2008 Garden Yield

Here's what my garden has done, anyone else want to add to this thread?

Let's see...
Peas never set any fruit (planted too late), cukes set only a few tiny ones that I missed until they turned orange. Basil's doing OK, Oregano going wild, Thyme has gotten buried by the oregano, Chives doing just fine (but don't get used often -- maybe time to make some chive oil).

Bell peppers are doing great: huge flavor on the red peppers (the yellow ones aren't fully ripe yet). Two red ones made their way into the tomato sauce (below). Jalapenos are also wonderful, a few red ones, lots of green ones. They've gone into salsa, fajitas and the Thai Cuke Relish I brought to the picnic (and a few other batches of that, it's my go-to potluck dish this year).

Tomatoes could have done better if I watered them more, and if I picked the yellow heirloom variety when they were ripe instead of waiting for them to turn a red they'd never achieve. I've made awesome salsa cruda, a couple of caprese salads, a few eaten out of hand and tonight, 5 pints of sauce.

Raspberries are coming in gangbusters this week, just picked a pint tonight, with probably that much more in a week.

[edit] I forgot about the grapes on the back patio trellisses: 8 cups of jelly, and a bad case of poison ivy.

Herbs went crazy this year: I just love having thyme, rosemary (which wasn't so happy) sage, 2 kinds of oregano, 3 kinds of basil, lavendar, marjoram, chives and 2 hanging baskets of parsley right out my back door - I've taking to sending Sparky out to taste & pick what he wants (he now goes out there and eats the oregano right off the plant)

Peas were pretty good; we got a several good meals and the bunny fence seemed to work. Likewise for beans, which would have done better if I'd picked more thoroughly. Broccoli was kind of a bust - 1 good meal, and a few shoots here and there; I beheaded the plants thoroughly in hopes that they'd set more flowers, but nothing so far. Cucumbers got bacterial wilt (from potato beetles) and, though I got several really delicious ones, didn't bear well and died. Corn was eaten by raccoons, beets (mostly) by rabbits, raspberries are slowly coming in. Haven't poked around under the carrots, but judging by the tops I have a good crop.

Tomatoes and peppers are all behind because I started late and the entire garden isn't as sunny as I'd like, but we've had some excellent yellow paste and yellow pear tomatoes, several Brandywines (thanks to Bordeaux solution) and one to-die-for Pineapple Tomato. We've got a lot of green ones coming in, so depending on the weather, we might be in for a canning session. Peppers are all bearing little baby peppers, hope the weather holds out for those, too!

I've been griping about the animal damage, but all in all it was a pretty good year...

My rooftop garden with Sub-irrigated planters did great this year. For the last several years Ive had a rooftop garden and had a little production, but I am definitely sticking with the SiPs from now on.

My tomatoes were just awesome, had just 2 plants - a brandywine and a purple brandywine. At peak was getting more than I could handle, and they were just huge perfect tomatoes and they continue to produce 1-4 tomatoes a day.

My zucchini was really great early on, grew an Italian heirloom Costata Romanesco. Probably the best Zucchini I've ever had. After a great start, it became a summer long battle with powdery mildew and spotted cucumber beetles. Once the zucchini got really bad I should have disposed of it, but out of stubborness and guilt I fought it all summer long. Never got a single zucchini once the powdery mildew got bad. Managed to keep the plants alive, but to what end? Guess I learned my lesson and next year I will not take it personally when a plant takes a nosedive.

Had 6 various pepper plants, cayenne, jalapenos, some frying peppers and some bell. I was really disapointed with them early on, but they have become heavy producers of great peppers late in the year.

My 2 varieties of bush beans were great - jade and Royal Burgundy from johnny's seeds:
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/catalog/prod ... ns&item=16
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/catalog/prod ... &item=2944

They were a little slow to get going but the 10 or so plants have produced pounds upon pounds of delicious fresh beans. The jade were particularly delicious.

Planted some cucumbers in mid July, they are just starting to produce right now so I wont know how they are till later. Grew a hybrid variety called Diva.

Grew a lot of beets this year nestled in between flowers and herbs. early in the year I kept snipping off the young greens and then let them mature after a while. The greens and the beets were delicious. Have a second crop growing now for a fall harvest along with some kale, baby lettuces and radishes. The beet leaves were quite beautiful as well and are nice as an ornamental themselves.

Strawberries (ever-bearing) are producing fairly heavily now but they have been a bit underwhelming flavor wise. I suspect its due to getting some no-name hybrid from home depot. Have no clue what variety they are. They have been mildy sour and fairly bland. At least the flowers were pretty =)

Herbs have grown like crazy this year. More thyme, marjoram, tarragon, basil, chives, chervil, lavender, rosemary than I can deal with. Radishes and lettuce has also been nonstop all year with our fairly mild summer.

So overall, a great year so far. Still another month or so with fall crops. Learned a lot! I'm already eagerly anticipating next years early spring plantings.


If you're interested, a few of us have been blogging about using SiPs this summer here:
http://greenroofgrowers.blogspot.com/

and here is my chaotic collection of garden photos over the summer:
http://flickr.com/photos/wheattoast/col ... 288736400/

So far I've had a really good year with my garden.

I have an abundance of tomatoes this year, more than I actually know what to do with. Cucumbers and zucchini were abundant as well. I have plenty of bell peppers and Hungarian Wax Peppers as well. My parsley and dill took over a good patch of the garden, and the chives did okay, but not as well as the other herbs. Black Seeded simpson lettuce came in really good as well this year. I've had rabbit problems in the past with my lettuce. My watermelons seemed to wither off, but pumpkins still remain to be seen. My beets and carrots didn't come in as well as I'd hoped they wood.

