2023 Garden Review
I picked up vegetable gardening this year! It's something I'd been wanting to do for a while. My dad was a huge horticulture nerd and I remember what it's like having something from the garden in every dinner for the summer months. I also remember all the prep work it takes to clean salads and the occasional slug or caterpiller that would make it to your plate.
Where I Planted
This spring we were in a rental house, so I had a yard for the first time in ages. I dug a bed along the side of the house and got a bunch of cheap buckets for a container garden (we knew we were moving so I wanted to bring the garden with me)
The buckets were filled with topsoil I skimmed from my Mom's garden and spent potting soil from my friend's weed operation.
I borrowed my mom's florescant grow light which could fit 4 trays, so I did my and her seedlings, switching them out twice a day.
Planted the seedlings in April and the buckets worked fine. We started having carefully picked salads in May.
In June we bought a house (!) with a very large yard. I moved the bucket garden over and in July started slowing putting a garden bed in. The garden area is 40' x 80' so pretty big! I perma-borrowed a friend's tiller otherwise I would never have been able to get all the grass up.
I didn't amend the soil, it could use some structure from compost which I'm working on for next year.
My compost pile :)
Costs
I had a leg up from family and friends with hand me down seedling trays, soil, tools, and fertilizer chemicals, so this is in no way the cost of setting up a garden, but I'd estimate the following costs this year:
- 16 x $4 'homer' buckets $64
- seeds $109
- supports, plastic fence and rabbit fence $130
- pitchfork $35
- misc $50
total $338
Benefits
I like to have hobbies that pay for their own supplies. I'm not selling anything but I did tally up what we ate. I'm using the Park Slope Food Coop price list to price things, it's probably a bit cheaper than my local grocery store.
So not bad for a first year!
Garden Pests
The rental had deer, but they left things alone. The house has a lot of rabbits. I had a plastic net fence up but they learned how to chew through it and clear cut a whole bed of lettuce in one night. I now have metal rabbit fence but they still get in at a lesser rate (I'll probably shell out for metal 'hardware cloth' fencing next year after I extend the garden a bit)
For insects, there were a lot of cucumber beetles which didn't seem super destructive to cucurbits but they leave little pockmarks in the green beans which i didn't like. Late summer squash bugs were unsurpsingly all over the squash. I tried to remove the eggs and adults by hand but I was also using a spray bottle with diluted dish soap which kills them in a few seconds. I saw one vine borer moth (red legs). I hear they can suddenly kill entire plants.
The caterpillars got pretty bad on the kale and brussel sprouts by mid summer, but now that I know what they like I can probably cover those beds to keep them out. I think my dad used to catch the daytime cabbage butterflies with an insect net which isn't a bad idea because you always see them out of reach.
The Vegetables
In rough order of how well they did and how much we liked eating them.
Green Beans
I did two rows of bush beans, strike bush beans and some hand me down seeds that had a little larger pods. We love green beans, it was so nice to have them on hand. We do them fried in olive oil with garlic and salt, or sometimes boiled for the kids lunches.
Kale
I tried Starbour and Black Magic kale this year. it didn't do great in the buckets, but I planted my extra Starbour seedlings in Mom's raised beds and it went to town (see photo on the right). We eat a lot of kale, sauteed with garlic or raw as a salad with balsamic vinegar, oil, and grated parmesian. The Starbour was great, i had bags of it on hand for most of high summer. It did get a lot of caterpillar problems once summer hit, which meant a lot of careful picking and prep of the leaves. Next year I will try getting ahold of a cover cloth to keep the butterflies and moths out.
Okra
Jambalaya Okra. I loved it. Planted a half row in July so it didn't make pods until September. A friend suggested okra as somethign really productive, it's a shame I started it so late. Made a Bhindi Masala that the family liked a lot. I was eating it for lunch fried in oil with salt and pepper (until the slime goes away), and put on rice. Next year I'll try a whole row and start them earlier. With 6 plants it was hard to harvest enough for a meal at one time.
Butternut Squash
This was so much fun. 12 plants of Polaris Winter Squash planted as a half row, which spread quite a bit. They yielded 30 some squash! I planted them at the start of July, could probably have gone earlier and gotten 4 per plant. These had a huge squash bug problem so I babied them by ripping egg patches out of leaves and hand squishing every one i could find. Cucumber beetles didn't seem to really hurt them but a patch of squash bug eggs would suck a whole stem dry eventually. I put little squares of cardboard under the ones on the ground.
