My First Year of Gardening: A Summary

It's been a while since I've blogged and I want to talk about my garden...lessons, successes, and bloopers.

First, I'll start with the lessons.  One, I am going to do much less variety next year.  Things I will not plant next year: corn, pole beans, onions, okra, carrots, butternut squash, beets, radishes, spaghetti squash, pumpkins (that sure was a fiasco!), and cantaloupe.  The corn and beans were too bug ridden for me.  The root vegetables just weren't worth it.  The large squash type veggies were just too aggressive.  Secondly, I am going to give a few things another chance even though i didn't have very good luck.  For example, instead of ever-bearing strawberries I will plant June-bearing in my topsy turvy...maybe that will give me a better yield.  Also, I am going to try watermelon again even though it didn't work out (I'll share that story below in the blooper section).  Bell Peppers are another one that I didn't have good luck with, but I think it had to do with crowding so I am going to try again.

On to the successes...tomatoes, squash, zucchini, and cucumbers!  These all did very well in my garden this year.  Next Summer, I would like to do one entire bed of zucchini and squash, another bed of tomatoes of many varieties (especially the German Johnson!) and bell pepper, and a third bed consisting of watermelon and cucumbers.  That's all folks...not much variety, but I'll focus on growing a few items consistently.

Lastly, the bloopers.  I think I covered most of these along the way (the pumpkin fiasco, the corn ants, etc.), but I haven't yet shared my watermelon story.  Bless my husband's heart, men never seem to listen...except when I casually and jokingly say, "Yeah, I'm over the garden this year...it's so hot outside!"  I guess he took me seriously, because he mowed over all my watermelons.  He said, "You told me you were done!"  Just when you think men don't listen...they do.  That is the day my garden ended.

I still have a couple of tomato plants going, but I'll be honest and say they have pretty much crapped out because of my neglect.  We have had a stretch of triple-digit temps and I can't get motivated to do much in heat like that.

Back to the watermelons for a minute...I have a quick story to share.  My watermelons never got big...they looked softball size for a long time.  I was waiting on them to grow and they never got bigger.  They must have been full grown because when Kevin mowed them over they were completely ripe!  I found one that he didn't get with the mower so I opened it up and tasted it...it was perfect!  Next year I will try a different variety.

We had my dad and sister over for dinner in July to celebrate my dad's birthday.  I wanted to share a couple of pictures from that day.  My dad's dog Sugar also makes an appearance...