1, Moon Child, Goldie, Daifuku, Sweet Aperitif (but loaded with greenies), and Pink Berkeley Tie Dye at the garden. But in containers on my patio, I got a good early yield of Maglia Rosa and a few Taste Patio, which were planted a month earlier than those in the garden.
Nothing but foliage from Raya Rey, Beefy Red, Sunrise Bumblebee, Legend, Sweet Baby Jade, African Queen, Bo Mango, Belmonte Pear, Granny’s Throwing, GGWT, Franchi’s Red Pear, Talvez F1 (but I see greenies), Carolina Dusk, Woodle Orange, Thorburn’s Lemon Blush, Pink Jazz, Orange Accordion. I will double-check for greenies and start taking these plants out.
Pretty much all the tomato plants looked healthy and vigorous most of the summer except for Green Bee F1, Green Tiger, and Prairie Fire.
Grapes: I have two grape varieties. I started eating Himrod in late June when they were still a bit tart. I’m still eating a few because they started setting new fruit as soon as most of the first crop was picked! I started eating Venus in late July, and they are getting sweeter and sweeter, still a lot on the vine.
Update 26 September: I’ve taken some plants out and discovered two reasons for no/low productivity so far: nematodes and watering. A few roots with root-knot nematode damage were in the beds that had nematode-suppressing Kodiak mustard as a cover crop! But most were in untreated beds. I had planted everything with worm castings and compost in the spring as well.
We get no rain from about May to September, and I didn’t install drip irrigation until the end of August. So I hand-watered, about 2-3 gallons per plant, every 10 days, even at the height of the 100F+ heat waves. But locals say tomato plants need 10 gallons a week, and people I talked with who had good production watered their plants daily during heat waves. Although my plants survived and looked good, many had interior dry leaves. And in the month since adding drip — coincident with more moderate temperatures — a few plants seem to have responded to more water. Sun Sugar, for one, has more and larger fruit and the plant is much more vigorous.
As for pole beans, I planted all the pole beans near each other, and I can’t tell which is which. In the past month I’ve picked tons of purple beans (either Blue Coco or an unnamed purple I got from a friend as a single dry pod) and long beans (both Thai Soldier and Red Noodle). The romanos produced almost nothing. I found a great way to cook a bunch of beans at once, roasted with a tahini-based sauce.
Winter squash is another winner. Most years I don’t get around to planting any or don’t have room, but this year I figured out that I could let 3 kinds of winter squash vines run in the asparagus bed, the blackberry patch, and the perennial kale bed. It has worked out wonderfully. The biggest producer is Polaris F1 (iirc recommended by someone here). From a $2 packet of seeds I’ve so far picked 9 large butternuts, with at least a couple more on the vine (all from 2-3 seeds).
Tatume vining summer squash and Armenian cucumbers are also very productive. I planted the Tatume inside a 2-ft. diameter cylindrical cage, and I’ve kept it mostly contained. I really like the oval squashes, but it’s producing more than we can eat. Ditto for the Armenian cukes -- giving away a lot of those. It has taken over the whole cucumber trellis, and I don’t know if it’s overshadowing the other varieties of cucumbers or if it’s just not a good year for them, but I’ve gotten almost nothing from these other vines. I slice the cucumbers and put the container in the fridge, and we eat them like chips, with hummus. No bitterness!
Peppers! The bed where I planted 8-12 inches apart has been very successful, and the plants there seem to be doing better than the ones with more generous spacing. It seems like I’ve picked a hundred peppers from that bed in the past couple weeks or so (8 varieties, 17 plants), with many more coming. I added shade to all my peppers this year, which has helped prevent sunburn. I haven’t done taste tests yet, just eating/cooking random peppers. For next year (iirc I write this down every year), I need to plant each pepper plant with a sturdy stake and tie it to the stake as it grows. As usual, a bunch of plants are flopping from the weight of the peppers. I planted peppers in late May, which was perfect timing this year.
