It’s been awhile since I gave an update on the garden. Out
of curiosity, I decided to tally the total number of different kinds of fruits,
veggies, and herbs growing this year.
That total number is 50; 8 types of fruits, 31 types of vegetables, and
11 types of herbs. This gave me a
different perspective. I spent a good
portion of the spring really bummed out that the garden wasn’t going “as planned”. Even originally wrote the blog to reflect
that. There was a number of factors into
why things didn’t go “as planned”. I was so bummed out at one point that I
thought maybe this homesteading thing wasn’t our thing. And then I counted, and
realized that we had more successes with planting our garden, than not. A hand
full of things not coming up or working out does not constitute failure. It can
bring frustration maybe, but not failure. I have come to the conclusion that
for us, gardening is a little bit of skill, a little bit of hope and a little
bit of luck. I have realized that there
will be some things that will just not be our thing. There will be things
beyond our control that will have an impact on our success each year and that
is ok. I have come to the realization that we need to just celebrate the crops
that we can grow each year.
I think the biggest
factor this year was the winter and colder spring. The winter impacted mainly our fruits. Our peach tree is struggling, although not as
bad as I thought. Two weeks ago I would
have told you it was a total loss, turns out it is not. The
plum tree is about ½ dead, oddly enough, and it will not give us any plums this
year. We did kind of anticipate this because it had so many plums last year, we
figure it will be going into the dormant year or two. It is part of the fruit tree cycle. 2 of the
3 grapevines also did not survive the winter.
We also lost the blackberry to winter.
Which is ok, from what I have been reading on local blogs and learning
when talking to others, we aren’t the only ones who had this issue. But we
found a local nursery that we have just come to love. Their things are on the cheaper side and they
take time to answer any questions you might have to make sure you are
successful. We replaced one of the two
grape vines we lost and discovered that we probably transplanted them wrong
last year. We planted this one directly
across the deck from the other so they can both climb along the trellis we
built and create a beautiful natural shady area on the deck! And it’s growing
very well. We may not get grapes from it
this year, but we will get tons of grapes from our established concord this
year. Every year this one seems to do
better and better! We also are trying
Garden Huckleberries this year. We got
the seeds for free and thought we would try them, and they are doing extremely
well, although they make me a bit nervous growing (they are actually poisonous
until cooked). Both of these alone
equate to lots of jam and jellies this year.
Along with these fruits we got the berry garden box planted for the most
part. We still need to add the blueberry
and blackberry plants. We also need to try a different type of more established
strawberries. But the best news out of
the berry plants is that the cranberry plant we though we killed by trying to
get it through the winter in the house is really not dead! We may even get a small hand full of
cranberries from it this year. We also have a very tiny apple tree from a
seedling growing in my friend’s back yard. I am cautiously optimistic we will
be able to keep it alive until it is big enough to be planted! Definitely some
exciting things happening with the fruits/berries this year.
The 2nd of the three boxes was meant to be an
herb garden, more for teas and medicinal purposes. But with some other situations we were
dealing with this past spring, I ended up starting the plants about 4 weeks
later than I should have. We just literally
got the chamomile, calendula, and one tiny Echinacea plant in the ground. The feverfew, lavender, and other Echinacea
plants are not mature enough quite yet.
For the longest time the only thing we had in this box was the Comfrey
that my best friend dug up and gave us.
So not knowing when the other plants would be ready, we decided to plant
a giant cabbage plant that my friend also gave us. Surprisingly the cabbage is doing really
well. I have determined that cabbage is
one thing we are not at all successful growing.
We have tried for 3 years, even planted several plants before the first
frost this year and nada. This head of
cabbage may be the only cabbage we ever grow!
The 3rd box is meant to just be an overflow of
whatever we want to try. This year it
was meant to be strictly tomatoes and popcorn, all because we had an
overabundance of tomatoes. Sadly, much
to my disappointment, we did not do something correct in separating out the 78
plants into individual containers. We
watched several videos and thought we did it right, but no dice. We lost all but 2 plants, and then we lost
those 2 when we planted them in the box.
I was heartbroken. So we had to
buy established organic tomato plants this year, 2 big boys, a tomatillo, and a
green tomato. We also decided to plant
the green chili’s in this box since we had room. This is another crop that we may just decide
isn’t worth the hassle. I knew it would
be tough growing them in our climate after spending much time last year reading
on it before we attempted it. We weren’t
very successful last year, but we knew why and thought we would try something
different this year. We planted 36
plants and only about 10 survived, and for a while I thought even those 10
would be iffy. But in the past week they
have taken off. So we will get some, but
not anywhere the two bushels we go through in a year. Maybe we will grow them next year, maybe we
won’t. I haven’t decided. Also in this box are Dill’s Gigantic Pumpkins.
We have attempted these in previous years, and have not had success. But it’s because I am trying to grow one
ginormous pumpkin, and there are steps that you have to take to make this
happen. Like you have to bury the vine,
and pluck off all the fruit but one, etc.
