Gardening wind down of 2017
It's inevitable that all good things must come to an end. We have had a successful growing season in 2017, with a few minor hiccups along the way.
The Squash Vine Borer seems to plague us every single season despite trying several methods to avoid the eggs reaching the soil around the plants. Last season I was able to cut them out and save the plants, this season I didn't have much luck with them. While we did have a decent harvest of Zucchini and Squash, it destroyed my Spaghetti Squash only giving us 3 Squash.
This year we grew Sweet Potatoes off of slips from the sweet potatoes we grew last year. I was excited when the first sets of shoots started sprouting off of one of our own sweet potatoes. We haven't harvested ours yet but I know for sure there are a whole bunch in the grow bags (I peeked).
Last fall we planted 9 cloves of garlic and we were happy to see all 9 pop the surface in early spring. On advice from a YouTube friend, we cut the scapes off early to keep the focus on growing the bulbs and it was a huge success. This fall we will probably put in a dozen cloves.
Along with the normal garden veggies we did try our hand at a few new to us crops including Malabar Spinach, Swiss Chard, Radishes, Basil, Dill, Parsley, Nasturtiums, Spaghetti Squash, Lemon Cucumbers, Jubilee and Garden Peach Tomatoes and Potatoes!!!!
Overall, I am happy with our 2017 growing season. I invested in both a Pressure Canner and a Dehydrator to help put up some of our harvest and save freezer space. We still have a few things growing including green beans, peas, a few yellow squash plants I threw in late, all of our carrots, a few straggler tomato plants and our sweet potatoes.
I will close with a few pictures of all the beautiful flowers we had the pleasure of gazing out all summer.
beautiful!! Loads of green envy! Which is okay, btw
Thanks 😀
Congratulations on your harvest. It is always so exciting when your hard efforts have such bountiful rewards. The squash borer got my zucchini too, ugh every year they find them.
They are such gross little creatures, Luckily they don't seem to do any damage til late July but it still stinks
It seems like every garden has its own pest nemesis!
What do you mean by cutting the scapes off on the garlic? Which part is that?
It's the curly thing that turns into the flower, if you cut it before it flowers all of the energy goes to growing the bulb instead of the flower 😀
Thank you.
This is great work! I love your writing and pics are amazing! Keep up the great work!
Thanks , I don't have much to write about but I'll figure something out
Nice haul! Sorry to hear about the losses to the vine borers. It looks like the other plants tried to make up for the loss by producing a bit more. lol!
They sure did, here in NE PA we don't have a super long growing season, I take what i can get
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I despise the squash borers. They are almost as bad as the peach tree borers. Every single year I've been fighting with them and this year I didn't even grow zucchini because I was planting the garden while 3 months pregnant and I didn't feel like I had it in me to really give those little critters a good fight this summer.
Congratulations on the yield!
I'm seriously considering not growing them again, Funny thing is they don't effect my Butternut Squash, but get my zucchini , yellow and spaghetti squash.... frustrating for sure
My winter squashes got taken out by the early blight - so between the blight and the borers, it's definitely a battle to get some production! I did find a probiotic application called Serenade that allowed me to get production from my tomatoes, though if I'd started earlier in the year I think I could've kept the blight from infecting everything so badly (the application stopped the black spot killing my peppers and has allowed them to continue on in health the rest of the summer).
I will have to look into that for next season, thanks for sharing
Great Post!
Here in New England we plant a second crop to continue harvest of summer squashes. They don't get as many larvae (often none) in the second planting. It may or may not work in the South.... Keep up the good work.
@grammyspotager. I will have to plan for that next season, I am in North East PA, so our zones are similar. When do you usually plant your second crops?
Nice looking harvest. I tried the Malabar spinach last year but the seeds didn't come up but I'm in a colder climate. Sometimes, I get over anxious to get seeds in the ground and it doesn't work out. There's always next year, right?
What is that long purple vegetable that looks like a long pepper? My husband I love trying out new varieties of peppers in our greenhouse.
@lindasymonds This was a first for Malibar, I'm not a fan of the taste, it's almost a little spicy to me.
The purple is actually a long eggplant, it's a Japanese style eggplant. I use to add to sauces, etc. It helps beef up meals.
Thanks for the response. I don't think I'll try the Malibar again. I need to remember to use my limited garden space for things we eat most regularly like beans and squash - we love beans and squash! But every year, I end up getting excited in the spring about all the new seeds I see in the catalogs lol
Your pictures are just FANTASTIC!
Thanks @zombiedollmommy