Tomatoes are a mixed story. We had temperatures over 100F in early June, most of July, and part of August, and the balance mostly over 90F. I planted a nematode-suppressing cover crop, Kodiak mustard, in some beds and by the time I chopped and incorporated it, and waited 3 weeks, it was getting later than I like to plant. The result was that tomatoes planted in early May did much better than those planted in late May, and early-mid varieties did better than late varieties. My goal for next year is to have the garden ready to plant by mid-April.
As usual, Benevento F1 was a winner for taste and productivity. It has tied for first place with Polaris the past few years, but this year, I got only 3 tomatoes from 2 Polaris plants (that was by far my biggest surprise). The best surprises were Magic Bullet, a pretty striped plum with a sweet flavor, and Cowboy (maybe a cousin of Polaris?), not as sweet as Polaris and only 3-5 oz., but quite prolific and a good sandwich tomato. Bush Early Girl F1 and Raspberry Lyanna, both small plants, have been steady producers. Other good producers were Purple Boy F1, Jersey Breeze (nice red), Black Plum (short shelf life), Kellogg’s Breakfast (sweet, but too juicy to be a good sandwich tomato), Chocolate Sprinkles F1 (beautiful firm tasty cherries), Sun Sugar F1 (best when bright orange and eaten in the garden), Black Cherry (prolific, super-dense plant but late fruits have bug damage), and Rosella cherry (tasty, but plant was wispier and buggier this year). That handful of varieties saved my tomato year, and I have had plenty to share with friends. Also got enough to form an opinion from California Sungold, Pink Champagne, Belle du College, Picus F1, Tommy Toe, One Trick Pony, and Thorburn’s Terra Cotta. I expect to be picking for another month, more or less.
Wrong varieties: Hawaiian Pineapple from Bounty Hunter (got a few yellow cherries), Orange Jazz from a trade (so I wonder if Pink Jazz and Thorburn’s Lemon Blush may be wrong as well), Purple Midnight (got a seedling, couldn’t find info on it; possibly Midnight Snack F1).
Harvested only one or a few fruit from Taxi, Green Tiger, Prairie Fire, Pruden’s Purple, Damsel F1, Maglia Rosa, Ruby Slippers, Taste Patio, Sheboygan, Pink CherryWine F1, Moon Child, Goldie, Daifuku, Sweet Aperitif (but loaded with greenies), and Pink Berkeley Tie Dye at the garden. But in containers on my patio, I got a good early yield of Maglia Rosa and a few Taste Patio, which were planted a month earlier than those in the garden.
Nothing but foliage from Raya Rey, Beefy Red, Sunrise Bumblebee, Legend, Sweet Baby Jade, African Queen, Bo Mango, Belmonte Pear, Granny’s Throwing, GGWT, Franchi’s Red Pear, Talvez F1 (but I see greenies), Carolina Dusk, Woodle Orange, Thorburn’s Lemon Blush, Pink Jazz, Orange Accordion. I will double-check for greenies and start taking these plants out.
Pretty much all the tomato plants looked healthy and vigorous most of the summer except for Green Bee F1, Green Tiger, and Prairie Fire.
Grapes: I have two grape varieties. I started eating Himrod in late June when they were still a bit tart. I’m still eating a few because they started setting new fruit as soon as most of the first crop was picked! I started eating Venus in late July, and they are getting sweeter and sweeter, still a lot on the vine.
Update 26 September: I’ve taken some plants out and discovered two reasons for no/low productivity so far: nematodes and watering. A few roots with root-knot nematode damage were in the beds that had nematode-suppressing Kodiak mustard as a cover crop! But most were in untreated beds. I had planted everything with worm castings and compost in the spring as well.
We get no rain from about May to September, and I didn’t install drip irrigation until the end of August. So I hand-watered, about 2-3 gallons per plant, every 10 days, even at the height of the 100F+ heat waves. But locals say tomato plants need 10 gallons a week, and people I talked with who had good production watered their plants daily during heat waves. Although my plants survived and looked good, many had interior dry leaves. And in the month since adding drip — coincident with more moderate temperatures — a few plants seem to have responded to more water. Sun Sugar, for one, has more and larger fruit and the plant is much more vigorous.