Lots of time needed to grow ONE giant pumpkin. But with my obsession with Halloween and fall
time, I like the idea of growing big pumpkins (not for contest). So we started 3 plants this year and planted
them all in the corner of this box, where if by chance I get a giant pumpkin it
will have room to grow. And as it turns
out all three plants are fruit bearing!
We have a pumpkin or two on each plant!
So maybe this year…..just maybe we will get ONE giant pumpkin out of the
mix! That alone will make this year worth it! (haha) And lastly we planted popcorn that is doing
well in this box.
Onto the greenhouse……….The greenhouse was a bit of a
surprise this year. Turns out my
devastation of losing the tomato plants was for nothing. We have wild tomatoes
growing in the greenhouse. Every single
time I step into the greenhouse, I have a new tomato plant popping up
somewhere. So I just replant them in an
area we had to make for them. We have no
idea what kind of tomatoes they are, because we had 4 or 5 different kinds in
the greenhouse last year. So it’s a
waiting game to see what we get off of them.
All we know is there is a lot. According
to the plan we planted the bell peppers, jalapenos, and habaneros (the ghost
plant didn’t make it). We also added
sweet peppers (I got the seeds free from work for Earth Day). On the other side, we are on round two of
radishes, lettuce and arugula. The first
round was a success (except the cabbage), and we even added spinach the 2nd
round. We have been eating fresh salads
from our greenhouse since about May.
Last but not least we have the mini garden…..onions and two
different kinds of carrots. I had read
how to start onions from seed. So we
attempted to do that, the plan was to have 100 onions this year. It didn’t work, they died before we could
even get them in the ground. So we ended
up buying two different types of onion sets (bulbs), yellow and white. We planted those and they are coming up
great. We spent less than $3 bucks on the sets.
We have decided that this will be the way to go from this year
forward. For a few cents more than the
seed we save ourselves the hassle of planting and separating out the
seedlings. Carrots; since we have moved
into this house we have not ever been successful at growing carrots. For a long time we didn’t even list them has
a crop we wanted to grow. But we ended
up getting some at the farm last year and come to realize we eat them more than
we thought we did. So we thought we
would give it another go, following special rules and plans to grow them. Some are growing and some are not, not as
many as we hoped for. We will give this
another go next year and then decide if maybe this is a crop we will just have
to supplement at the farm.
The big garden……..what to say about that other than somehow
I read the map wrong when we were planting and then when we were half way done
with planting I realized I was backwards on the map. So we corrected it, but didn’t write down
what was where so……essentially we got the zucchinis, cucumbers, and pumpkins
mixed up, and up until this weekend because the vines are all so similar we had
no idea what was what. And we aren’t
entirely sure which cucumbers are what, we planted two different kinds. One kind has A LOT of plants and another kind
only has 2 plants. So we will have a lot
of one and not a lot of the other. We
will just wait to be surprised. This
garden is a tad barer than we had planned, since we moved the green chili’s out
of it. It also does not have any
broccoli. We tried to grow it from seed
and they died. So then we even bought
some and those died before we could get them into the ground too. It’s interesting because I have heard and
read that broccoli is one of the easier crops to grow, but typically if it’s
easy we can’t grow it. It’s just the way it’s always been, LOL. So we will try again next year. We planted
both asparagus we grew from seed and bought from root. Only time will tell if they come up. It takes time and we won’t get crops from
them for about 3 years. And the cooking
herb garden that was in the plans for this area is a work in progress. We got rosemary in the ground. That’s it.
We will work on it though. And
lastly the corn and green beans are doing just fine.
We also planted our potatoes differently this year, in a
container that is specifically meant for growing them. And both kinds appear to be doing great,
there is a lot of plants anyway. We will see in a few weeks if we actually have
potatoes in the bags. And we had wild
garlic growing……we only got 3 heads of garlic, but that is the first time we
have ever harvested garlic before! Usually the dogs trample them before we have
a chance to pick them. And just like
last year, we have wild basil (lots of it) growing again.
Overall, it’s coming together. We have finished landscaping the yard, making
a walkway to the fire pit and around the yard.
We finished around the fire pit, essentially laying out the design of
the back yard. We planted grass seed as
well. We re-did the roof of the covered
deck so it would stop leaking and we could sit and enjoy a nice rainstorm
without getting wet. While every other
Coloradan is getting sick of the rain (ok, we sort of are), we have been very
thankful for the rain. It has helped
with the establishing of the grass and crops and helping the hedge we planted
last year come back. This year might not
be going according to the grand plan, but things are coming together. We finally, after 10 years of living in this
house HAVE GRASS in the backyard! We
still have weeds, oh so many weeds………but we discovered when weeding that we
have thistle weed. We started pulling it
then realized we had tons of honey bees around and on the thistle weed. And if anyone is aware, there is growing
concern over honey bees and the fact they are diminishing. So we decided to do our part and leave the
thistle weed to try and help save the honey bees. This year might not be going
according to the grand plan, but things are coming together. And I have learned
to be more patient and accepting of the process.
No comments:
Post a Comment