What's growing on.... Reflection on 2018 and Looking forward to 2019

So I am gearing up for the next grow season and I am acutely aware of the fact that I did not blog about my garden even once last year. It doesn't mean that I didn't garden. It just means that life really has gotten busy.  Last spring/summer I needed to help my father with his health problems and my kids now have busy schedules so extra energy usually goes into supporting them as much as I can.  This doesn't stop my gardening, but it did mean I had to change how I approach my garden.  The garden needed to go on auto pilot to some extent.

So as I get ready for the next garden season I thought I'd share a little bit of how 2018 went and what that means for 2019.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes is always a good place to start. One of the first signs that 2018 was not going to be a normal grow season for me was that all of my seedlings died.  They died for a few reasons, first I wasn't able to keep on top of the watering but that usually isn't the biggest deal with tomatoes. What I think really did them in was the potting mix I used to pot them up. It had a fungus growing in it. (BTW I purchased it from Walmart!!!)   I didn't realize this until I started watering the soil/plants and since I was busy with my Dad I didn't have time to redo them.  I usually grow all of my tomatoes from seed so they were all LOST. This really threw me off because I have grown accustomed to using my own seedlings. I was beyond annoyed. Luckily for me I have two garden centers which grow good varieties of plants. My brother a Penn State Alumni bought me these Valentine grape tomato seeds early in the summer and this variety took off fast (it was warm by then) and lasted till November.

As the summer began I realized  I now have three people in my household who can eat a pint of cherry/grape tomatoes a day and two plants, even if prolific growers, just were not enough. So this year I plan to grow at lease three cherry/grape tomato plants.  I need to grow at least one red grape tomato plant and two sungold cherry tomato plants.  The grape tomatoe I need to start from seed because I don't like the ones they sell in the garden center. I like the Valentine grape from Johhnys seed or the Mighty grape hybrid from Burpee seeds (I'll probably start both of them).  The sungolds are available at the local garden center and its easier not having to fuss with hardening off 50 plants when you don't have time so I will probably just buy transplants those locally.

For big tomato varieties I grew San Marzano, Box car willie and Kelloggs breakfast and I will probably grow these again. We also had tomatoes from our CSA (community service agriculture) and so we were able to get in a few batches of sauce. San Marzano honestly is a great tomato plant, and  there is a reason why its so popular.  It was a solid producer and very reliable.  This was my first time growing Box Car Willie (pictured below), if you have ever watched the Praxxus55712 channel on youtube he loves this tomato.  It was definitely a good plant and one I will continue to grow.  Kelloggs breakfast is just one of those I won't stop growing, it wasn't a great year for it but its a great tomato so well worth it.

Last note on tomatoes..... The last two years I have grown tomatoes in grow bags so I can rotate soil within them and not physicially move them (it gets hard finding a location which can accommadate 6 ft tall plants with 8+hrs of sunlight). I am finding its really to much work to completely rotate the grow bag soil so next year the tomatoes are going back in the raised beds. I won't rotate them but what this means is that I really need to make a solid effort to keep the soil healthy, lots of mulch, lots of compost.

Grean Beans

So lets start with the fact I am not crazy about beans. I will eat them but they are not one of my go to vegatables. Last year I came to the realization that the other three members of my house LOVE beans. Boiled then sauteed in oil and garlic... 5 minutes later they are all gone.  So  I sowed some seeds straight into the garden and then bought a few flats of bush beans from the local garden store. It worked out well but it wasn't enough beans for my family. I actually got annoyed at my husband at one point because he came home from the grocery store with a bag of beans. He pointed out that they eat more than what I was growing. ( I ended up going out and buying more flats of bush beans)

So this year I will be experimenting with more beans, pole beans and bush beans. If there is a variety  you like please let me know. The great thing about beans is that they are great for soil health! I've never really supplemented my legumes with innoculum but since soil health is going to be a priority for me this year I think I will try growing the beans with inoculum and see how it goes. (Our soil is pretty sandy which is great for drainage but not great for plant nutrition).

One more thing I realized with beans (and cherry/grape tomatoes) is that they require much more effort to pick them. You really need to only pick one or two cucumbers to feed your family but with beans you spend more time picking the beans for one meal. So one thing I will try and do this year is to grow the beans and grape tomaties in a more accessible location so I can enlist the help of my kids to pick them.  My daughter will only pick tomatoes and that is if they are in an easy to access location (I may grow hers in a big pot on the deck, can't get easier than that). My son is actually into gardening but the last three summers it has been difficult for him to help me with other things going on in his life . I think I can find a way to build this into his summer routine. He tends to do better when their is routine/plan/schedule.

Cucumbers

Cucumber is one of those must grow vegatables. During the summer my family will inhale cucumbers. For whatever reason my cucumber seeds just didn't take well last year. When my seedlings died I direct sowed them but those took a while to take off. I ended up buying some plants from the garden center but honestly I really didn't like them as much as my own. Thank goodness I could supplement with cucumbers from my CSA (community service agriculture) because my family really does eat a lot of cucumbers. I think what I may do with cucumbers is not rotate them and give them a fixed location in one of my raised beds that I can cover in the spring. When I can throw a floating row cover to protect the seeds from the fluctuating spring temperatures they do much much better.

Eggplants

Eggplants have always been one of those plants that I can't grow well from seed. The last few years I have been buying transplants/seedlings from the local garden center.  I loved the two plants I had this year and may consider 2 of each of these this year. One was patio baby eggplant (pictured above) and the other was Shikou Asian Eggplant. One thing I find is that its better not to grow two eggplants together. I grow fewer eggplants mixed with other plants to prevent the bugs from eating them  up.  The Shikou plant was amazing, it must have been about 4 ft tall and kept producing till October.

Peppers

So all of my pepper seedlings died last year and I was completely dependant on the local garden centers. This worked out for everything except my ancho/poblano peppers. I really didn't like the variety I bought and I think I will put in the effort to grow these from seed because it is worth it. My husband and I enjoy making stuffed peppers and these anchos from Tomato growers are my favorites.

I also realized that my son loves eating sweet peppers (all my peppers are of the hot variety).  So I bought a flat of sweet pepper and that was a big hit.

Herbs

I had two huge wins this year on the herb front. One was this lettuce leaf italian basil ... loved it! I grew one square foot of it (pictured above) and it kept us well stocked of basil till the frost arrived. Second, I was finally successful at growing egyptian walking onions. This kept us well stocked with onion greens till December. I realized the success to this is that they need loose soil to grow into (I mulch everything so in the past it would have trouble "walking").