I can't say I'm disappointed, but I am realizing that I didn't do a great job with this attempt at a garden.
The zucchini was beautiful. Two plants. I harvested one sizable ripe squash. Then some kind of critter treated the plants like a buffet, ate most of the little baby squash, and broke both plants at the main stem near the ground. So the plants are composting now.
I thought I planted plenty of peas, but they didn't seem to do well. I don't know if I didn't water them enough, or if I watered them too much (that's what I suspect), or if the soil just wasn't right for them (I also suspect that). From a whole row of planting (IIRC, 13 plants), only seven or eight survived and only five produced pea pods. When they looked ripe yesterday, I picked them, pulled up the plants and put them in the compost bin, and realized I had about enough for one good stir-fry. May do that with the peas, the zucchini, and stuff from the store (onion, pepper, cauliflower) tonight.
I'm pretty sure I did plant plenty of green beans, and they're about ready to pick. Hopefully more than one family meal's worth, probably cooked with baby/new red potatoes, a bit of bacon, etc.
There's leaf salad ready to pick and have in salads and I will probably do some of that that this week.
The corn plants have tasseled.
Some of the peppers have started flowering, and it looks like I've got a couple of tiny cayenne actually fruiting.
The cherry tomatoes look good. They're still green, but definitely going well.
The cucumbers are doing too well. I unthinkingly planted a whole row of them and they are going gangbusters. Problem: I don't eat cucumbers (they make my mouth break out), and there will be way too many for e.g. Tamara's salads. We may try pickling, but pickles aren't so popular in our household that it would really be worth the effort. Next time, it will be one or two plants.
The cantaloupe is flowering and hopefully about to fruit. I'm looking forward to harvesting a cantaloupe of an evening, sticking it in the fridge over night, then cutting and eating cold cantaloupe the following morning for breakfast.
The pumpkin plants look kind of sickly and haven't flowered yet.
A little while back I started a "container potato" project with an old rectangular plastic container with an opening lid. I put in its side, cut a hole in it, planted a red potato with an eye or three in it (with nice fertile soil), and kept it wet. It's sprouted. The idea is that I can just open that lid (which is now on the side), pull out a few potatoes, and keep the thing going/growing in perpetuity. If that works out, I'll be doing more of it. Potatoes are a huge staple in our household.
This is really the first time, as an adult, that I've put in the effort and follow-through to really make a garden grow and go such that it's providing food. But Garden 2.0 will be laid out very differently. Most of the stuff -- tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, peppers, green beans, lettuce -- will be planted "square foot" style for maximum yield versus density. Then I'll have a more sprawling area full of fairly closely packed corn and less densely packed squash and cantaloupe. I haven't decided whether to try kidney beans yet, but those, along with the tomatoes and peppers, would be the base for chili, which we like a lot.
And I'll be doing more research on what the various plants need in terms of water, sun, etc. so that I can get things right for each plant instead of just giving them all the same amounts of this and that and the same soil type. I would love for Garden 2.0 to be able to produce all the veggies we want/need for the time between Garden 2.0 and Garden 3.0.
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