The garden is fading fast, full of mildew and in need of a hefty cleanup. I didn't take pictures of the full garden in August (I blame double hurricanes dumping 13" of water, vacation, and getting ready to go back to school in a pandemic), so I wanted to make sure I shared what it looks like now. If your garden looks as terrible as mine, I'm glad I'm not alone. This year was HARD on plants. Too hot, too humid, too wet, too many big storms with high winds. The level of mildew and blight is unreal. The longer we go without a frost in October, the worse it gets. Most of what I clean up this year can't even be composted - it's so covered with the stuff I have to burn it or bag it.
It's been a good year overall. Not my best year, but far from my worst. There are a lot of wins this year - plants are maturing, I'm learning more with each passing season, the weather could have been worse (and has been). The flowers were great. I'd never survive as a farmer, but I'll definitely call myself a gardener with pride. Here's an overview of this year's wins and losses, successes and failures as I wrap up the garden for this year.
Vines and things:
Currently the bed has a nasturtium taking over, as they do in September and October, I'll let it go until frost because it's the only thing left in this bed besides the yarrow.
Wins: The pea vines on both sides of the archway did really well in the spring. The cucumbers did great until mid-August. The yarrow (that was supposed to be moved elsewhere but wasn't) was very beautiful and provided so many great blooms. The vine spinach did really well this year (technically it's in the flower bed but I'm counting it over here) and I'm glad I planted it earlier than I did last year since it's slow to start.
Neutral: The mini pumpkins. I love that we had 11 of them, but I hate how many squash vine borers feasted on the plants at the end (it was crawling with them to the point where I had the shivers).
Fails: The green bean seeds never sowed this year, which is weird because they are normally so hardy. I think something ate them twice and then I gave up. The carrots had a really hard time sowing this year (something that has always been so easy in the past) and we had like 3 small sad ones. The melon plants barely had vines this year, the conditions weren't right for growing I guess (last year I fought the squirrels for 6 big cantaloupes!). The swiss chard was slow to start and when it finally took off, it became covered in a spotted blight that was too unappetizing to eat. I tried cutting it back and hoping the new growth would be spot-free, but it was even worse the second time.
Tomatoes:
Here are the ragged leftovers of the tomatoes right before I pulled them up. There were a few cherry tomatoes left but not enough to make it worth delaying the inevitable. All that's left now are the marigolds.
Wins: Every tomato plant produced a really good amount of tomatoes. The sweet 100's cherry tomato plants in particular produced so many I literally didn't know what to do with them all and was giving them away. They all came in at once. I also found that the Martino Roma plum tomatoes also produced a massive bumper crop this year. Early girl, bloody butcher, beefsteak hybrid and black krim also produced a lot of tomatoes overall. The only downside was that they all came in at once, just like the cherry tomatoes, when early girl and bloody butcher are supposed to start early. We had to make a lot of sauce to use them up.
I've never had marigolds this big and beautiful before in the corners (corner planting seems to be a million times better than anywhere else in this space). The borage also did REALLY well this year and I think the borage directly effected the massive numbers of tomatoes we had this year.
Neutral: The yellow pear tomato. There's a blight this tomato plant is particularly susceptible to - in the past few years it's died even sooner than this year, so I might need to let it go for a bit. It did produce significantly more tomatoes before dying this year than the past couple, but it did the worst out of all my plants.
Fail: Tomato supports and stakes. The tomato cages were tipping over from the weight, next year I need to add some tall sturdy stakes like I did in the dahlia bed to keep everything from flopping over.
Dahlias:
The dahlias are constantly at their peak every 2-3 days. I pick buckets of flowers and it's delightful.
Wins: Every single dahlia plant did beautifully this year. 8 plants is the magic number so that they each have space to breathe and grow. I've had a summer and fall of blooms and will keep tending to these plants until frost. I'm so happy I pre-started them in the greenhouse to extend the bloom season, and the setup this year with cages and extra sturdy tall stakes was exactly what they needed to stay upright.
Fail: The mildew. This is totally out of my control, but the mildew and blight were out of control this month. I never want to spray in the raised beds (this is a pesticide free zone!), but this year I had to spray to keep the plants and bulbs alive. I found an organic powdery mildew spray to try to get us over the worst of it. It's been too hot and humid for too long this year (the heatwaves started earlier than normal in the spring and are lasting way longer into the fall) and it's made the spores too numerous. My dahlia "apricot desire" (yellow with orange streaks) looks really bad. Like I'm not sure if it will survive until frost. I have another in the yard in the dahlia bed that's doing better, so it's not all lost, but after all the love I've put into these babies back here I'm surprised it's withering so much.
Mixed Flowers:
The zinnias are monsters this year, standing at 6-8 ft tall, towering over everything else in the garden.
Wins: Everything here has been a winner this year. The cosmos took off so quickly and were beautiful. The medium height snapdragons struggled when the rest of the plants get taller, but they still produced beautiful blooms all summer. The rocket hybrid and chantilly bronze snapdragons were taller and prolific - definitely to be repeated. The zinnias went crazy as they always do and have been just gorgeous. I have had a lot of peach and pale pinks that are my new favorites and I'm seriously considering ordering seeds of that specific coloring and variety next year because I loved them so much. A single red globe amaranth has also been extremely productive and has been providing the perfect amount of red accent blooms all season.
