I know it's a little late doing a vegetable gardening post now that the season is completely over, but I was so busy in my garden this year, I didn't have to time to blog about my garden. I truly don't know how other bloggers find the time to both garden and blog about their gardens. So I am just going to share the highlights of this year's garden, all its hardships and successes. If anything interests you, just pin this post for next year! That is what I do; most of my planning is in the winter months, looking at ideas I pinned.
I'm sure you heard from other gardeners that it was a difficult year for vegetable gardens. We really struggled getting this garden going, but once it did, it did produce, but not like previous years. We had SO MUCH RAIN! It rained almost daily for close to three months, and not just a light rain, but torrential downpours. The plants would not grow because their roots were constantly soaking in water. I lost almost all my first plantings of tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, and broccoli and I had to go out and buy more plants. However, when I returned to the nursery to purchase more plants, most of them were sold out already because everyone else had the same problem. So I ended up grabbing whatever I could and not my usual tried and true varieties. I ended up with a lot of cherry tomatoes and just a couple of large tomato plants so I did very little canning of tomatoes this year.
Eventually the rain stopped after the 4th of July, and it did start to warm up a little, but it was almost too late. Things didn't grow abundantly like they have in previous years. The cauliflower and broccoli heads were much smaller, and potatoes didn't yield as much either.
I tried three or four times to germinate cucumber seeds in the ground, and they just wouldn't germinate, and if they did, they stopped growing shortly after germination. I finally gave up and tried planting the seeds in potting soil, then they germinated and shot up well. I planted them in the ground once they were a good size and they grew into luscious green vines and produced a lot. But again, it was late in the year, so even though I got a good harvest from them, it wasn't as many as I would have liked because the garden season was almost over when they were just taking off.
Below is a photo of my cucumber vines. I grew them up a stake, then I tied a string to the beams for them to latch on to. Eventually they got so tall, they latched on to the roof of the house!
Here you can see the cucumber vines from inside the screened-in porch.
Here is a beautiful, little head of broccoli starting to grown. I love all the dew drops left from the morning rain.
Although most vegetables hated the constant rain, some really thrived like bush beans and lettuce. I never had a better crop of beans. The leaves looked so healthy! Usually my bean leaves turn yellow and nasty looking. This year they stayed looking this way all summer long. They produced so many beans! I actually grew tired of picking beans everyday.
I grew pole beans too, they grew up and over my nine foot fence! I had to use a ladder to get to the beans at the tippy top!
Usually when I plant lettuce in the spring, it only lasts about a month then it gets too hot and it bolts. Not this year! Because of all the rain and cooler temperatures, I enjoyed fresh garden lettuce all summer long. I actually got sick of eating salad every single day.
Isn't this lettuce just beautiful? As pretty as a flower!
And speaking of flowers, don't you just love Chive plants? They are so pretty, especially when they bloom and insects and animals hate them so they leave them alone. Every garden should have a chive plant.
I discovered I love beet juice and it is so good for you! If you have high blood pressure, beet juice is excellent for reducing it. I grew more beets than I did last year, and drank fresh beet juice all summer long.
I purchased several new kitchen gadgets this year to make my harvesting easier. And of course, after I purchased them I wondered why in the world I waited so long! My favorite purchase was a dehydrator. I had so many cherry tomatoes I didn't know what to do with them. I found out you can dehydrate them, and oh my gosh, are they delicious dried! I also dehydrated some cucumbers; just sprinkle them with dill and salt and you have a healthy alternative to potato chips. Right now as I write this post, I have Tabasco peppers drying in the dehydrator and I will make a chili powder out of them. I purchased
THIS DEHYDRATOR from Amazon. It's been working very well. Dehydrators can be pricey so it is an investment, however if your someone like me who has a ton of garden produce, they are so worth it!
Other purchases I made was this vacuum sealer. Oh my gosh, again, why did I wait so long to get one of these? They suck all the air out of the plastic bag so your food doesn't get filled with "snow" as I like to call it, and then it seals it too! Also, the finished product uses less freezer space, so I have more room in the freezer. I got this one called
"Professional Series" FREE by using my Menards rebates.
Here are some peppers I cut, vacuum sealed, and will freeze.
Another new kitchen gadget I picked up FREE with rebates from Menards was this Coffee Grinder/Spice Blender. I grow a lot of herbs and dry them, and in the past I would just hand crunch them, but I could never get them into a nice powder like you would get if you bought spices at the store. But now I can, because this appliance grinds all my herbs just perfectly! The smaller grind of the herbs also take up a lot less space than the hand-crunching.
I tried growing a couple of new things this year, one was successful and one was not. Because I generally follow a Mediterranean Diet, I have a lot of recipes that require eggplant. It is so hard to find nice eggplants in Wisconsin grocery stores, so I decided to grow my own. Oh my goodness! These turned out amazing and I loved having fresh eggplant for all my Mediterranean dishes and also to freeze to use in the winter.
Sweet Potatoes are also a big part of the Mediterranean Diet so I tried those too. This plant just doesn't work in Wisconsin because our growing season isn't long enough. The vines take up SO MUCH SPACE and this was all one plant yielded. And the worst part is you need heat and humidity to cure them or they won't turn sweet. We do not have heat and humidity in Wisconsin in October so I'm afraid mine won't be sweet. I've been curing them in a sunny window sill with a damp towel over them, but I fear it won't be enough.
The day before the first hard freeze I picked all the peppers. I ended up with quite a nice yield even though many didn't have time to ripen or grow fully. Pepper you can eat at any stage, so it doesn't really matter when you pick them. I also had about three or four plants that didn't grow or produce anything at all. That was weird, not hot enough I guess.
We planted three beds of potatoes. One bed didn't grow well at all, and the other two were moderate.
I always love how pretty potato plants are, until they're not! 😀. For those who may not know, after potato plants finish flowering, the leaves turn yellow and brown and they start to die back.
This is how many potatoes we got in one bed. In total, I filled up four milk crates and one small bushel basket of potatoes by the end of the garden season.
I cure my potatoes in my craft room, since it's a dark, northeast corner of my basement. It's an unsightly mess for a while.
Right before the first frost I cut all my basil and brought it inside to dry! Oh how I love the smell of fresh basil! The scent filled the house!
Here's a few photos of my daily harvests. I usually posted what I harvested each day on Facebook. I'm sure I annoyed my friends with my daily postings. 😁
I didn't have many green tomatoes this year since I mostly had cherry tomatoes, so I didn't make any green enchilada sauce. But I did have a few fall off the branches and since I hate to see anything go to waste, I made Fried Green Tomatoes a few times.
I love having fresh tomatoes sunning in my kitchen window all summer. I will miss seeing that this winter and the wonderful taste of a tomato picked fresh from my garden.
I hope you enjoyed my vegetable garden highlights. I'm praying for better weather and growing conditions next year. If I learned anything, it is to over-buy vegetable plants so if some die, I won't be out of luck.
So what about you? How did your garden do this year? I'd love to hear from you!
Have A Great Day! Amy
Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!
