Lessons Learned

At the end of August I had my first picks out of the garden.  Well, I guess not the first, if you count the peas.  Anyway, I was so excited to have such beautiful yellow squash that came out of our backyard.  Just look!

They were tasty too.  However, since then I have learned several important lessons.

#1) I need to space my zucchini and yellow squash plants better.  I have two yellow squash plants that are in the front of the garden.  They are very happy out there in the full sun with the extra heat from the retaining wall.  Because of that, they have outgrown all of the other squash plants behind them.  They are hogging all of the sun and water.  I've only been able to pick one zucchini and there are only two more growing out there.  Also, this is too much yellow squash for our family to eat.  Maybe it won't be once the kids are older and less picky, but for now it is definitely too much.  At least I have lots to give away, right?  Next year I will plant two spots of each kind, all of them properly spaced and along the front of the retaining wall.

#2) No more corn.  This year was my second attempt at corn.  Again, I spaced it wrong.  I was trying to squeeze more into our small plots than I should have.  And corn is high maintenance.  It needs lots of space, water, sun, and heat.  Even with the special PacNW variety that I tried, this poor corn still didn't get enough heat.  And I have to admit, I was a slacker on the water.  I need to be honest with myself about how much effort I'm really willing to shell out for homegrown veggies.  Corn's not worth it for me.

#3)  Again, spacing... this time for pumpkins and butternut squash.  The vines for these are growing all over each other and out of the garden space.  I have only seen three pumpkins so far.  (I guess a trip to the pumpkin patch will still happen this year.)  I have notied a ton of butternuts, but they are all pretty small.  I'm hoping they grow and ripen in time.  And my mini pumpkins... they only produced 1-2 pumpkins per plant.  Lame.  I thought I'd get more.  I can't decide if I should dedicate garden space to something that I'm growing for fall decorations.

#4)  Tomatoes.  I planted three plants in the back.  Then, fearing that they wouldn't do well because they were so small when I planted them, I bought two more for another plot.  All of the tomato plants are now huge.  The golden tomatoes (a cherry type variety) have about a million tomatoes on each plant.  But will they ever ripen?  I don't know.  I finally picked five goldens yesterday, but two had split and needed to be tossed.  The others were pretty tasty though!  I've got my fingers crossed.  If this crop comes in, I'll have enough to share and then some!  I think for next year though, I'll do two plants at the most and try to have faith that they'll grow.  I might put them in large pots on the back deck so that I'll be better about watering them (and avoid watering the foliage).  I will also support them differently.  Mine are all so huge that they have overgrown their cages and are falling over.  Not a big deal, really, but I like the idea of a tidy garden.

#5)  New things to try next year: lettuce, carrots, and green beans.  We eat all of these, so it only makes sense that I should grow some, right?  I've tried carrots before, but it's been awhile.  Brad is installing some drip lines for two of the garden spaces along with our sprinkling system, so I think the carrots will fare better.  I also saw a great idea on Pinterest for sharing garden space with beans and lettuce.  Okay, so theirs was cucumbers, but I think it might work for beans too.  Or maybe I should try cucumbers. 
So those are my lessons learned for this year.  Of course, I haven't finished out the season yet, so I may have a bunch more learning coming my way!