I'm also happy with the netting and tall stakes setup - it really helped keep the flowers from flopping over better than anything else I've tried - definitely something to repeat in the future. I think the only thing I might change next year is that I don't want to sandwich the snapdragons between the super tall zinnias and cosmos - they became a bit overshadowed later in the season.
Neutral: The twinny apple blossom snapdragons were way too low for this bed. They were an experiment and I really enjoyed the blooms early on. I will definitely sow them again next year for pots - they are just not good cutting garden flowers.
Fails: The powdery mildew. There's nothing I am going to do about it, but it's decimating the flowers. The cosmos had to be pulled up because they were almost totally gone. The zinnia leaves are all covered in white spots. The snapdragons even have some and I've never seen that before.
Herbs and Strawberries:
Wins: The strawberries. This year was our best ever for strawberries. It was amazing. The oregano, thyme, rosemary, lemon verbena, st john's wort have also been doing really well. The oregano and thyme did so well that I once again have to dig half of it up and transplant elsewhere so it doesn't take over. The brown turkey fig tree in the corner pot is still ALIVE so that counts as a win.
Neutral: The calendula. It didn't do well this year compared to last year, it was smaller and the leaves quickly became spotted. I did get flowers all season, but it wasn't the same. The basil started off strong but it's so susceptible to blight - by August it was really sad looking. The giant sunflower had a tough growing season and sort of flopped over pathetically. The purple sunflower I planted was red and looked pretty, but left a mess and I won't be putting one in the herb bed again (I have other spots). I planted two sage back here and the surviving plant never got that big and I only was able to harvest it once.
Fails: The second sage I planted here struggled and died. The chamomile seeds refused to sow. The lemon balm in my pots came back but spent the whole season covered in brown spots. The lavender died back here too. I think part of the problem is that this has become a bed for strawberries, thyme and oregano.
Pots:
Wins: The pineapple sage and the rosemary are still alive and looking good over here. One jalapeno plant did really well, and one did okay and between the two we had a lot of peppers. The orangey red snapdragons in a pot did really well too.
Neutral: The third hot pepper plant just never did much - it didn't get bigger, despite compost and fertilizer and a nice pot. It produced like 3 jalapenos and then just... stopped.
Fails: The morning glory vine did terrible this year. It barely grew (which is so weird since it did SO well last year) and had a lot of blight spots. The petunias also did terrible in this pot too (the snapdragons did great though so it's not the pot). I killed a lavender plant here that I had overwintered from the greenhouse accidentally earlier in the season.
Elsewhere:
Wins:
Figs: Wrapping up the Chicago Hardy fig last winter in insulation and plastic is the way to go with the fig tree. We have so many figs this year and they are bigger and sweeter and earlier than ever before.
Blackberries: We had a good year for blackberries! It's technically an "off" year - we had a bumper crop last year (which means the plant put most of its energy into that), and they only fruit on last year's new canes so this year was less but still plenty of fruit.
Raspberries: This was a great year for raspberries. We had so many! A lot of canes died back after fruiting, based on their lifecycle, so the bramble is now looking quite sparse - I expect next year to be a lighter year while the plants fill back in.
Rhubarb: we had a lot of rhubarb this year - it was the first time the plant has been large enough to harvest since I moved it next to the blueberries.
Lavender: I had so much lavender to harvest this year from the plant under the crepe myrtle! I had like 3 bouquets to dry, which is more than I've ever had since I have trouble keeping it alive.
Elderberries: The two elderberry bushes are still alive, which is the best I can hope for since they are still babies.
Eucalyptus: My Eucalyptus tree grew a lot under the pergola this year and looks great. It needed a good trim to be ready for the greenhouse so I happily had my first harvest of eucalyptus to dry!
Patchouli: The patchouli plant has thrived all season, growing quite large. Knowing that it won't survive the chilly temperatures of the greenhouse this winter, I harvested 90% of it and transplanted 10% of it into a small pot for inside my house that will act as the mother plant next spring when I move it outside again and back into a big pot.
Neutral:
Blueberries: We had a decent amount of blueberries before a bird found a way into the netting. The same netting that choked and damaged some of the blueberry bushes. This fall Mike is building blueberry boxes out of wood and netting that will lean against the fence and better protect the blueberries from birds and insects, but also be easily removed when they aren't needed.
Citrus Trees: None of the summer blooms dropped fruit. I have one lemon that refuses to ripen or grow much and it's been hanging on the tree since they went outside. They aren't covered in blight the way so many of the native plants are, but I can tell they've struggled this summer too.
Asparagus: In the middle of the dahlia patch it created some nice visual interest as a 6 foot fern thing with fronds, and I'm glad to see it survived another year. We only had like 3 little shoots though so who knows if we'll ever get a harvest.
Fail:
Mint and Peppermint: These two potted plants started off great in the spring and have since been decimated by the blight and mildew almost all summer. I can only hope the roots in the pots are strong enough to come back next year... this time without the spots all over.
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