Earlier this week, we called for gardeners to share their vegetable-growing success stories. Here’s what we’ve learned so far:
- Spider populations seem to be down for a few gardeners in the area. (That’s fine by me as long as the helpful but creepy little guys don’t go the way of the honey bee.) Has anyone else noticed this? Why would this be happening?
- Cool-season crops such as kale did well all around. (Surprise, surprise.)
- ’Music’ garlic worked well for one gardener, who also found that slugs were particularly hard to nail earlier this year.
- Finally, 32-year-old Tim Dennis of the Lake Roesiger area had an awesome tomato year, thanks to a collection potted plants he was able to move into his garage and under grow lights to finish them off. Cool!
I asked Tim how exactly he set up his plants and lights. Watch this space for updates. For now, however, I’ve posted his words and photos on his 2008 garden:
I had 7 tomato plants, five of which were Romas, one Better Boy and one Early Girl. I got over 250 tomatoes (I kind of lost count) off of my plants. However, I probably would have gotten less than half that amount had I not grown them in pots and been able to bring them in to my garage under a grow light towards the end of September. I actually just picked the last of the tomatoes last week. I think growing them in pots was a good choice. The picture of the tomatoes that I sent you is from just one picking. I think there was about 45 total from just that one picking. I had about three days where I got 40+ and several more where I got 20-30.
I also grew the Golden Bell peppers, Jalapeno peppers, Jalapa peppers (Jalapeno hybrid), Ancho peppers, New-Mex Joe Parker peppers and Super Chili Peppers. I had good success with all, but had to bring the Jalapeno, Jalapa and Golden peppers inside with the tomatoes. The others were done just before the bad weather hit. In my actual garden I grew Broccoli which didn’t do well at all. I ended up scrapping all but one plant and only got a serving or two off of that one. I also grew Cauliflower, both the Snow Crown and purple type. I had four of each type and all but one plant (purple type) produced large, flavorful heads. The spinach, radishes, red cabbage and chard all did very well, although the spinach went to seed once the hot weather hit. I especially had good luck with the cabbages, all four plants produced large heads.
I had little success with my onions, they all ended up being pretty small. Although, they were great for throwing in salads and hash browns. I think I will just grow sweet onions from now on, I went with the red and the cipolini (spelling?) this year.
Anyway, this was my first summer of gardening. I grew peppers the year before, but nothing else. I planted a fall garden on the last day of August with the following veggies: Radishes, turnips, kohlrabi, beets, spinach and a variety of lettuces. I’ve already harvested the radishes and gotten about four salads worth of spinach from the young plants. The turnips are all just about 2” each and probably will be ready for harvest at the end of this weekend. I am not sure about the beets, I think the frost kind of got to them. The kohlrabi is growing, although it’s pretty slow going and the lettuces are all getting pretty big. I think I might start the fall garden a few weeks earlier next year as I live out by Lake Roesiger and we are at about 800 feet in elevation, so it gets colder earlier in the season out here. We’ve already had several frosts, the first was near the last week of September.
To see the other veggie-tales comments, visit the original post. They’re at the bottom in the comments section. Also, please continue to add comments with your own vegetable stories and tips. If you have digital photos to share, send them along with a few details about what’s in them to Sarah Jackson.
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