How did your gardens grow?

[Steve Foss]

Well, with many gardens now fallow for winter, and those in the southern part of the state fading away, anybody who wants to can share their thoughts on how their growing season went.

We live up on the ledge rock here in Ely, so any veggies we plant require pots or raised beds. We put in two raised beds a few years ago, but I added three more this spring so we have a total of five. Four are 4x8 and one is 6x12, so we've actually got a decent amount of growing space for the first time since moving here.

We had lots of fun with the veggies this year but didn't manage to freeze/can too many. Mostly, we just ate them as we harvested them. Did give away some green beans and cukes, but only grew enough tomatoes for ourselves. It's TOO EASY to grow so many tomatoes they come sprouting out your ears.

So we had: bush and string green beans, sugar peas, Champion and Sweet 100 tomatoes, 6 varieties of radish, broccoli, Kossack kohlrabi, sweet corn, Danvers half-long carrots, acorn squash, Marketmore 76 cukes.

For next year, we're going to re-evaluate the corn. Since you only get 1-2 ears per stalk, it takes a serious amount of garden space to grow it well. We planted three 12-foot-long rows, which took up most of the 6x12 bed, and even though we planted closer together than called for (we fertilized more to compensate for that), we may not devote that kind of space to corn when things like carrots and beans are so high on our list and are easy to blanch/vaccum seal/freeze. We did also devote a whole 4x8 bed to broccoli, because we both like it, but that too probably was a bit much.

And, of course, I've got a bunch of German extra hardy garlic going in this or next week.

Another garden season goes into the books as a success.

[Dotch]

Always enjoy hearing about your northern gardening experience and what you grow at that latitude Steve. As my friend Bill from Bemidji says, you guys down south may have the soil but we have everything else. Have most of the garden harvested here except the carrots (nantes) and the beets (Detroit red), both of which we've been eating. First time we've grown carrots in many years so is gratifying to see how well they did. We don't can or freeze much anymore either. The year in general was challenging with too much water on a relatively heavy clay loam and a hail storm that messed up some of it. Still, we have plenty and are giving away what we can't eat to friends and neighbors in addition to keeping my Mom supplied.

In the main garden, snap peas were just OK. Small pods, got overripe very quickly, too much heat. Radishes were so-so too. The spuds were in one of the wettest spots, making harvest interesting after 8+" of rain on September 22nd - 23rd. Yukon Gold's did OK there but the Pontiac's weren't happy campers. Lots of rotten ones after that. In the more well drained small garden the Pontiacs were just about as nice as what we had last year. Back in the main garden the onions were OK but a lot sprouted after the big rains came. Ditto on the shallots in the small garden. The Straight 8 & Muncher cukes did well. Had cukes up until last week when it froze. The muskmelon crop was good. We harvested 45 - 50 of them between Fastbreak, Classic Hybrid and Superstar on maybe a dozen hills. They were protected so the hail didn't nail them. Crimson sweet watermelons never did make it planted in the same area. Bummer. May dump that variety as the consistency here bites. Green beans and yellow beans were successful with boo-koo gallon freezer bags eaten or given away. Lima beans were just strange. Probably 15' of the nicest looking plants ever, over knee high, flowered like mad but very few pods. Not sure what's up with that. Hail hit the Indian corn hard, as did the earworms, then the raccoons and squirrels moved in to finish it off. Will be filing a disaster claim on that one. Had plenty of tomatoes to eat between Celebrity, Champion, Roma and several others I can't remember. The hail really did a number on them about the time they were really coming into their own. Even the zucchini got nailed pretty hard.

Backside of the main garden: Squash crop was good although the Buttercup didn't handle the hail as well as the Mooregold, Heart of Gold or Sunshine Hybrid. Lots of picnic bugs entered through the hail wounds. A lawn cart of gourds, Turks turban squash, jack be little, wee be little and 30 Autumn Gold pumpkins. Sweet corn was good but with the heat it got past eating stage too fast this time around. Protege was a good find, flavor was good, it roared out the ground & left the Supersweet Jubilee in the dust. There's a reason the latter is no longer grown by canning companies even though it is hard to beat the taste. Going to try to finish up the harvest one of these days and then plan on spreading the garden with composted sheep manure and tilling it in. Even though the main garden area is primarily old cattle lot, parts of it are beginning to slip on potassium, as has been confirmed by soil tests & occasional K deficiency symptoms in the sweet corn.