I had blackberries this year for the first time, it's only the 2nd year that I've had the plants in so i wasn't expecting that much, but we got maybe a handful of small berries, and not anything on the raspberry plant we put in.

All in all this is one of the better years that I've had for my garden and I'm very happy with what I've gotten.

I'll echo Wheattoast's sentiments on SIPs since I use them on my rooftop garden as well. It's been a very productive first year and I couldn't be happier. Vegetable gardening has actually gotten pretty addictive and I'm really looking forward to next year (even though we still have some growing season left this year).

In early May (maybe too early for some) I started with 8 tomato plants, a box of red leaf lettuce, a box of romaine, box of dutch onions, 6 broccoli plants, 3 bell peppers plants, 1 anneheim plant, 1 serrano plant, 1 chili red pepper, 6 strawberry plants, 2 zucchini, 2 cucumber, 1 japanese eggplant, and 1 black beauty eggplant.

The lettuce took off and I was giving it away in bags, I just couldn't keep up. Then the broccoli hit, 6 huge heads - half I ate or froze, half I gave away. The onions surprised me; they did really well. I pulled some early for "spring onions" and left the others until just a few days ago and they're about the size of baseballs. I've replanted a few so I'll have some more for fall. The zucchini did well at first but then powdery mildew set in and the fruit stopped coming in. The cucs, in the same box as the zucs, never took off. The eggplant has been very good - japanese did well early and the black beautys have been coming in lately. My tomatoes were a huge success. For about a month straight, I had over 20 at a time on my kitchen counter. I was giving them away to friends, family and whoever stopped by. The peppers are doing well too, plenty to eat. The strawberries weren't much at first but lately, they've been coming on strong.

In late June, I pulled the lettuces (a little late actually) and planted a box of herbs (basil, parsley, thyme, and rosemary). It's been doing very well - a little too well. In mid-July, I pulled the broccoli and the another box of lettuce (really late at this time) and planted some string beans in one box and a cherokee purple and hillbilly tomato plant in the other box. The beans are doing very well but the strings are really annoying. I've gotten two cherokee purples already and the plant has another 15-20 ready to ripen. The hillbilly is a bit longer to mature but it has many little green guys on there.

A few days ago, I pulled the zucchini/cuc box and planted some spinach and bibb lettuce for the fall. We'll see if it's too late but why not?

Overall, great year. Only regrets: zucchini and cucs (I won't put them in the same box and will try a disease resistant variety next year), strawberries (not enough yield for a whole summer), onions (although really good, I'll only get about 10-16 this year since they're so long to mature), and my own timing. I should have pulled lettuces earlier, broccoli earlier, zucs earlier and gotten some more fall crops in. It's been hard to tell if a plant has had it for the year though - next year will be better.

I was interested in reading about the raspberries, and blackberries some grew that are just being ready to pick now. I have a large section in the woods at the back of my house with maybe 50 of these plants growing wild there, & they yielded their fruit about 8-10 weeks ago. I wonder what accounts for the difference in the harvest times?

Our raspberries, now in their second year (so still not really offering a ton of fruit) are just now getting ripe. I think the differences in times are variety-driven. Black raspberries, which I'm hoping will grow from the seeds I tossed out when I made black raspberry puree, for instance, seem to be a spring fruit.

Mhays wrote:Our raspberries, now in their second year (so still not really offering a ton of fruit) are just now getting ripe. I think the differences in times are variety-driven. Black raspberries, which I'm hoping will grow from the seeds I tossed out when I made black raspberry puree, for instance, seem to be a spring fruit.

I've got black and red canes. The red ones are "everbearing" and provide fruit in June on last year's canes, September on new growth.
The black ones only fruit in the June timeframe, and produce long, looping canes that re-root themselves when they hit the ground again. The black ones are intense in flavor, and made an awesome sorbet a couple years ago before my kitchen addition covered up most of the black patch. They do have bigger, tougher seeds.

Joel

I've been really, really happy with my 3 square foot gardens. I probably planted too much parsley but it's nice to have an endless supply for garnish and for chimichurri sauce.

Early in the season I had 4 heads of romaine that supplied greens for some very nice caesar salads. The other greens weren't as great but I'm not that big of a salad eater anyways.

The nantese carrots probably should have been thinned but I've still got a bunch in the ground that I'll pull up pretty soon. They have been small but have had a very nice sweet, peppery taste. I've harvested a bunch of celery for some very nice bolognese and mirepoix as well.

The only big disappointments have been the scallions, leeks and onions, which I planted way too close together and ended up with miniature versions of all of them. The scallions aren't bad, the others aren't so great.

7 cayenne, jalapeno, melrose and thai pepper plants are still producing and I'll probably dry a lot of them. The two yellow pepper plants have 5-6 each on them and are starting to turn.

The big showpieces have of course been my tomatoes -- 2 green zebra, 2 brandywine and 1 lemon boy. The current tally on them is:

15 brandywine; 8.54 lbs. Largest is a 1.5lb whopper. Not really sure why the yield was so low.
39 lemon boy; 15.5lbs; A nice yield but I don't think the variety was all that tasty
63 green zebra; 11.2 lbs; Lots of small/medium fruits, but that was OK because 1 tomato was enough for 1 salad or sandwich.

total so far (probably 20-30 green ones still out there): 117 at 35.478 lbs and I've probably given away half of that total. I think I've had enough caprese salads, BLTs and salsa to last me for about 10 years.

Next year, I think I'll space out the tomatoes a bit as at 1/sq ft, they got very tangled. I'll also put all the peppers in 1 box and greens in another to minimize the sun/shade issues.

My deck boxes have had plenty of thyme, tarragon and basil as well.

Overall, it was very productive & tasty growing season !