I still have 8 of these in the basement cellar area. We peel and roast slices (kids like that), or do a puree soup with chicken stock. I found a nice recipe where you cube and roast them with oregano then stir in maple syrup and crushed walnuts at the end.
Pak Choy
I did a full row of Brisk Green Pak Choi, started in July. This was another workhorse vegetable for family dinners. I like it raw in mixed salads or sauteed with garlic and soy sauce. Kid liked to eat it while playing in the garden. Surprisingly little problems with pests! It never bolted and was fine to eat even when mature (a little brasica spiciness at the heart but I like that). Didn't mind frosts, there's still a few sitting out there I could pull and it's January.
I'll probably do a half row with succession planting next year and try to keep it going right through the winter
Cilantro
Tried Calypso Cilantro. I love cilantro, put it on most meals if I can. It was especially nice running out to grab a handful to put on lunch leftovers. I was good about succession planting it the entire year, in buckets and two little garden patches. I even used the fresh corriander when it bolted. Only notes are I'd like to try some different varieties next year, and probably just grow a larger direct sown plot so i can crop a handfull instead of snipping around each plant.
Tomatoes
I only grew Citrine cherry tomatoes, I should have done other varieties. These were ok! Very sweet, fun for my kid to pick. I made a nice quick pickle recipe that had cumin and turmeric in it.
Peppers
Did Carmen Italian frying peppers and some 'Baron Hot' poblano hand me down seeds. I also pickled a bunch of some little sweet pepper my Mom couldn't make use of. For some reason I thought peppers would be hard to grow but they did great in the buckets. I have a bunch of varieties picked out for next year.
Tatsoi
Tatsoi greens. Nice leafy brassica similar to Pak Choy but more pleasant raw in a salad. Doing great as a winter crop they're still out there happy as can be. If you're patient you can just pick the outer leaves.
Daikon Radish
Minowase daikon. Most pushed up out of the soil. Pretty good, they get air pockets inside the radish from uneven watering. I planted a whole bed for some reason. I like them in a salad or just sliced and salted. I tried a quick pickle and it smelled so bad the next day. So not sure what all those recipes are about.
Ground Cherries
Pinapple Ground Cherry. Kind of dissapointed, it wasn't that fruity or tropical as some people describe it. The husks were fun to pick up every time I went into the garden. I had larger plants I thought I would get a harvest from but squirrels, ants, and maybe a racoon figured out what was going on and ate most the ground fallen fruit.
I might try the Peruviana variety some other time but probably not next year. If i get any volunteer plants next spring I'll keep them around.
Other stuff
* Lettuce - did ok in buckets but I didn't grow enough. Rabbits ate what was in the ground.
* Spinach - rabbits ate all. Hard to germinate.
* Arugula - grew a bunch throughout the year, think i got 2 extra packets from the hardware store. We love it, pests ignore it.
* Brussel sprouts - Started late. Caterpillar poop all over the sprouts. Rabbits eventually at the leaves.
* Kholrabi - rabbits
* Zucchini - 2 plants gave me 8. Great raw in salads or as fritters with egg flour and green onions. Could have used more.
* Cucumbers - 3 plants gave me 9, could have used a lot more!
* Green onions - started late, I should do a large section of a bed next year because it's a great thing to have on hand.
* Dill - did great, no real reason to grow this if you're not pickling a bunch but it was fun in a salad.
* Swiss Chard - direct sow didn't work out well and rabbits ate it once it got cold out.
* Beets - direct sow was unimpressive. I like beets, would love to figure out how to get them going.
* Upland Cress - Really spicy, my 3yo and I love to eat it in the garden. Doing well in winter but not growing very fast.
* Mache - rabbits got it. Was really excited to try this, it was kind of hard to germinate and i guess the plants are kind of small sized.Notes for next year
Things I'd like to do next year: Expand the garden plot a few rows where it's sunny. Buy a load of compost from the city (it's like $20 per truck bed). Put up a completely rabbit proof fence with a little gate. Have an abundance of lettuce, like too much lettuce. Try growing a melon, probably a small cantelope. Try new herbs like Thai basil, Za'atar, culantro. Have too many zucchini, grow serious amounts of tomatoes and peppers. Correctly plant the two apple trees I ordered and learn how to protect them. Take better care of the blackberries/gooseberries I planted this year and place a few new gooseberry bushes around.