I  dug out my veggie garden over a week ago. The first freeze is coming tonight, which is several week past the average. It has been cold enough to harm the cucumbers and melons, but the tomatoes were still going strong when I yanked them. I was done with tomatoes and had extra time and beautiful weather, so I put the garden to bed. Felt wonderful. I had a large tomato forest going on. The tomatoes chocked out the peppers and eggplants nearby. The yellow pear was all over everything. Some branches were over 6 feet long–I didn’t bother to keep up with staking and pruning so it was a lovely mess I was happy to tear out.

Pulling out the Garden

Looking back on the year, I  loved my Cherokee Purple tomatoes. My other varieties, romas, fourth-of-july, and yellow pear also did well. The other heirloom I planted, Great White was a little late but good after it started producing. All my peppers and eggplants did not produce well because of poor placement. The potatoes did okay, but I think potatoes had been planted in the same spot for too many years beforehand (not my garden before so I didn’t know). I think they got a wilt disease early on and would have done better with some proper crop rotation. Onions and leeks were less than spectacular, they mostly didn’t ever catch on after transplanting. The blue hubbard and butternut squash did great. The blue hubbard squash are decorating my front porch. It might take a while to break into them. I planted two cucumbers–a striped Armenian and a regular aremenina. We had loads of cucumbers even with horrible powdery mildew.  The best melon wasn’t the two I planted (they did okay, not great), but a volunteer that sprang up and produced eight good melons. Beets did well, lettuce was good in the spring, and the chard was always there, I just didn’t bother to pick it.

That was a bit long, but it was a great garden year. I’m also glad it’s over now. Time for new projects.