End of summer reflection...How did your garden's come out this year? Anything you would do

B

barb_b

Well-known member
differently? I worked really hard on ours. It was my first in many years...While I am very proud that I did it, and will do again next year, I was disappointed in the tomatoes....I did such a large variety and really only enjoyed the standard heirloom large red, some plum and cherry 101....The others did not grow as well, and were not nearly as flavorful...(Perhaps I need to use a different place to purchase)

The other complexity was a gopher...He did alot of damage to cucs and hungarian beans....

Lastly, the weather wasn't cooperating. I ended up with a great large weed garden with some vegies in it.

BUT, I had fun!!

 
Mine was the best I've ever had in my present residence.

Because of the constant attack on edible plant life in my garden by deer, rabbits, racoons, squirrels, chipmunks, groundhogs, and who knows what else, I moved entirely to a 15x15 walled patio fortress garden in containers this year, with a motion-activated water cannon standing guard 24x7.

We were finally up to our eyeballs in tomatoes and giving them away by the end of the summer. I used much larger containers this year with a lighter organic soil mix coupled with less watering and that finally did the trick.

I also raised chilies, peppers, kohlrabi, roma beans, egg plants, lettuces, radishes, cucumbers, etc. and lots of herbs in the fortress.

My season-long harvest would have cost approximately $400 if I would have bought the same at the farmer's markets.

 
oh, Richard

I just read the phrase 'motion-activated water cannon' and am just in stitches. We don't have those things in Europe yet (as far as I know)...hee hee...but I absolutely can't wait to get one. My best. cheers, Bonnie

 
I've been feeling very fortunate about my harvest. It's still going, with cherry tomatoes on 24'

high plants. Peaches, pears, saskatoons, 2 huge raspberry crops, apples, rhubarb, no plums as we had to cut out most of the tree, lettuces, herbs. A meal of beans every 3rd day off only 6 plants. The bugs and slugs were bad this year so many plants just didn't get going. But what did have all yielded huge crops. Tomatoes up the ying-yang and hoping for the leeks to grow up now.

Don't have any trouble with the wildlife at all. I do make sure they have lots of peanuts though.

The roses have suffered because of the rain in the spring. My rose garden is very sad-looking. The aphids got them but I tried the rhubarb leaf trick and that worked well. Will definitely do that again.

It was a dreadful summer otherwise. I think we got into the 90s only twice.

 
Richard, I too moved inside the walled patio but it didn't keep......

the huge, ugly caterpillars from munching every leaf of my parsley and sage (almost overnight!) nor the spider mites from enjoying my rosemary and thyme. Oh well, I enjoyed it about a month before they found it.

 
Lots of tomatoes! Next year, better soil!

I worked really hard to keep up with 3 high producing tomato plants in containers. The tomatoes we've harvested were very good, but not fabulous. It seems that everything was done correctly over the season - water, fertilizer, sun, temp, pest control - so I believe it was the soil I started out with. (I'm a bit ashamed at this point to admit what I started out with :eek:) The zucchinis I planted in a container did not produce at all.

I still have many tomatoes on the vines at various stages of ripe. This was my first successful season for tomatoes. In the past I've let nature take its course, with limited results.

I had success protecting my tomatoes from "pests" by using a plastic mesh netting tacked to my east-facing garage wall and staked into the yard(tent style.) The mesh I used was not the "Ross Trellis Netting" but Ross looks to be very close to the type I used (packaging gone!) I should be able to reuse this mesh next year. Colleen

http://www.acehardwaresuperstore.com/ross-trellis-netting-6-x-12-p-58588.html

 
Garden and dogs

The dogs, Sally and Grace, are doing great, thanks. The garden was a mixed bag this year -- hee hee, aren't they always?!? Some things were okay and others weren't. I tried white cosmos for the first time - in the pink/purple border. Those were absolutely beautiful and really tall. Loved that and am going to do it again next year. But the dahlias I bought for that border were supposed to be a magenta purple color (according to the picture on the packet) but turned out to be reddish, not lovely in form, and with a bright yellow center. Ugh. That messed up the whole border for me. The lesson for me here is to always buy at a nursery and not at a big national chain garden center. Oh, and to not get lazy about taking the dahlias out of the ground for winter storage, leave them in the ground, then have to buy a whole new batch of dahlias...bad Bonnie. The red border was okay but took a while to get going since I started most everything in that border from seed this year instead of packing it with dahlias like usual. Not a super border this year. Oh, well. I am crazy about salvias (that's where Sally gets her name from) and added hugely to the salvia in pots collection this year; it's been one of my favorite garden bits lately. In all in the garden (ground and pots), I have about 33 different varieties of salvia in all sorts of colors and forms. Great stuff. And how did things go over your way? cheers, Bonnie

 
Many people in the Ottawa area lost their tomato crop due to a cool and rainy summer. However,

one friend ended up with the best tasting and looking tomatoes she's had in years. This year, for the first time, she gave each tomato plant hole a good dose of crushed egg shells when she was putting them in the ground. Apparently the egg shells prevent end rot. I've been the lucky recipient of a few batches of these wonderful tomatoes. Yum!

 
My garden was a nice refuge for the neighborhood squirrels. Out of

12 tomato plants, I got maybe 4 tomatoes. And thosehad black rings around them and I had to pare away the bad parts. I hear it was a terrible year for tomatoes in the northeast because of the cool summer and the lack of rain. Blight, I think they said... a bacterial thing and we didn't have the heat needed to destroy the disease.

