Just as I've done the last couple of years, I'm recapping the best and worst of my garden for the year. Inspired by all the year-end "best and worst" lists on TV, movies, music, fashion, etc., this list helps remind me what I did right and what went wrong over the year.
Best -- Basil! In the past I've always had small basil plants, some of which didn't make it through the summer. But this year I was able to grow 3 healthy bunches. I ate many tomato-basil-mozzarella salads, had plenty of basil to throw into sauces, and I even managed to pick enough to store some basil pesto cubes in the freezer. These basil plants were in a very deep container, planted along side this Mortgage Lifter tomato plant, which brings me to...
Best/Worst -- Tomatoes. I tried some new varieties this year, some of which did OK, like the ground cherries, Pink Girl hybrids and pink Brandywines...
But others like Chocolate Cherries, Mortgage Lifter, Mr. Stripey, and Ace 55 hybrid didn't do well. I documented my Mortgage Lifter troubles extensively so I won't go into that again. I was talking to a couple of friends who had tomato troubles this year. One lives in the south, but another lives here in the DC area. I'm not sure why we weren't able to get good tomato harvests. For me, I think it was a combination of the heat, which can prevent tomato plants from flowering and setting fruit, and lack of pollinators. I didn't have many flowers in my garden this year to attract pollinators. I also had issues with garden pests, like aphids, spider mites, and horn worms.
Best -- Return of the pond frog! I'm actually not sure if he/she is the same one from last year or even 3 years ago. I read that frogs are a sign of a healthy pond, so I was really happy to see this little frog in my back yard this year.
Worst -- That stupid $$%@ squirrel. It was responsible for eating the few tomatoes that did grow, blueberries, corn stalks, and for digging up many of my seeds and transplants. I love sunflowers (hence the blog title picture), but I only had one grow this year because the squirrel dug up all my transplants.(Another Worst -- no sunflowers this year). I'll have to protect them better next year. Now that the temperatures are bitterly cold, I feel sorry for the little guy (and yes, I know it's the same one. I recognize the mangy brown fur). I may or may not have felt bad enough to throw some unsalted almonds near a tree where I saw it lurking. I know he's thinking "Sucker!"
Best -- I had a pretty good onion harvest this year--just over 2 pounds, not bad for the second year growing them. We left a few in the ground to see if they grow bigger.
Worst - lots of garden fails this year. Beetles ate the potatoes, the two green bean varieties I planted in containers didn't really take off. Everyone seems to be able to grow squash and zucchini so well that they can't give it away, but squash bugs and cucumber beetles feasted on ours. The two little watermelons that we harvested were smelly and didn't taste well.
Although I had some disappointments, I have ideas for what to do better next year. I haven't begun serious garden planning yet, but I've been thinking about growing fewer tomato varieties, for example, and just sticking with a few that I've grown in the past and that did well in pots on my deck. I have to have sunflowers next year, I missed them a lot this past summer. I think my vegetables missed the pollinators they attract. I'll have to make sure to protect the seeds and transplants so they don't get yanked out before their time.
Last but not least, Best -- You! I love reading about your garden plans,and especially like seeing what gardens look like in other parts of the country or world. Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving words of encouragement, advice, or sympathy. It makes all this a lot more fun!
If you'd like to recap your own Best and Worst, please feel free to link up or leave a comment below.
I was up late watching the Olympic games and Breaking Bad (well , fell asleep halfway through that show) and my brain isn't totally focused yet, but I need to recap the Best/Worst of my little garden this month.
The "Worst" this month goes to the squirrels making off with my produce. It's actually just one squirrel, the mangy brown one that's torturing me. I was about to call a truce and then I found this on my deck. {Serenity now......}
The "Best" of my garden this month is that other parts of my garden are doing OK. The peppers are growing nicely. (These habaneros are growing upside down!)
My tomatoes (the ones that the squirrels have left alone) are blushing. (This picture is of the Marglobes, supposedly very good for making sauces. Can't wait to actually try them!)
And the ground cherry plants are coming along beautifully. After several false starts, the two seedlings that survived are growing strong and there is fruit on the branches.
Deb over at Deb's Garden wrote this lovely post about experiencing the garden, the elements, the weather, the soil, and being aware of it rather than just going through the motions of gardening. I often find myself falling into the trap of just getting my garden chores done so I can move on to something else involving air conditioning, but the garden is much more rewarding when I slow down and pay attention to what's going on. Gardening has taught me to be patient and trust nature (like with the ground cherries pulling through), to be flexible when things don't go as planned (like with the death of my potatoes and starting over), and I'm always amazed that a beautiful flower or vegetable or fruit can grow from a tiny seed. Despite the "Worsts", the "Bests" make gardening so rewarding!
Please link up below if you'd like to share your Best and Worst gardening experiences this month. I'm only going to visit garden sites for the next couple of weeks to avoid accidentally seeing the Olympic spoilers on the news sites.;)
{Giant mammoth sunflowers growing in containers, 2011}
First -- a big Thank You to the lovely Tammy of Casa Mariposa for the kind words of solidarity in my on-going Battle Against the Squirrels. Thanks for the support and encouragement, Garden Sister! If you'll indulge me, I have one more sad story to tell....
