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prairiemom
10-18-2008, 01:34 PM
OK, here's my final report on this year's garden. Overall it was successful. (See my thread in Food Storage for total yields) Everything is cleaned up and out of the garden except for the squash plants (spaghetti, pumpkin, summer squash and gourds.) We have another 3-4 days before a killing frost and I'm hoping for more ripening before then.

I've spread out the remainder of this year's compost. Next Monday I will rototill everything in and seed a cover crop.

The tomato cages are cleaned and put away. I still haven't found tomato cages that work well. About 1/2 tipped over midway through the year and I had to stake them with rebar. Crude, but it worked.

The garbage cans are cleaned and will hold the soil from the asparagus trench we are digging next week. Next spring we'll plant one more row of asparagus. The asparagus is doing amazingly well. The potatoes-in-the-garbage-can idea was so-so. 3 cans yielded about 20 lbs. About 1/3 of the seed potatoes never grew, so I wonder if the poor yield was because of the technique, the medium (someone pointed out that the compost from the city probably had herbicides in it. Hmmm....didn't think about that.) the seed quality or...something else??? So next year I will try seed potatoes from a different source and use a mix of peat and topsoil.

The waterspikes are cleaned up and put away. They seemed to work great. Got a little clogged at the end of the season but no big deal because we had lots of rain the last 6 wks or so. But I still got too many cracked tomatoes. I still haven't figured out how to get steady moisture to them to prevent cracking.

Other lessons learned:
-Mulching made the garden a delight--no weeds and soil stayed moist longer. Start it earlier next year and be more thorough.
-Brussel sprouts really don't yield a whole lot of food for the space they take. No more Brussel sprouts. Well, maybe 2-3.
-Rutabagas and turnips really do tast 10X better after a frost, so I'll plant them later next year.
-Carrots still not doing as well as I'd like. This week I put down lots of compost in the area where I want to plant carrots next year, hoping that will make a lighter soil and improve yield.
-Plant about 1/2 the Swiss chard as I did this year. Bright Lights is really the best, not necessarily for taste but for color and appeal.
-Plant about double the beets. The kids liked them and they are easy to can and store.
-I've got to keep a written journal. In planning for next year I can't remember where I planted the tomatoes 2 yrs ago. And I can't remember which green bean did so well last year. This year we had ZERO green beans. So I bought a journal to keep it all recorded.
-We need a better (earlier) attack on the voles.
-Transplanting into newspaper pots really did make for a more vigorous, mature plant by the time it was time to plant the garden.
-TOO MANY WORMS ON THE BROCCOLI!!! Next year I will plant marigolds generously, maybe try Bt. Or floating row covers??? Something! I won't do broccoli again if I can't get rid of the cabbage worms. YUK!
-The Anneheim Chili pepper wasn't quite hot enough for chili rellenos. Try something a shade hotter next year. Suggestions?
-We lost less to apple maggot this year. The apple traps seemed to work well but the plastic balls very cheap-o. Next year I need to find wooden balls like dh's uncle has, paint those red and use those instead of these flimsy plastic things. I liked the hooks that came with them, though.
-Adding iron REALLY helped the Doyle's Blackberry take off. I should have done it first thing in the spring and we might have gotten a decent yield. So I've added some this fall and will do it again in the spring. Iron also saved my petunias.

That's pretty much it. Some good, some bad, some so-so. Most of it was pretty good.

Edited to add a picture of the last bouquet of the season. Cosmos, aster, veronica, zinnia, snapdragon, lavender, sweet pea, marigold, statice, love-in-a-mist and bachelor button. I saved seeds from the love-in-a-mist, so if you would like seeds PM me your address.
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g275/prairie_chuck/Summer08043.jpg

Love-in-a-mist
http://www.douglloydphotography.com/mediac/400_0/media/DIR_9698/DIR_10405/love~and~a~mist01.jpg

LarnaE
10-18-2008, 01:48 PM
Thanks for the report. I would like to know more about the apple traps. I have never heard of them. Where do you get them and how do they work. I am putting up applesause right now and have found lots of worms. The trees were even sprayed.

Larna

prairiemom
10-18-2008, 02:22 PM
We got ours from Gardens Alive: http://www.gardensalive.com/product.asp?pn=8701&bhcd2=1224360480 But I'm sure there are other, maybe even better sources.

We went from losing 70-80% of our crop to maggots 3-4 yrs ago to about 25% this year. You have to clean up all apples that fall on the ground every week because the maggots migrate from the apple into the ground and then overwinter in the ground. In the spring they emerge as adults to lay eggs in your new apple crop. So prevention is two pronged--clean up to prevent overwintering and lures to prevent laying eggs.

signseeker
10-18-2008, 06:30 PM
I'm ... in shock! :w00t:

That. Was. AWESOME! [Tommy Boy voice/off]