My Garden, 2011

365 days ago, this was my garden:

This is my garden today:

Yikes.

I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Maybe I put the tomatoes in too late? We had a really cold spring with many nights on the border of frost, and I was afraid putting them in would kill them. But they haven’t grown much, and several are dying on me, in the ground. I’ve compost-teaed and watered faithfully — at least, as faithfully as I have every other year.

I’m so disappointed. I don’t know what’s to account for the problems. Everything else (hello weeds!) seem to be growing just fine.

If you look at last year’s garden post, you’ll see I had many big plans — plans for cucumbers and blackberries and lettuces. How did I do?

2010

• Berries: None ever fruited, not the strawberries, and certainly not any of the bush berries.(Poor Logan Echollsberries.)
• Cucumbers: They grew nicely, but they were really sour. Even the neighbor kid (aged 4) who loves cucumbers, wouldn’t touch them. Maybe they weren’t ripe yet?
• Hot peppers: grew fine in the pots. We used these lots.
• Sweet peppers: Did not grow fine in the pots. I’m trying them in the ground this year.
• Mystery plants that came up in the garden: They were tomatoes. And they were awesome.
• In fact, all my tomatoes last year were amazing. I was the envy of all my neighbors, not to mention my inlaws. I had sungold grapes out the wazoo and tons of stoplight cherries and a bunch of slicing tomatoes.
• Lettuce: Not doing this again. If you don’t pick them when the leaves are babies, they get big and bitter and unwieldy. And I am not quick enough on the draw for that.
• Basil: All grew great. We had so much basil last summer.
• Oregano: The one in the pot died, but that’s okay, because the one in my garden came back in a major way (it’s about 1/6 of my current garden).
• Cilantro: NOT a pot plant. Now I know.
• Mint: Don’t even ask. I’m the only person on the planet who can kill mint.
• Zucchinis: Wow. I got about a dozen zucchinis the size of my arm last summer. We got sick of eating them, and then they (conveniently) died.
• Yellow squash: Died before we got any.
• Rosemary: Died. Not a pot plant, I think.
• Sage: Shaded out by the zucchinis.

So, what am I planning on this year?

Tomatoes, and plenty of them! I think, buoyed by the enormous success we had last year, I got a little cocky on my tomato planting. I planted seven (more sungolds, natch, and 3 different kinds of slicing tomato, plus a “chocolate cherry” that sounded fun). In addition, TEN tomato plants came up. So even if htey don’t grow to the heights they did last year, I should have plenty of tomatoes.

The oregano came up from last year, and I planted a bunch more basil. I also planted a bunch more strawberries, but they haven’t been doing anything yet. I put some regular mint and some chocolate mint in the ground, and so far, they haven’t died — the regular mint even looks like it’s growing. The Chocolate mint has definitely sent out shooters, but there isn’t enough to do anything with.

I planted a jalapeno and I have some sweet peppers i plan to put in the ground elsewhere to prevent cross pollination.

I planted one squash plant. My neighbor is going to have enough zucchini for us all.

But I don’t know what to think about my skimpy tomatoes this year. The ground might be underfertilized. I forget the eggshell/tums trick Dragonfly told me about. Bummer. But I didn’t need it last year. I don’t know. Keep your fingers crossed some of these tomatoes come up!