(while this one is still fresh in your mind)
I have a simple rule that I apply to everything I ‘did’. Whether its my garden, an event that I was involved in, or a class that I taught – doesn’t matter, it pretty much always applies. At the end of whatever it is, I ask myself these THREE Questions (and answer them of course).
1. What went well? What was I pleased with?
2. What could have been better? What could I have improved on?
3. What did I learn? In my opinion, the most important.
All three questions are very important, and must be asked in order. It is very easy to get down on yourself when something didn’t go right. None of us seem to be short on negative self talk, if the season (or event) was disappointing. Its easy to get discouraged and give up if we focus on the bad, on the things that didn’t work out. So DON’T!
What went well? There is always something that was good. Think about it, and WRITE DOWN the answers. A fruit or vegetable that grew well – a new skill that came in handy – a new hack that paid off – etc. Write down everything that was good about this year’s garden.
For my 2021 garden: What went well?
* Kale. I grew great kale. The year before was the first time I planted kale and I only planted 6 plants, but it encouraged me to plant again, this time I planted double that amount, and some variation. I planted them in three or four different spots, I picked from the plants all summer long, and well into October when I finally harvested the last of it. I used fresh kale in salads, omelettes and scrambled eggs, soups, casseroles, chopped in sandwiches, and smoothies. I tried kale chips in the oven for the first time, and was wowed. Repeated that several times, using less oil each time lol. I dehydrated the excess and ended up with two FULL 2 quart jars of dehydrated kale, crushed into them.
* Tomatoes. I had a reeeeeally good harvest of tomatoes this year. Lots of tomatoes! Mostly the Romanian Giants. For the first time, I grew tomatoes all season long IN my new green house. Eight or ten tomatoes there, four around an arbour in the first garden bed, four around an arbour in the large horse trough, and some in their usual spot on the west side of the house. And some cherry tomato in planters on the patio. Made for a LOT. I admit it – tomatoes are my thing. The backbone of my garden, the one thing I look forward to the most. Everything else exists around them.
The most successful places (in order), was the green house, garden arbour and large horse trough arbour – all in the sunniest locations. We ate fresh tomatoes pretty much all of August, September and October. We’ll have fresh tomatoes into November. I canned the excess that ripened faster than we could eat, a couple dozen quarts. I made fresh bruschetta and salsa, canning about 15 pints of salsa. I oven roasted lots of tomatoes. We had so many different types of tomato based soups.
* Cucumbers: best crop ever. Honey berries, Cherries, Raspberries, Rhubarb, Oregano.
* Compost. We reorganized our compost area since building the greenhouse, adding another large old garbage can turned upside down. Also had a mound of dried lawn trimmings in our compost area, ready to add to compost piles as needed, and use to mulch gardens. We also added to the city compost from time to time – with undesirable compost: either branches and things that take too long to break down, thistle, scraps that included oil or meat, ….. that sort of thing. It was valuable to be able to recycle these organics even though we didn’t want them ourselves.
* Greenhouse. Dan built me a new greenhouse this spring. Not very big, 8×12 – the perfect size for our needs. I dug the soil down deep on both sides, and added gravel, compost and aged horse manure to the soil. When the shelves were no longer needed, I removed them and planted tomatoes, peppers and nasturtiums in the soil.
* Soil amendment in the former spruce area. We took out two massive spruce trees a year and a half before and the following summer it was almost a dead zone. Nothing we planted did well, so we gathered our resources and came up with an amendment plan, thanks to the suggestion of our friend Scott Campbell. Aged horse manure, barley straw and early spring mowing. Became positively LUSH compared to last year.
New Discoveries
Horse trough raised beds
Hori hori knife (my new favourite tool)
Mexican Tarragon, Papalo, and Epezote
What could have been better?
Grapes. Plums. Carrots. Potatoes. Strawberries. Basil. Beans. Butternut Squash.
My planting was too condensed, and I ended up shading some things I’d rather not have.
I thought I planted bush beans, when they were in fact pole beans, and consequently they weren’t placed in the best spot. That was unfortunate. I experimented with two different ways to grow potatoes. Both were interesting and I’m glad I did it, but not that great of a yield.
What did I learn?
We’ve been growing tomatoes on the west side of the house which we knew was short on sun, but the best we had at the time. This year, the new greenhouse resolved that issue. 2021 is our last year for westside tomatoes. Next year, that partial sun/partial shade area will be best suitable for greens: lettuce and arugula, chard, kale, nasturtiums and celery.
We topped up all of our beds with aged horse manure and completely redid the entire strawberry bed, including new plants, following the recommendations of some trusted friends. I allowed too many other things to grow in it as the summer progressed: dill, poppies and sunflowers. Next year, I’m gonna limit that. We’ll deep water the strawberries right away (end of October), and cover them in leaves to tuck them in for a long winter’s sleep, and hope for better strawberries next year.
Plans for improvement next year?
