I know that there is still probably enough time to get a quick lettuce or spinach crop in, but it feels like the end of the season to me. Most likely, it’s because I am trying to fit in the monumental task of shuffling my garden beds to accomodate a new, smaller version of my garden for next year. I want to get the move done now, so in the spring, I can stroll blithely out to my garden and just plant away.
In light of that, I have been compiling a mental list of things I learned this year, and before they evaporate from my brain, I thought I’d get them down here:
Next year, I will:
- put only one tomato in a tomato cage (ok…maybe two, but definitely NOT three)
- plant only cherry tomatoes
- grow ‘blue lake’ green beans again
- remember to use legume innoculant on peas and green beans
- thin early and brutally
- put out wasp traps in May, and replenish them all summer
- remember that squash, zuchini and pumpkin plants get huge
- cut back the pumpkin plants when they even hint at exceeding their bounds (that is, if I grow them again)
- try birdhouse gourds again
Next year, I won’t:
- start anything from seed
- plant corn
- plant more than 3 zuchini or squash seeds
- let the volunteer sunflowers grow in the middle of my (soon-to-be) strawberry bed
- forget to harvest my herbs
Side note: just how late can you start lettuce, carrots and spinach seeds?
1,000 New Gardens
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Posted by bluebarnfarmer on September 18, 2009 at 2:27 am
I think it all depends on the germination rates and days till harvest on the seeds you’re planting… After that, it’s a gamble, right? But this heat we’re getting gives me a helluva bit of inspiration!
Posted by bluebarnfarmer on September 18, 2009 at 2:28 am
Why only cherry tomatoes? No sauce-tomatoes? No romas?
I’m a devout cherrier, too, but I’m just curious…maybe you could convince me to do likewise..
Posted by Lisa Hensley on September 18, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Bluebarn,
Cherry tomatoes are easy for me to eat as a snack or throw on a salad. Paste tomatoes never seem to actually get made into paste, despite my best intentions, and although I love romas too, they require slicing, which means I don’t always finish one, and there it sits in my veggie drawer…lonely and forgotten until it’s a disgusting mess.
So long story short…I’m lazy. : )