I growing about 11 different tomato varieties. At this point the plants all appear to be doing well. I fell behind on pruning them, but did a lot better this year than in past years. Most of the he indeterminate varieties have cleared 6 feet already and most the determinate appear to have maxed out, All of the cherry or grape varieties have started to ripen, but only a few at a time, no huge clusters yet , but that seems right around the corner. There are two varieties that I basically saved the seeds from either store bought or farm stand bought tomatoes. those are also doing well, and the size and shape appear to be what I remember the fruit looked like when I ate them, so Im excited to have something genetically similar to the original fruit. I usually only grow a few varieties, but this year is more of an experimental year to see what does best in my garden environment. About half were started from seed and the other half were store or internet bought. Problem with starting from seed is that I always over plant as if some will die off, and that rarely ever happens, so Im stuck with a significant amount of extra plants. Then, I usually crowd them too close, and it jeopardizes the overall crop. This year, I really tried to follow spacing guidelines with all plants, while still taking advantage of open space with some companion plants. With all the extra tomatoes, I planted them in 5 gallon pots in my 'over flow' garden ( which gets bigger each year). Even those plants in the 5 gallon pots are doing well and producing a decent amount, even without ideal situation.
My cukes and Kirbies Im a little disappointed with this year. Not that it was a bad year by most people standards, but compared to my last few years it wasn't as good. Maybe 1/3 the production of previous recent years. I got a second planting in and will try a third planting any day, when the seeds arrive to squeak out one more . Figure I have nothing to lose other than a few bucks in seeds. Trying a different variety that is theoretically resistant to some of the wilt problems ive been having this year.
Speaking of wilting, I seem to have gotten the upper hand with the eggplants. Ive noticed less of the leaves wilting and the new leaves seem to be healthy. Fingers crossed on that one.
String beans, first planting has probably one more harvest left, then out they go. Got my second planting in already, and today just planted a yellow variety in cells for a third planting.
Also in cells would be another round of chard, beets , zucchini and dill. The beet greens from the first crop actually tasted pretty good. I figure ill plant the second crop and even of the beets dont form, I can benefit from the greens.
Also got some cabbage, rutabaga and carrot seeds that ill plant in a few weeks for fall harvest. By far this is the most succession planting Ive ever done. With the limited space, it really takes a lot of planning and timing to choreograph things so they are ready to be planted when the initial crop dies off, along with having enough time to develop under the proper weather/ temp conditions. Im keeping close notes so I dont have to do as much thinking next year
Ive also done some oyster and shiitake mushrooms indoors.
What ive learned so far from this year is:
- I need to get better drainage for my garlic so they dont rot
- Of the 3 spots I planted onions this year, One is clearly better than the other two.
- Try to get more resistant cucumber plants to the wilting problem
- So far, my new 7 ft tomato cages, along with the spacing is better for the plants and
the spacing makes it much easier to care for and harvest.
- If you want 2 foot sunflowers, only grow them from bought seeds, not from off spring that seeded itself from the previous years clearly were either cross pollinated from a larger variety or remnants of dropped bird seed, cause they sure ant 2 feet this year.
- Planting the peanuts more towards the center of the raised bed allows the shoots from the flowers to seed in the garden soil, and not hang out of the bed.
- Beets are great for spinach/ Chard like greens. The beet itself is just and added benefit , so dont be disappointed if you only get a few crappy beets, the greens are equally as plentiful as all the chard I grew.
- The yellow bean variety was tastier than the green. Consider growing more of them next year.
- baby bubba okra doing great in pots ( As they did last year). Repeat for next year.
- Overwintering a pepper plant for the following year, at this point, doesn't seem to be worth the effort. The amount of time I spent trying to keep this thing alive, along with dragging that huge pot up and down the stairs to the only decent window with sun in my house. just buy another plant. But, at least I proved I could do it. Been there, done that.
- Stick with dwarf banana varieties , much easier to bring in and out of the house during the winter. Wither mulch over the larger varieties, or just hack it down and store the base.
- Training the spaghetti squash to grow up and canopy over a certain part of the garden ( where it won't shade out anything due to its location) was actually a smart idea. ( every now and then I have a few of them :smile).
- Definitely have to do more reading on cukes and eggplants for a more predictable/ less stressful season. Eggplants I kinda expected due to my track record, but cukes was a little surprising.
11 Wisconsin 58s, and 3 County Fairs, ready to pickle. 7-14 by pepperhead212, on Flickr 
The two Big Beefs I knocked off the plant the day before, each with a slight blush. by pepperhead212, on Flickr
Harvest on 7-15, about twice that of the day before. by pepperhead212, on Flickr
The cherries are finally catching up! 2 qts in just one day. 7-15 by pepperhead212, on Flickr