Given the year, I've got to be pleased with what we got. Can't hit a home run on everything every year but nice when the doubles and triples add up. Just ask the Twins...

[KEN W]

I had pretty much a good garden.Living just outside of Fargo.....I am still getting tomatoes and peppers.

Tomatoes....Legend(the only one that survived early blight.)Still had plenty.

Beaver Lodge Plum,Beaver Lodge slicer,Legend,Health Kick,Saucey,Carbon,Glacier,Taxi,and Lemon Boy.

Melons were very good...Seeded....Crimson Sweet,Yellow Doll,Sweet Beauty....Seedless....Gypsy,Yellopw Bird,Orange Julius,and Pasha.Had around 45 all together

60 or so.

Cantalope....Goddess,Aphrodite,Super Star

Israeli.....Sensation

honeydew.....Earli Dew and Moonlight

Santa Claus....Lambkin

Potatoes....Viking,Norland,Gold Rush

Sweet Corn.....Northern Super Sweet,Mirai 131Y,Optimum,Gourmet 277A

Candy onions,Bolero Carrot,Early Jalapeno,Early Red bells,Peas,Gr. Beans,Sunspot squash,Hail stone and Easter Egg radish,Gold Bar yellow summer squash,Zuchinni,Red Cabbage,Bok choi,Brocoli,Cauliflower,Litle Gem Romaine,Red Ace Beets,Pumpkins,County Fair pickles,Fort Laramie Strawberies.

[Eric Wettschreck]

We didn't plant the biggest garden in the world, but big enough to suit the Mrs and I. HOLY LOTSA HUGE CUCUMBERS!!!!!

We had a pretty wet summer here in SW MN. I'm guessing that's the reason the cukes did as well as they did. We ended up with way more than we ever thought we would.

Tomatoes started off doing real well, then the blight set in and messed it all up. We still got enough tommies for the wife to make a keg of salsa. Peppers did real well, also.

Just yesterday I tilled it under and started a new chunk of garden in a different spot. I'm told that's really the only thing a guy can do once the blight sets in.

All in all, another good garden year even though the tommies didn't do as well as I wanted them to.

[harvey lee]

The garden this year was much smaller.

Tomatoes and grape tomatoes. Bell peppers, jalapeno's, radishes and beets.

The tomatoes were out of control and we canned all we could and ran out of jars. I ate radishes until I wanted no more. The peppers were simply a bumper crop and the beets got eaton by some critter.

[Powerstroke]

This year was a rebuilding year...... That's would I would say if I was the coach of a team that had the results I did in the garden.

The only things that produced well for me are the carrots and the cukes. They always seem to do well though. Tomatoes had an interesting summer and it started when my wife planted them too deep. After nearly losing them I did some work to restore them. We did get some from those plants, but they never did bounce back completely.

Broccoli, peas, beans all got hammered by deer even though I put up a taller fence and sprayed. Thunderstorms hammered the rest. I was pretty disappointed. I tried a replant on the green beans and they didn;t grow well. Some pods were empty and some didn't turn green. They are purple and veiny. Not sure what that is but its disappointing. Never had a problem with beans before.

I have two small watermelons still sitting in the garden hoping to get ripe. We'll see.

[lawdog]

I am a novice gardener at best and don't have a huge plot, but had a horrible year with what I did have!

Kolirabi (sp?) Huge and I guess good, my wife eats these they do nothing for me.

Radishes, OK at best, again these are the wife's deal but she didn't enjoy them as she said they got too strong too fast.

Peas: Got about 1/3 to 1/2 of what I got last year and I don't know why. Some plants didn't come up and most just stayed small.

Carrots, well, after waiting over a month to see the first hint of green emerge from the ground, I did end up with about 15-20 edible carrots out of a whole row and none got over 3-4" long. C- if I'm being generous. Never had good luck with carrots, don't know what I do wrong.

Potatoes - Kannebecs. Got one small bucket of potatoes out of 6 mounds. Plants looked good, potatoes underneath were not! A potato here a potato there but not good overall. One mound completely rotten when I dug it up? Guessing way too wet for them.

Onions -- A complete mystery and disaster! Started growing and then all the sudden the growth just folded over and died. No idea why and no onions. That's right NONE.

Sweet Corn...This is what really frosts me. Sweet corn is 95% of the reason I have a garden. I plant in thirds to spread the corn out. Four rows wide do a third of the length the first week, the middle third the second week and the last third the third week. Of the first third I got two plants that grew? The other two thirds most of the plants came but here is where it gets really odd and irritating. The stuff tassled out fine and looked to be coming along but just quit, THEY NEVER GREW EARS AT ALL! I literally got two ears of corn out of four full rows of sweet corn. Last year wtih the same amount planted the same way I had more corn than we could use.