Mulberries great, lemon balm great, mint too much, and chives perfect. I don't know what else I would do differently next year except maybe a raindance! And maybe thin out the herbs from the grass a little earlier in the season.

Glad to hear of everyone else's success stories though!

 
Didn't do as much this year, and got lazy about what there was, so the first couple of arugula

crops just went to seed. We're finally enjoying some of the last crop. Same with the herbs, which flourished for a few weeks and then just got leggy. Feels like I spent more time cutting their flowers off than I did actually cooking with them. The watercress didn't even sprout, despite cooler and wetter weather. Tomatoes were slow, sparse and boring. Runner beans were tough. All of which means farmers' markets got a lot of my business.

On the bright side, we completely dug out and re-designed our perennial bed, and it was gorgeous all summer and looks like it'll be flowering well into fall. Very happy.

 
I've been doing the eggshell thing for 30 years and it hasn't helped us.

We had the Worst blossom end rot problem this year than ever before. Earl thinks it's soil pH and bought a soil test kit. Our one cuke mound did paultry. Our zukes have white fly and aphid. That being said our little light bulbs tomatoes always do great. I even dehydrated some this year with some good ideas for using them as a garnish for an hor d'oeuvre.

 
The rhubarb trick

I didn't bother with the soap. It worked fine without it. I was concerned that the liquid would just slip off the plants.

I did 2 sprayings as the first did not get them all. A couple of days after the 2nd spray, there were no aphids all summer long.

I think my concoction was about 3 large leaves to 3 cups of water.

Caution though not to use it on herbs. And I was careful not to let it drip on anything that the little animals licked or sat on.

Rhubarb to the rescue: aphid spray
and saving the ozone layer
Rhubarb's talents extend beyond pies and cakes. In fact, scientists have discovered that the oxalic acid in rhubarb stems (the same stuff that makes your lips pucker) can be used to scour cooking pots.
If aphids are pest in your garden, rhubarb can help. In her book, "Slug Bread & Beheaded Thistles," author Ellen Sandbeck describes a unique use for rhubarb leaves--as an aphid spray. Here's the recipe:
1) Chop 3 to 5 rhubarb leaves and add to a quart of water.
2) Boil for 30 minutes.
3) Strain and add a dash of liquid, non-detergent, soap.
4) Fill spray bottle with liquid and use it on aphids.
Note: Because rhubarb leaves are poisonous, don't use this spray on edible plants

 
not for Sandi... REC: DUCK WITH BLACKBERRY SAUCE

I've been posting this one for years as well. Some recipes warrant a repost occasionally, I think.

DUCK WITH BLACKBERRY SAUCE

Here's a great main course from the Post Hotel at Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. If you can't find boneless duck breasts, buy two whole ducks, and ask the butcher to remove the breasts for you. Freeze the leg and thigh meat to use at another time. Partner this with green beans for a colourful presentation.

3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup dry white wine
1/3 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons raspberry vinegar
1 1/4 cups frozen blackberries, thawed
1 1/4 cups canned beef broth
1/2 cup canned low-salt chicken broth
2 tablespoons Cognac or brandy
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup

4 5- to 6-ounce duck breast halves with skin

Additional blackberries (optional)

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in heavy large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add sugar; stir until sugar dissolves and mixture turns deep amber color, about 5 minutes. Add wine, orange juice and vinegar (mixture will bubble vigorously) and bring to boil, stirring to dissolve caramel. Add 1 1/4 cups berries and both broths and boil until sauce thickens and is reduced to about 1 cup, stirring occasionally, about 25 minutes. Strain sauce through sieve into heavy small saucepan, pressing on berries with back of spoon. Mix in Cognac and maple syrup. Set sauce aside. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.)

Preheat oven to 400̊F. Trim any excess fat from duck breasts. Cut three 4-inch-long by 1/16-inch-deep lengthwise slits in skin (not meat) of duck. Season duck with salt and pepper. Heat heavy large ovenproof skillet over high heat until hot. Add duck, skin side down, and sear until brown, about 5 minutes. Turn over; cook 3 minutes. Transfer skillet to oven; continue cooking to desired doneness, about 3 minutes for medium.

Meanwhile, bring sauce to simmer over low heat. Add remaining 1 tablespoon butter and whisk just until melted. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Spoon sauce onto plates. Slice duck and place atop sauce. Garnish with additional berries, if desired, and serve.

Serves 4.
Bon Appétit, February 1996

I've made this with BBQ duck breasts. I also make the sauce to serve over rotissed whole duck.

 
my garden is overgrown---I need to do some severe thinning next Spring. We had some snow last night!

the mountaintops are now powdered white. I received a check for $23 from the State Fair for some awards I received for a few flowers I entered on a whim. What a surprise! My Campanula bluebells and Achillea got first place. Edelweiss, Gentian and Honeysuckle got second and a spirea got third. Ha. I entered these just to get into the fair for free, and now I have recouped gas money! I thought my shortbread hearts might have won something, but they haven't posted the Open cookie results. That may still be a surprise. This is the first time I ever entered any flowers. I'll be doing it again! I don't garden for prizewinning flowers, just for delight in it. I'll say again, I was totally surprised.

 
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