View Single Post
Old 09-22-2018, 02:01 PM   #7
Ben E Lou
Morgado's Favorite Forum Fascist
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Greensboro, NC
SPRING 2018, PLANT-BY-PLANT

What went well, what didn't, and lessons learned



Here's a quick plant-by-plant rundown of what I put in the ground this spring and how it did.

BASIL--Massive success. I bought three small basil plants from Home Depot. All produced extremely well and my wife made a ton of pesto. Had to give a fair bit away to next-door neighbors, as it was too much for even freezing the pesto at times. Came to enjoy a basil, bacon and tomato sandwich this summer. Three times I was able to cut off larger branches, stick 'em in the ground, and they grew entirely new basil plants.


BELL PEPPERS--Bought seedlings and transplanted them. Decent harvest. No real issues, but didn't produce a ton of peppers.


CANTELOPE--Grew from seeds. Thinned to two plants. They produced four tasty cantelopes over the course of the summer.

CILANTRO--One plant, bought as a seedling. It grew GREAT, but as mentioned earlier, rodents (likely squirrels) absolutely loved this one. We were never able to harvest any of it, though it continued growing back again and again after being just about completely stripped of leaves repeatedly. I'm going to grow this in a portable container on the deck next year, and bring it inside at night. My wife and I both love cilantro.

CUCUMBERS--Seeds. These were interesting. Early in the harvest we were getting a ton of these with AMAZING flavor. They were actually a bit sweet. Our 9-year-old was eating them as a snack, even. The mid-summer, they started becoming yellow and bitter-tasting. Not sure what happened. I couldn't find anything on the internet that looked like what was happening. In case it was a disease or fungus that's in the soil, I'm going to move these to a different location this year and make sure not to grow any squash or zucchini in that area, either.

MARIGOLDS--Small plants. I interspersed these flowers throughout the garden, as they repel a fair number of insects. Seemed to work well, as only a couple of plants had major insect issues. These grew like CRAZY to the point that I had to cut part of the mini-bushes out because they were prohibiting sunlight to some other plants.

MINT--Seedlings. Egad, I had no idea how invasive this could be. Fortunately I was talking with another home gardener who mentioned how they send out roots and new plants throughout their vicinity, so I checked mine fairly early in the summer before they had spread too much, and sure enough, the roots were running all over the place and tiny mint plants were coming up everywhere. My wife and one daughter both love mint in their tea and with some meals, so I'll see about growing this in a container.



ROSEMARY--Seedling. This herb did well, though nothing special. We don't really use rosemary much, so I'm not sure why my wife asked me to grow it.

SQUASH AND ZUCCHINI--Seeds. These were doing great early on, then suffered the great groundhog attack. They came back strong and produced a solid crop until squash bugs and squash vine borers destroyed them completely. I'm considering going non-organic with these next year by just using good ol' Sevin dust.

STRAWBERRIES--We planted one strawberry seedling because my 5-year-old was with me at Home Depot when I bought the herbs, and one strawberry seedling was misplaced among the herbs. She saw the picture of the strawberry, and we just HAD to plant strawberries. It wasn't expected to produce much until next year. We've probably had around 10 strawberries from it this year. Knowing it was a perennial, I put it in the corner of the garden so I can easily just till around it next spring, and maybe add a few more strawberry plants in that area.

SUNFLOWERS--Seeds. Did great once I realized that birds would eat the seedlings. All of the mammoths grew to 8ish feet or taller. If the neighbors change the fence before spring, I should be able to grow a bunch of these.

TOMATOES--Mostly seedlings, but one plant grew on its own right on the fenceline. (Our neighbors did a garden on their side of the fence last year, so it must have been a seed from one of theirs that fell off.) Anyway, EFF YOU, BIRDS!!! The plants did great, but the birds pecked sooooo many of these before we could harvest them. The cherry and grape tomatoes were mostly unscathed while the bigger ones were still growing, but now that they're mostly done (in the last week or so,) the birds are going after the little ones, too. I think I'm going to experiment with the anti-bird tape on some 8-foot stakes to try to protect the entire area next year. Daily harvests from the grape and cherry tomatoes while the birds were distracted were amazing. Here's the harvest from just one grape tomato plant from last week:


https://www.dropbox.com/s/lzpgolov7a3w0i5/grape.png?dl=0



WATERMELON--Seeds. Just two made it, but each one produced a juicy, tasty melon.

WILDFLOWERS--Seeds. Home Depot sold a "pollinator attracting" wildflower package said to cover up to 250 square feet, and that can simply be thrown over the area and raked into loose soil. Easy to do right after tilling, and inexpensive to cover such an area. It worked great in the sense that there were tons of butterflies and bees in the wildflower area all spring and summer. I may use some of the wildflower area for composting next year. We'll see.


__________________
The media don't understand the kinds of problems and pressures 54 million come wit'!
Ben E Lou is offline   Reply With Quote