I’ve had a few people ask about the results of my garden–which is super flattering. I still love gardening, I just didn’t keep statistics like I did last year. It can be time consuming to log everything you grow.

This year I planted zucchini, cherry and heirloom tomatoes, crookneck squash, peppers, potatoes and carrots. I planted the zucchini and carrots first. Too much rain washed all of the zucchini out of my garden and the carrots were washed all over the garden. The carrots ended up growing in chunks instead of neat rows. I was very disappointed about the zucchini because it was a huge crop for me last year. And it makes great noodles!

Since I planted more tomatoes this year, I had a great crop. The cherry tomatoes have produced for months and are still producing! (I don’t expect this to happen for much longer.) The heirloom tomatoes did well, but I think I had a slight case of blight and they didn’t reach their full size potential.

On a funny note, I must have bought the wrong pepper seeds. I thought I bought sweet peppers, but the peppers ended up being so hot that we couldn’t eat them! I managed to put a few into salsa and chili, and give some away, but most of the peppers ended up uneaten. I hate waste, but when I bit into one, I couldn’t breathe. They were that hot.

The squash bloomed and produced for a good two weeks, then died suddenly. But for those two weeks, it was a stunner! My purple potatoes were the biggest surprise. Since they grow underground, I felt like it was a huge gamble. The flowering part of the potato plants looked great, but I had no idea what was going on under the surface. When I finally dug them up, I was so relieved. I ended up getting pounds of potatoes off of two starter potatoes!

Although I spread nutritious soil on the surface of my garden, next year, I will probably dig deeper or use raised beds. The soil where I live is incredibly sandy and I think it has resulted in poor growth and small veggies.

Every year I learn something new with this little garden.

Did you plant a garden this year? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

love,
melanie