Gonna rent a small inground garden plot in our community garden, to plant carrots, potatoes and maybe beets. Those root crops I just don’t seem to have sufficient room or sun for in my small garden, and if there’s one thing the community garden has a lot of, it is SUN!
Seeds for Next Year’s Garden
I ALWAYS buy seeds one year in advance. For the most part, what I plant in 2022 will be the seeds I purchased in late winter 2021, and so forth. It’s part of my personal philosophy of preparedness. There will always be an exception, something I decide to try NOW, but generally speaking, I plan at least one year ahead for gardening. I don’t ever want to have a spring when for some unforeseen reason, I am unable to get seeds. Preparedness is not just food storage.
Some of those seeds will be seeds I saved myself, especially tomato seeds from my own Romanian Giants, Nasturtiums, Poppies and Dill. Garden preparedness includes ensuring I have sufficient potting soil for next spring, as well as planting containers.
I get my seeds from assorted sources: a local seed store on the west side, one of several Canadian seed companies I order online, the odd package that catches my eye at a greenhouse or garden centre, and of course those that I propagate myself or that friends have shared. But for next year I have decided to try another Canadian seed company a friend recommended. I am looking for a company that deserves my loyalty.
Keep your plans for next year ACHIEVABLE.
Seed catalogues are full of all sorts of potential, and it’s good to try something new every year. Some thing you haven’t tried before, a new vegetable, a new type, a new way of doing things, . . . And there’s nothing wrong with trying something totally ‘out there’ from time to time, like watermelon, cantaloupe, grapes, honeyberries …. You never know what’s gonna WORK, and you very well may be surprised. Some things may simply have been fun to try, but not really worth investing too much energy down the road, not to mention the garden space that may have been better used for other vegetables. And other things may be tremendous successes. However, keep the bulk of your garden plans for the “most likely to succeed” crops. Go for the tried and true types. Ask other gardeners for their recommendations.
We’re fully expecting our Honey Crisp Apple, which we transplanted into our former spruce area two springs ago, to amaze us in 2022. It got set back when we transplanted it, and had a rough season in exceptionally poor soil, but we’ve apologized, and have done our best to make up for that rough start. I also have high hopes for our Royal Plum, which produced this year, but sparsely.
I highly recommend keeping a garden journal of sorts. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re gonna be a great journaler if you’ve never done well with journals before, but don’t be a defeatest either. Commit to it.
It doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive, just a simple notebook will suffice – but have a book that is gonna stick around. Not just a collection of note papers.
Keeping a garden journal WILL improve your gardening experience, I promise. Why? Because you will hone your skills based on what you learned from previous seasons. It will provide you with historical information that will help you better predict future results. It will help you keep an inventory of your seeds and perennials, as well as record your harvests. It can effectively evolve into a personalized garden TEXT BOOK, and every year you add to it, it becomes more and more valuable.
What to include in your garden journal? 15 suggestions
- Date your entries and write down your answers to the three questions above. Every year. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did. This will be your core.
- A pencil sketch of your garden layout with the year clearly marked. This is more important than you might think. You will want to ensure you rotate most crop areas, avoiding using the same spot year after year for the same vegetable.
- A list of the plants that worked out best, and the ones that did NOT.
- Dated sources for specific plants: greenhouses, nurseries or garden centres, seed companies, friends or neighbours.
- Planting times, ready times, harvest times. Maybe even a few recipes you discovered.
- Be more specific about times: dates you started seeds indoor, dates you transplanted them, and dates you planted seeds directly into the garden. Germination times. All these are things you THINK you’re gonna remember. Yeah right, you won’t. The information will come in handy for future years.
- Soil tests, soil amendments and subsequent assessments of that soil.
- Any problems with pests, diseases or other issues
- Approximate dates of harvests and the type of yield you got. I don’t have the patience to weigh, measure or count, but I know some do that. I think that’s great. Just not for me.
- Weather. I know right? But seriously, every year is unique, and not every season is good for every crop. So record your assessment on the weather trends by recording details, and make note of what crops are doing better than others. For instance, I have noticed that in our part of the city, we seem to be have less violence in the weather. The worst seems to go around us. I have also noted that other areas seem to get a frost quicker than we do, perhaps owing to our number of nearby trees creating a minor microclimate. You’ll be more likely to make note of weather patterns if you’re writing them down.
- New changes and experiments. How else are you gonna track what works?
- Suggestions, recommendations, and even recipes shared by other gardeners. I know, again with the recipes.
- Expenses: how much spent in greenhouses and garden centres, seed catalogues, garden paraphernalia, new builds, maintenance of raised beds etc, cold frames, lattices etc
- Hacks, suggestions, inspiration and ideas. Using your garden journal as the place to make quick notes about what they are, or where to find them, is the best way to keep them all in one spot for easy reference later
- Personal reflections, inspiration and musings . . . . . after all, it IS a journal. It is part of you. It is a record of yourself.
What plans do you have for your garden next season?
Warmly,
Cindy Suelzle