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robert2014_gw

A look back to the 2014 season

2014 was my second year of gardening, so needless to say I am still a novice at this. However, gardenweb has been very helpful and I got plenty of great answers to the questions I had. I was thinking to make this post for a while, but got delayed due to lack of time. Now that Christmas is over, I thought of sitting down and share my experience here.

I have about 1,300 square feet of garden space. I planted the following,
beans, beets, butternut squash, carrots, cilantro, swiss chard, cucumber, eggplant, gourd, okra, onion, peas, pepper, radish, spinach, tomato, turnip, squash and zuchhini.
And here is what I harvested,
{{gwi:2118413}}

I really want to know from the experienced members here, how did I do. Was the production good enough, or not even close?

The sq feet are approximate. I did do some succession planting, like once radish was done I put pepper in its place. Then when cucumber was done I put radish/turnip in its place. Other than peas nothing was trellised. All beans were bush bean variety. I had lot of different types of peppers, such as jalapeno, habaneros, super chilli, bells, cowpeas, poblanos. I clubbed them all together when I weighed them.

Now the lessons that I learned were,
1. I cannot grow spinach well. I tried multiple times, both during spring and fall. But the harvest was miserable. Please let me know how can I do better. I used the bloomsdale long standing variety. But I really liked the taste.
2. Jade 2 is an awesome bean variety.
3. I need better supports for tomatoes. The plants were huge.
4. I planted burpee waltham butternut seeds as well as seeds from a store bought butternut squash. The plants from store bought butternut was way better, both from quantity and quality point of view. I was very surprised.
5. Very pleasantly surprised by dwarf long pod okras. Last year I planted clemson spineless (I planted them this year as well), but the dwarfs had similar yield with shorter plants and they remained ready to pick for a longer duration. clemson became woody way quicker.
6. Crunchy crimson is a great radish variety. I loved the flavor and the uniformity.
7. Super chilli produces like crazy.
8. squash vine borers are one of my sworn enemies.
9. I need to space tomatoes and pepper plants further apart.

So thats it. Sorry for the long post. I really look forward to hear from you.

Thanks a lot.

Comments (11)

  • Peter1142
    9 years ago

    That looks like a pretty massive haul... you should be proud, no matter what any expert on here says. :)

  • galinas
    9 years ago

    How many bean bushes did you have to pick 95 pounds?! I can't even imaging, in buckets, how many it would be)

  • nancyjane_gardener
    9 years ago

    Way beyond me, and I've been at it for about 13 years! I have to do raised beds due to gophers, though.
    #3, though, we use hog wire in a zig zag pattern through our bed, then use whatever way you like to tie/clamp them to the wire. Nice and sturdy, and fairly easy to get to!
    This year wasn't the greatest for tomatoes! Last year got 1#ers, this year golf ball sized and very little sauce! I'm thinking the drought (but I have plenty of well water!)

  • naturegirl_2007 5B SW Michigan
    9 years ago

    Wow, that's a large area for a "novice" to plant. And A LOT of produce to eat. Nice job! Did you process a lot of the beans, tomatoes, zucchini, okra, and peppers? And how did you use 74 pounds of radishes!?

    I'm not sure if those yields are high or not....haven't kept records like that for my plot. However, my husband, the accountant, would love your record keeping!

    Often people with small plots plant much differently than those with large plots. The lack of paths and extensive tellising can give very high yields per sq. ft. but it requires more time per sq. ft., too. So comparing your yields to others may not matter as much as you might think.

    With lots of room to plant, I'd gladly space things farther apart and run a tiller through for some of the bed prep and weeding. The lower yield per sq ft would be worth it for the time and work savings. With more space planted, I'd still get the quantities I wanted even though the yield per sq ft would be less.

  • calliope
    9 years ago

    I'd say your harvest was quite good, given you took off nearly a pound of produce for every square foot of garden. In fact, you got bragging rights.Of course since some plants will give a heavier yield than others per allotted space, the value in knowing your yield in pounds will benefit you best by indicating if more or less space should be allotted for any given vegetable. It helps me, because I can most of my garden produce and I know when I plant, how many quarts I need to restock my pantry, and how many bushels (pounds) it will take to get enough or have too much. Looks like your goal for next year's garden might be to look at your yields and see if you want to increase or decrease the allotted space for any particular vegetable. I cut waaaay back on things like zucchini and summer squash because they are so prolific that they overproduced, as did my cukes. I seem to be right on the money with the space I allot growing tomatoes and peppers, beans and spuds and adjust yearly for items I may be long or short on in my pantry. The weather sometimes sabotage the best of plans, but knowing your yields are a good ballpark. I've gardened all my life, and in fact did it for a living, so I'm less inclined to experiment with all the exotic new offerings for the novelty of it, and have a basic list of varieties I know produce well and just modify it a little on a trial basis if anything promising comes along. Hope you have a great year next year too, and if you did this well as a novice, you'll likely have a repeat performance and keep gaining on already good skills.

  • defrost49
    9 years ago

    I think you did very well. I haven't learned how to grow good onions yet. But for spinach, I plant as soon as possible in the spring. It's probably the first thing I plant. Once I read that it is day length sensitive, bolting when the days get long. I have also planted in late and got just small plants before winter and even with poor snow cover, it started growing again in early spring. I have a high tunnel and right now I have a small patch growing.

    Unfortunately, in addition to squash bugs, I know seem to be plagued by small critters who are eating a variety of my veggies including cilantro and hot peppers. I have put mousetraps around the garden but need to put out more and check more often.

    Surprised you do not grow potatoes. I have been very happy with the samplers from Moose's Tubers/Fedco. Fingerlings variety last year and storage potatoes this past year.

    Also surprised you aren't growing garlic but perhaps you don't like it.

    Best wishes for another successful gardening year.

  • Creek-side
    9 years ago

    I want some of those butternut seeds!

  • robert2014 zone 5b
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thought of sharing some pictures of my harvests.

    {{gwi:2118414}}


    {{gwi:2118415}}


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    {{gwi:2118417}}
    screenshot program

    {{gwi:2118418}}

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  • robert2014 zone 5b
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks all of you for your comments. It really feels great to know that I did not too bad at all.

    @peter - thank you, thats very encouraging to know.

    @galinas - I estimate that I planted about 25 10-ft rows of bush beans. Most were Jade 2, some were carson, topcrop, kentucky wonder.

    @naturegirl - We shared a lot with our friends, co-workers, neighbors and family. So that took care of our radishes, zuks, tomatoes etc. You are right about spacing everything further. My tomato and pepper plants were too crowded.

    @calliope - Thanks for your excellent suggestion. I planted way too many zuks and squash plants, as last year I had very bad luck with vine borers and squash bugs. They were there this year as well, but my plants seem to fight them a little longer. I will definitely cut back my zuks, and tomatoes.

    @defrost - thanks for the tip about spinach. Will try that this season. I thought of potatoes, but my soil is a little clay type, so was not sure. I will try a row this season. Thanks for your best wishes. I wish you too the very best of luck.

    @creekside - No idea about what type of butternut they were. Just bought them from the grocery store.

    Thanks again everyone. Wish you all a very happy new year.

  • elisa_z5
    9 years ago

    Gorgeous pics.
    This certainly sounds (and LOOKS) like a huge, wonderful haul. May 2015 be just as productive!

  • pnbrown
    9 years ago

    You did very good.

    Not to detract from that, you are on some of the best soil in the world, the same diligence gets less results in more average places. Nevertheless the biggest factor is paying attention to climate and crop choices. Not to mention elbow grease when it come to weeds :)

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