End-of-the-Garden Report: What Worked

I enjoy working in the vegetable garden, and I think I am getting better at it. I also enjoy wrapping up the gardening year, but before I can do that I like to reflect on how it went and make some plans for next year before I forget what I need to work on.

So here is a list of some of my gardening successes this year. You notice I am not sharing where I was not so successful, but I have a nice long list there and I am working on it for next year.

As a Yankee in the South, I am probably going to hear from my neighbors that you can garden year-round down here. This is true, moreso outside the Piedmont, but I prefer to enjoy the change of seasons and take a break.

Plan the work, work the plan

The plan was to reduce the area of my garden and phase in low-maintenance features. I started by laying out a rectangle and edging it with a brick mowing strip. I moved my perennials – asparagus and raspberries – into a four-foot bed down one long side of the garden. I laid out a path next to that bed and then laid out six four-foot wide beds perpendicular to the long bed, separated by paths. I planted only two of the six beds, leaving the others fallow and mulched or planting extra green beans there. (This makes crop rotation easy: I can rotate tomatoes in particular every three years, or even six years.) I mulched the paths with straw and kept it all weeded.

The next step is to further improve the soil: leaf mulch alone did not work to improve the tilth. Apparently I still need to incorporate organic material mechanically (till), at least for another season or two. I may also experiment with raised beds, which could be easily introduced into the layout.

Plant early and often

This was the first year I almost had enough green beans. I vowed to plant a few rows every three weeks thoughout the season, and although I did not quite make it I had three plantings. The last planting was August 1st and I had beans for the freezer and beans to eat until the end of September. There is nothing so tasty as fresh green beans with butter (except maybe tomatoes fresh out of the garden). Unfortunately, I married a Town Boy who does not appreciate the finer things in life and who can abide fresh green beans only once a week, if that. I let him suffer.

Keep it clean

Last year, when my beans, squash, tomatoes and other crops were finished (or got too buggy) I pulled them up, chopped up the debris as well as I could, and removed it to the compost pile. This year I did not see a bean beetle or any of the ugly brown striped worms that feasted on my tomatoes. I was poised to use the Sevin dust at the first sign of infestation, but I didn't need it. The bean leaves were a little chewed up, but no bean beetles.

Maybe it was just luck, but I have cleaned up the garden well this year, too. The garden looks a whole lot better cleaned up.

When all else fails, follow the directions

I fertilized my tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers with Osmocote slow-release fertilizer when they started to bloom. Osmocote is expensive, but I had just a few plants and it was a lot less work than using liquid fertilizer, which I somehow never got around to applying every two weeks. This was the first year I had tomatoes into October (except the bush Italian varieties, which I grow for the main crop and then pull up and mulch in August). My squash lasted an extra month before the borers got to it, and the bush cucumbers also did better.

Build it...

Trellises, that is. I got the materials – steel fence posts, 4-foot 2x2's, assorted bamboo poles, and baleing twine – and built trellises for my tomatoes and raspberries. Next year I am even going to set them up at the beginning of the season, when I plant the tomatoes, and before the raspberries are all sprawled out. I also need some sturdier poles. Building things is not something I do well.

Next year I will also experiment with pruning the tomato vines, which outgrew the trellis by 10 feet or so.

Pick a peck of...Japanese beetles?

I had a huge crop of red raspberries this year. I also had a huge crop of Japanese beetles. I can't do a lot outside, but I found it to be very relaxing hand-pick Japanese beetles. I use an empty plastic butter container half full of water with about a tablespoon of vegetable oil added, position it under the leaves in question and knock the 6 or so beetles that have congregated there off into the tub. I hate to mess with chemicals, and I would like to think that a quick death from suffocation/drowning is more humane than poisoning. My plants looked a little chewed but I had plenty of berries and hopefully the beetle population will be knocked down some for next year.