How does your garden grow? ~ our 2020 Vegetable “Victory Garden”

We also made some power moves by replenishing our raised beds with much needed amendments and adding garden soil and compost to low spots. The slower pace of life is suiting us.

How about you? How is your garden?

Did you find that you planted more, less or about the same as other years? Year-to-year comparison is easy because I keep a handwritten garden journal noting what was planted.

In retrospect, I acknowledge mistakes. Wish I could have a few do-overs! I’ll share those insights at the end of the post.

You’d think this would be plenty of space! But it’s never enough. Tom and I know we are lucky having about a 1/2 acre lot in suburbia. We have more “land” than most of those residing in our neighborhood.

Ten acres would be great. Imagine how many blueberry bushes one could plant? But I digress.

The forecast for the upcoming week is 60’s. Who can figure this weather out? Not I!

Today is the rundown of what we planted in the space we have.

Of course we grow for our immediate family, but we also hope to have excess to share with extended family, friends and close neighbors.

Bed one consists of 30 tomato plants with the bulk being the 24 cherry tomato varieties. For this bed I used all starter plants.

I would have used seeds but unfortunately my seeds didn’t grow as quickly as I had hoped. Those are being saved for bare spots and plants that don’t thrive.

And yes, I love tomatoes! Especially cherry tomatoes. They taste like candy, do they not? The Supersweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes in particular are marvelous but the local garden center sells out of those first.

I was only able to snag two packs so I supplemented with the Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes~ still good!

You plant what you love and eat…right! So more tomatoes in this bed. And it’s time we celebrate celery, one of my favorite crops to grow. We eat a ton of it and it takes up little space. Nice and vertical!

How about you? Ever plant celery? I’ve been told by several people that they’ve stopped because it gets buggy and doesn’t thrive. I confess that’s my experience with trying to grow broccoli and Brussels Sprouts so I’ve given up for the time being.

I only planted two rows of beans this year. All from seed. One green and one purple. I hope I don’t regret it! But last year I planted 4 rows and it got to be too much work picking them.

And I’m a bean snob. I only want the young and tender beans. Once they’ve grown too big, I won’t eat them. So if I delay in harvesting, all is lost!

There’s also some smallish yellow tomatoes to give my salads a little more color!

I used starter plants again for the tomatoes as my seeds are slow to grow. Same for the celery.

Through trial and error, I’ve discovered that zucchini, beans and cucumbers are best sown directly in the ground after all danger of frost has passed.

But I’m back. The hope is that these 12 plants survive and thrive and produce enough to tempt me to get the Victorio Strainer out for some serious sauce making.

I’ve had success with peppers but learned over the years that the longer you leave them on the vine, the more color comes out. So I wait as long as I can to pluck.

And nothing is more satisfying than plucking peppers. Let me tell you! The key to big peppers for me has always been checking my pH and many times adding lime to the soil. My peppers went from puny to humongous.

In one raised bed planter I put in a whopping 3 rows of Italian large leaf basil, one row each of cilantro, thyme, chives and parsley. All from seed.

My seeds are slow to grow this year. (Or was I slow to plant…more likely!)

Since I use more basil and parsley than anything else, I ended up buying 8 starter basil plants and 4 starter parsley plants. This way I don’t have to wait until August to harvest any fresh herbs.

Oregano and dill spring up naturally all around the perimeter of my yard so there’s no need to plant from seed or buy starter plants.

And garlic. In the fall, Tom planted garlic in any place he could not holding back! Garlic in our landscaping. Garlic in the perennial beds. Garlic on the edges of the blueberry patch. We were desperate for space.

I used the remaining raised planter for lettuce. Eight starter plants and the rest from seed. Good eating!

It reminds me in subsequent years what I did right and what needs improvement for the following year.

Biggest mistake thus far has been trying to plant too much from seed. I spent way too much money and time on seeds way too late in the season.

Sad because my cherry tomato seeds from seeds look healthy and fabulous but they aren’t big enough to plant in my beds. The reason? Our growing season here is super short.

By the time they produce fruit, it will be November~ too late! We’ll get a hard frost before then and I’d end up with zero crop. No good!

So now I have roughly 30 healthy seedlings/almost starter plants that I’m going to try to give away. Want any?