Putting the garden to bed

Here's a beginning/middle/end look at my neighbor's and my square foot garden.  It looked so cute and hopeful in May, so lush in July, but now it's brown and overgrown and pretty much done.  There are a few green tomatoes on the vine, our cauliflower is going to town, and the beans I planted late are producing, but otherwise, it's done.

Looking back, I would say it was a worthwhile effort.  Certainly it was a success in terms of entertainment and teaching Max about a growth cycle.  We trooped out to the garden regularly to see how everything was doing and were excited at the initial shoots and at seeing them expand, flower, and fruit.  In terms of enjoyment, I'd rate the garden a B/B+.

In terms of actual production, I'm not as happy.  What grew?  Well, the lettuce we grew from plants produced, although I think we should have picked it sooner, as it was more bitter the bigger the lettuce grew.  The lettuce from seed never took off, although what we got wasn't untasty.  We did get some tomatoes, esp. from the cherry tomato plant in the northwest corner.  That one was growing closest to a pile of grass heaped there, sort of an impromptu compost pile. The tomatoes were good, although we never got the barrage gardeners often get in August.  Ours came late and not in overabundance.  The Swiss chard grew, as did the beans, all three sets we planted.  We also got some pea pods.  Not tons, but some.   Our basil, dill, and cilantro did do well. 

Our broccoli didn't flourish.  We planted cantaloupe and watermelon plants, and both vined out but produced nearly nothing.  The same thing happened with the pumpkin plants. One survived until now, but there are only tiny pumpkins on the vine.  Our onions are still small.  We only got a couple of small cucumbers from our 4 plants.

I think, this being our first effort at gardening, a few mistakes were made.  I don't think we fertilized enough.  I think we were both hesitant to overfertilize, but if we had added more, I think our tomatoes would have done much better.  I've been composting actively with all of my canning refuse - 3 full buckets so far.  We are planning to continue that and manure also when the garden is all done.  

I'm not sure if we're going to do the square foot model again next year or try rows.  Some of our plants didn't get enough sun, I think.  The onions in particular.  I'm not sure why the cucumbers crapped out.  I'll have to read up on that.  

Grade-wise, I'd give our haul a C at best.  We can do better.  

Overall, though, this was an exciting experiment.  Max and I both enjoyed the whole process.  It wasn't really that much work, considering what we got out of it, and the plants that did grow gave us tasty treats all summer.  I'm glad I did it and I'm glad my neighbor and I collaborated.  It was a fun way to get to know each other better.  So, yay for gardens!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tags: gardens  gardening  square foot gardening