Final Garden Report for 2010

Fall is coming on and our garden is moving from the production phase to the preparation phase and getting ready for next year. I've pulled up all of the cornstalks, 6/7 of the potato plants, most of the carrots, and most all of everything else. Now, looking back from the end of the season, I can say unequivocally that this year was our BEST YEAR EVER! So here's the breakdown:

Potatoes:

Our potatoes rocked the house, especially considering that this was our first year ever growing them! Corbin loved helping me harvest them and would get so excited to watch a potato pop out of the dirt as I turned the garden with the shovel. He would declare "Is a big one!" or "Is a little one" and would then deposit it in his harvest bucket. The top performer was definitely the Yukon Gold variety, followed by the Reds. Our Russets were pretty peewee and I'm debating over whether or not to plant any next year. Perhaps it was because we just used store bought potatoes, rather than official planting seed potatoes like we used with the others. Whatever the cause, I'm thinking that until we get some more space, I'll stick with our proven performers to get the max out of our limited growing area.

Those big ones are the Yukon Gold. We used a bunch of them to make a huge batch of my buttery, cheesy hashbrowns for breakfast one morning. A-mazing!

Cucumbers:

Almost all of our vine-based plants were slow starters. They didn't do a whole lot until late in the Summer. But once our cucumbers took off, they just never quit. One of our cucumber vines got some disease in early August that wiped out at least 90% of the plant, but that lingering 10% just kept on chugging and it is still cranking out the cukes even going into October. We've had more cucumbers than I've known what to do with, especially since our lettuce went to seed back in August. But I've started peeling them and slicing them into stick to eat as a snack with ranch dressing, and that is a real treat.

It was great to have a completely home-grown green salad with dinner on a few occasions. Lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, and we even had a couple of tomatoes later on. What a treat!

Carrots:

I planted about a gazillion carrots this year to hopefully improve our chances of getting some good ones this year. Last year the biggest carrot we got was about the circumference of my thumb and the length of my pinky. That's the way it was looking this year too. The first batch of carrots I picked was so disappointing! There wasn't anything larger than what we grew last year, but I did so much more to help them succeed. What more could I have done for my carrots? But then, just last week, I picked a second batch, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but some huge, honkin' carrots! I'm so excited! I'll have to run some regression analyses to find out why certain portions of the patch performed so much better than others.

I picked the left batch first and was so disappointed, but the second batch had me throwing away carrots bigger than the biggest in the first batch to make room for the real winners. Hooray!

Raspberries:

So I wasn't planning on getting any raspberries this year. Mitzi (and the internet) kept telling me, "Raspberries only grow on the second year after you plant them." But I secretly was holding out hope that we would get some this year, even if only one or two. Instead we got about a dozen or two. What a wonderful surprise! Unfortunately, Corbin LOVES raspberries and I caught him more than once sneaking outside to eat every remotely-ripe berry he could find off the stalk. Sometimes, he would even sneak out and eat some and then run in and say "Raspberries, not ready" (what I always tell him to keep him from eating them all) and would then open his mouth just long enough to show me the berries he had been chewing before running away like a villain. I can't wait for next year!

Corn:

We had corn this year! We had three meals worth of corn on the cob grown in our own garden! What an amazing treat! Corn has never failed to be one of the biggest disappointments in the Cannon Family garden year after year. But this year, with a little manual pollination and a lot more sunlight (7 hours worth!), we had the best corn we've ever had by far. I realize now that I probably could have planted about 3x as many corn plants in the space I used and that the pollination would have been even more complete and the harvest more full, but you'd better believe I'm looking forward to planting a whole bunch next year now that I know there's a good chance it will be worth it.

This was easily our largest, most impressive ear. But several others were at least 2/3 its size and every bit of its sweetness.

Cantaloupe:

Of all of our vine plants, the cantaloupe were the most delayed in getting to growing. They took their sweet time and then finally, about the first week of September, we spotted a couple of cantaloupes growing. I doubt they'll have enough time to mature seeing as the sun is angling more and more behind our house and the plants are getting less and less sunlight every day. I'm on the fence as to whether or not to plant any of these next year, but I'm willing to hold out hope for an October surprise.

Our cantaloupes as of 9/26/2010. I doubt they're gonna make it.

Squash:

Last year we only got one banana squash...but it was SO GOOD! I had to plant it again this year even if we only got one. To my great satisfaction, it looked like we were going to get three! One started getting down to business back in July, but then two others popped up in late August. One has since bitten the dust and been composted to feed next year's crop. The other is still yellow but is quite large and hearty. Unfortunately, the sun is oriented such that the plant gets ZERO sunlight right now and won't get any until next May. I'm hoping that the photons that bounce off our white siding and windows will find their way down to the plant to help that second squash pink and firm up before the frost comes. In any case, I'm so excited for banana squash side dishes with our October dinner menus.