{The giant containers I usually use for sunflowers. This year they hold my Mortgage Lifter tomatoes.}
This is the first year that I will not have sunflowers in my garden. We have successfully grown sunflowers in containers in years past, but this year I'm using those giant containers for my Mortgage Lifter tomatoes. However, I do still have some Teddy Bear sunflower seeds, and I saved one pot for those flowers. I wanted to have their sunny yellow blooms near my front door. But here we are in mid-July, and I still don't have sunflowers. Squirrels dug the seeds out of the pots every time I planted them. I'd find piles of dirt and holes in the pot, the bastards. They even climbed up on the deck and dug them out of the starter flats. I finally moved everything to a protected location, and when the seeds sprouted and were transplanted, I waited until the plants were big enough to move the pot to the front yard.
{Here's a picture of the flowers I don't have in my garden.}
One morning I left the house and noticed that each Teddy Bear leaf had been perfectly snipped. I don't think that was the work of a squirrel, though. I think that was the little rabbit I've seen hopping around and destroying my neighbors' gardens. I'm having a hard time getting angry at this rabbit, though. I volunteer at an animal shelter and that means I sometimes care for and play with rabbits, and feed them treats. To me he's just a poor little homeless bunny trying to survive in the wild, scary DC suburbs. What's a couple of leaves here and there? Besides, the flowers are coming back, sort of...
So here's the double standard: I have no such sympathy for those little rodent squirrels. When I was younger I used to laugh when my friends told me stories about their parents and grandparents flipping out over squirrels in their garden and trapping them and dropping them off across county lines. Old people are so weird!, I used to think. Well now I'm an old person, and I TOTALLY get it! The rabbit may have only caused damage to my Teddy Bear leaves, but (as I mentioned in a previous post) the squirrels climb up on the deck and getting into my raised beds and are tearing up everything!! Take my blueberry plants, for example. My husband built this mesh net around the blueberries to protect them from the birds and squirrels. One day I saw that some of the berries were starting to turn bluish-purple, and they were almost ready for harvesting. I went back the next day to harvest them, and they were gone! Plucked right off the vine. Something had chewed a hole through the net. We fixed it and waited for a few other berries to ripen. A couple of days later I went to harvest the berries, and I caught a squirrel red-handed!!! Or blue-handed, as it were. I swear that little jerk had blue juice on his face and he gave me the finger as he slipped through the gaps in the fence.
My husband then put a wire fence and some boards in the back against the wooden fence (you can see the wide board on the left). That took care of the gaps by the ground, but the squirrels were still climbing up through the top gaps to get the berries. Last weekend, we just pulled the net and boards down. All the berries have been eaten, so what's the point in keeping them up?
As I write this post and reflect on everything, I can't help but feel a teeny tiny bit of admiration at their persistence. I wonder if their moms gave them "If at first you don't succeed, try again" speeches. I wonder if I would be so persistent in going after something I really want if someone kept putting up obstacles (and hoped I would die). Also, there's a McDonald's not too far from my neighborhood. Sometimes I smell that wonderful fried potato smell when I'm working in the garden. I've even seen birds flying by with fries in their beaks, and I've seen squirrels carrying brown things in their paws, probably buns or nuggets or hash browns. I am impressed that these critters would want to balance their diets with some healthy foods.
So now that this is all out of my system, I'm just going to let it go....(until next year).
I had to finish this challenge by being thankful for garden bugs, most especially for my blog's namesake, the bee. I've been fortunate to see several different varieties of bees in my little garden. Love these little pollinators!
I'm thankful for the good, bad, and ugly bugs (bad bugs are sometimes a food source for the good ones). I have learned a lot about gardening and a little about entomology by observing these little creatures.
Finally, Thank You, Cat, for leading this fun challenge! I really enjoyed joining you and other members of the garden blogging community in reflecting on the little (and big) things to be grateful for. I think it's become a habit now--I often catch myself thinking, "I'm thankful for this..." :)
{Throughout November I linked up with The Whimsical Gardener's 30 Day Challenge to post about something you're thankful for every day. My posts are under the tag giving thanks}.
I went outside to water my plants the other day and my neighbor came outside and said, "There was a squirrel digging into one of your plants and eating something red." She sloshed her wine glass in the general direction of my strawberry plant, and sure enough, 2 of the 3 strawberries were missing. Curse the squirrel!
We've had bad luck with our strawberry plants. We're growing them in containers, and one set had bad soil or something, and the plants died quickly. The other plants just didn't take off. They had blossoms but no fruit, then finally I saw three little berries growing on a plant on Saturday, and I left them there, thinking they might get bigger. Three days later--gone. :(
My strawberries, June 19. At least I have a picture for memories.
Last strawberry standing--of course they left the funky one.
