garden recap 2024: winners, surprises, learning experiences,

[habitat-gardener]

I just finished shelling some California #5 black-eyed peas, a definite winner. So far I have a pint jar of beans, from an area maybe 3x5, and more are coming. These plants took no care, I planted the seeds directly, and at one point there was a gopher hole in the middle of the bed that didn’t seem to affect them. I originally got them because they were not susceptible to nematodes. As a bonus, I can walk down the adjacent paths in the garden -- unlike the paths surrounded by tomato jungle!

As for pole beans, I planted all the pole beans near each other, and I can’t tell which is which. In the past month I’ve picked tons of purple beans (either Blue Coco or an unnamed purple I got from a friend as a single dry pod) and long beans (both Thai Soldier and Red Noodle). The romanos produced almost nothing. I found a great way to cook a bunch of beans at once, roasted with a tahini-based sauce.

Winter squash is another winner. Most years I don’t get around to planting any or don’t have room, but this year I figured out that I could let 3 kinds of winter squash vines run in the asparagus bed, the blackberry patch, and the perennial kale bed. It has worked out wonderfully. The biggest producer is Polaris F1 (iirc recommended by someone here). From a $2 packet of seeds I’ve so far picked 9 large butternuts, with at least a couple more on the vine (all from 2-3 seeds).

Tatume vining summer squash and Armenian cucumbers are also very productive. I planted the Tatume inside a 2-ft. diameter cylindrical cage, and I’ve kept it mostly contained. I really like the oval squashes, but it’s producing more than we can eat. Ditto for the Armenian cukes -- giving away a lot of those. It has taken over the whole cucumber trellis, and I don’t know if it’s overshadowing the other varieties of cucumbers or if it’s just not a good year for them, but I’ve gotten almost nothing from these other vines. I slice the cucumbers and put the container in the fridge, and we eat them like chips, with hummus. No bitterness!

Peppers! The bed where I planted 8-12 inches apart has been very successful, and the plants there seem to be doing better than the ones with more generous spacing. It seems like I’ve picked a hundred peppers from that bed in the past couple weeks or so (8 varieties, 17 plants), with many more coming. I added shade to all my peppers this year, which has helped prevent sunburn. I haven’t done taste tests yet, just eating/cooking random peppers. For next year (iirc I write this down every year), I need to plant each pepper plant with a sturdy stake and tie it to the stake as it grows. As usual, a bunch of plants are flopping from the weight of the peppers. I planted peppers in late May, which was perfect timing this year.

Tomatoes are a mixed story. We had temperatures over 100F in early June, most of July, and part of August, and the balance mostly over 90F. I planted a nematode-suppressing cover crop, Kodiak mustard, in some beds and by the time I chopped and incorporated it, and waited 3 weeks, it was getting later than I like to plant. The result was that tomatoes planted in early May did much better than those planted in late May, and early-mid varieties did better than late varieties. My goal for next year is to have the garden ready to plant by mid-April.

As usual, Benevento F1 was a winner for taste and productivity. It has tied for first place with Polaris the past few years, but this year, I got only 3 tomatoes from 2 Polaris plants (that was by far my biggest surprise). The best surprises were Magic Bullet, a pretty striped plum with a sweet flavor, and Cowboy (maybe a cousin of Polaris?), not as sweet as Polaris and only 3-5 oz., but quite prolific and a good sandwich tomato. Bush Early Girl F1 and Raspberry Lyanna, both small plants, have been steady producers. Other good producers were Purple Boy F1, Jersey Breeze (nice red), Black Plum (short shelf life), Kellogg’s Breakfast (sweet, but too juicy to be a good sandwich tomato), Chocolate Sprinkles F1 (beautiful firm tasty cherries), Sun Sugar F1 (best when bright orange and eaten in the garden), Black Cherry (prolific, super-dense plant but late fruits have bug damage), and Rosella cherry (tasty, but plant was wispier and buggier this year). That handful of varieties saved my tomato year, and I have had plenty to share with friends. Also got enough to form an opinion from California Sungold, Pink Champagne, Belle du College, Picus F1, Tommy Toe, One Trick Pony, and Thorburn’s Terra Cotta. I expect to be picking for another month, more or less.

Wrong varieties: Hawaiian Pineapple from Bounty Hunter (got a few yellow cherries), Orange Jazz from a trade (so I wonder if Pink Jazz and Thorburn’s Lemon Blush may be wrong as well), Purple Midnight (got a seedling, couldn’t find info on it; possibly Midnight Snack F1).

Harvested only one or a few fruit from Taxi, Green Tiger, Prairie Fire, Pruden’s Purple, Damsel F1, Maglia Rosa, Ruby Slippers, Taste Patio, Sheboygan, Pink CherryWine F1, Moon Child, Goldie, Daifuku, Sweet Aperitif (but loaded with greenies), and Pink Berkeley Tie Dye at the garden. But in containers on my patio, I got a good early yield of Maglia Rosa and a few Taste Patio, which were planted a month earlier than those in the garden.

