With the beginning of a new year, I find myself once again looking forward to the planting season. With the efforts of last year, we have learned a few things again. I wanted to share what we learned from 2019.
1-- Keeping up with bale pathways decreases the time spent pulling SO many weeds
2--Some herbs are stubborn. That is GOOD!
The sickly looking ones are Valerian I believe.... name escapes me at the moment. Either way, they replanted nicely after growing for 5 years in another place. Also perennial chives and Egyptian onion. We added a lot more. Think I put a few annual herbs in there too.
3--Peppers do much better in big pots in the greenhouse then they do in our soil, also Nasturtiums brought in a lot of beneficial bugs I didn't even recognize at first
4a--DO NOT plant large squash plants in the greenhouse.....they will take over....this one climbed the apple tree we haven't moved yet
4b--Pruning said squash can be a good thing.
These plants got so big the flowers weren't seeing enough sunlight and pollinators couldn't get to them. I hacked them down about three or four times so the squash I had would mature.
5--Um... some squash will cross... so patti pans next to pumpkins equals REALLY thick skin if not picked quick enough.
6--A good harvest isn't always judged by how MUCH you harvested, but the quality.
Tho I was able to dehydrate a LOT of summer squash, the kids were more excited by the long, fat, purple carrots. They were sweet, they were crunchy, and we ate SO many we probably should have gotten sick... I regret nothing.
7--With a dehydrator, most things won't go to waste.
I dehydrated so much...It takes up less space and makes it easy to add to soups, stews, and chilis.
We also had about 15 to 20 crates of pumpkins and extra squash. The bunnies ate VERY well this Winter until we ran out. Our compost pile even sprouted some extra squash from all the hacking down I did of big plants.
So what did YOU learn from gardening last year? Any new things you plan on trying? We're trying strawberry popping corn...we'll see how it works out.
Later peeps!