Overall I give the garden a D- for the year! One more year like that and I'll be back to buying ALL the veggies. I don't enjoy the work and only do it for the benefits at the end. Without them ITS JUST WORK!!

[KEN W]

lawdog.....that's aweful.Do you use fertilizer or add anything to your soil?

[Rip_Some_Lip]

I had a pretty decent year. I too am a novice gardener. The best part were the potatoes, I planted 3 rows(27 mounds) 1/2 Kannebec and 1/2 Yukon Gold. I harvested somewhere between 125 and 150 decent size potatoes. Some were huge also. My wife and I agree they are the best we have eaten. I also had dug some rotten ones, but not too many.

The deer ate most of my beans and peas.

The deer also ate most of my tomatoes early on. Most plants did grow some back but alot never ripened.

My carrots did ok, lots of carrots, just mostly small ones. I think I need to thin them out more.

Did really good with only 4 pepper plants.

Started an asparagus patch and hope to harvest some next year.

I would like to thank all who helped again this year!

[lawdog]

lawdog.....that's aweful.Do you use fertilizer or add anything to your soil?

I've never had to do more than mulch in some leaves/grass clippings. I just tilled in a good batch of leaves a week or so ago. I'm debating some fertilizer. The garden is only a few years old and the differnce has not been a gradual decline, it was a complete disaster this year and great last year (other than the carrots).

[Duffman]

Onions -- A complete mystery and disaster! Started growing and then all the sudden the growth just folded over and died. No idea why and no onions. That's right NONE.

Ditto for me lawdog, and I've never had problems with onions before.

I also had the tomato problems that Eric had. I was able to get some harvest, but once the "disease" took over all the foliage, the tomatoes were done.

Best year for peppers though, all kinds.

[Steve Foss]

Lots of problems from the wet summer for many, many folks.

Always a good idea to top dress a garden with rotted manure or 12-12-12 granular fertilizer every fall and let the spring snowmelt leach it into the soil. Soil compositions and fertilities vary. Some new gardens go strong for coupla/three years before benefitting from fall fertilization. Others need it after their first year.

[Big-Al]

Corn, variety "Gotta Have It"

Good to very good year - put 132 pints in the freezer, ate and gave away lots of fresh, as well as the coons got their share.

Tomatoes - main varieties - Beefsteak and a couple different Romas

Overall very good yield - canned over 50 qts of various product - numerous went to waste due predation of various critters

Carrots - variety - Tendersweet

Germination was a little light but turned out an excellent product, very good sized - yield 40 lbs. We don't freeze or can carrots - store and eat fresh and give to family and friends

Peas - Variety Lincoln - got in early but with the early spring warm to hot temperatures they didn't do as well as they could have - got half of what we did the previous year -- only 25 pints frozen this year. We tried a Miragreen Everbearing but were not impressed so won't plant again.

Green Beans - variety- Contender - harvested by the wheelbarrow full - over 50 qts canned and many frozen and given away and many left in the garden

Cukes - variety - Miss Pickler - around 50 qts of pickles - excellent year - gave away a fair amount as well

Peppers - hot - varieties - Hot Paper Lantern, Thick Cayenne, Hungarian Yellow, Jalapeno and Habanero - Lots went into salsa and we pickled around 50 pints

Onions - planted white, yellow and red. The red onions were the best we have ever had, white and yellow were okay. Yield was good. Some of the yellows and whites are starting to go bad on us even though they cured well.

Garlic - German Red - Harvested about 140 bulbs and have used lots in the canning and fresh. Planted 330 for next year and have plenty to last til the next harvest with the size of them.

Broccoli did well - lots in the freezer and we are still picking, brussell sprouts also did well but just use them fresh and still have some out there to pick.

Lettuce, spinach did well but wanted to go to seed with the warm spring weather. Radishes were okay but they bolted fast too.

Pumpkins and squash were decent quality but number was low due to lack of pollination I believe.

We garden over 8,000 sq feet on three separate plots with distinctly different soils in each.

[Steve Foss]

None of our squash gourds matured until I started pollinating them myself with a fine-bristle small paintbrush. Then we had very nice squash.

No bees.

[Big-Al]

Yes we did that also, in fact after you recommended it I think. I think if I hadn't done that we would have had very few.