Nothing but foliage from Raya Rey, Beefy Red, Sunrise Bumblebee, Legend, Sweet Baby Jade, African Queen, Bo Mango, Belmonte Pear, Granny’s Throwing, GGWT, Franchi’s Red Pear, Talvez F1 (but I see greenies), Carolina Dusk, Woodle Orange, Thorburn’s Lemon Blush, Pink Jazz, Orange Accordion. I will double-check for greenies and start taking these plants out.

Pretty much all the tomato plants looked healthy and vigorous most of the summer except for Green Bee F1, Green Tiger, and Prairie Fire.

Grapes: I have two grape varieties. I started eating Himrod in late June when they were still a bit tart. I’m still eating a few because they started setting new fruit as soon as most of the first crop was picked! I started eating Venus in late July, and they are getting sweeter and sweeter, still a lot on the vine.

[karstopography]

Nice review and recap. What did you think about Belle du College?

[habitat-gardener]

Nice review and recap. What did you think about Belle du College?

I got seeds from Terranova and thought Teresa said she had bred it; but when I look it up, I find a Tom Wagner variety. So I wonder if these are different tomatoes. I will have to go look for my seed pack.

My Belle du College is a large dark tomato on a tame indeterminate plant. So far most of them have had catfacing. Good flavor, but not a "wow" like Polaris.

[MissS]

This is a very nice review. It's such a shame that you had so very many non-productive varieties this year. I have a few of them myself for the first time ever.

[Vanman]

GGWT was one of my most productive this year. This year has been one of my worst years for tomatoes ever. Planted a week or two later than I wanted, wet early in the season, then hot and only a half inch of rain in August and the first of September. Finally got two inches the past couple of days.

[PlainJane]

I think Karen Olivier’s Cowboy is destined to be a popular tomato. I loved it.
Thanks for your wonderful recap!

[GoDawgs]

This year's Spring/Summer Winners and Losers:

Eggplant - Had one each of Chinese String, Millionaire, Matrosik and Rosita. We were flooded with eggplants from all, made them every which way and gave some away. Just wonderful! Last month I cut back Matrosik and Rosita as they were getting so tall but they're now flowering again with a few babies on them. And as usual, the older these plants get this time of year, the smaller they are when ripe.

Tomatoes - The most productive by far was SunSugar cherry; a veritable explosion of fruit!. It was a first timer for me but the sweetest cherry I've ever had. It is now on the A Team. Other productive ones were Bella Rosa, Eva's Purple Ball, Dwarf Sweet Satsuma and Homestead. The big ones (Daniel Burson, Rosedale, Bill Bean and SOTW weren't very prolific but made up for it in flavor. Bill Bean turned out to be the largest tomato I've ever grown at 1 lb 7 oz. The one real dud was Punta Banda for the second year in a row. It won't return.

Peppers - The winners were smaller peppers like Lipstick, Ozark Sweet Snack and Tangerine Dream, one pimento (Margaret's) and Maule's Red Hot Cayenne. Tru-hart (another new one to me) is a nematode resistant pepper and was productive but had a rather strange taste. Orange Bell was really good but made only four peppers. Duds were Super Shepherd (2nd year in a row so bye bye!), Habanada (swap seed that didn't germinate), Ancho (plant grew huge, flowered some and made not one pepper) and Beaver Dam (way way hotter than the mild 500-1000 Scovilles I read about). As happens every year, now that the weather has cooled down considerably the pepper plants are happy and loading up again.

Sweet Potatoes - 46 lbs of sweets this year from 11 hills.

Watermelon - My search for the sweetest melon has ended with Wilson Sweet! These cannonball size melons averaged 16 lbs each and one hill produced 11 melons. I have a ton of seed and the 20 I did a germination test on had 100% success. I will be sending some in to the MMMM.

Surprises and Lessons learned:

Riptortus bugs - something new here that did a number on the beans when the beans started to mature a bit past eating stage. We got a lot of beans to put up but lots of damaged seed collected and tossed out.

Squirrels - I think the two year plague of hundreds ravaging tomatoes and corn is over, for whatever reason.

Okra - This one will have to be in buckets from now on. Three years in a row of plants infected with nematodes. Okra is especially sensitive to them.

Micro tomatoes don't like it outdoors here so they will be my house plant toys.

Everything else (corn, cukes, carrots, garlic, peas, assorted brassicas etc) had a average season. Nothing to brag about but all were decent.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

H/T on growing the Sheboygan Heirloom, a WESconsin variety!

The Gotch

[MissS]

I'm glad that you have got the upper hand on the squirrels. They are so destructive to crops.

I agree that SunSugar is a gem. It's on my rotation list of favorites.

All in all it sounds as if you have had a good year.