Whew! This has been A YEAR. I am relieved the season is over to be honest. The chipmunks, the white flies, the mildew and blights, the lantern flies, the spider mites... this year has been stressful with all the pests. I can't even compost most of the garden because it's all contaminated. And while most of these things will be restarted again next year from seed, I lost way too many dahlias this year... but at the same time I'm grateful I didn't lose them all.
Tomatoes
The tomatoes are fully pulled up. Originally I pulled up the big tomatoes in September, but it was time to pick the last of the cherry tomatoes and pull up those plants plants. I left the borage and marigolds for the pollinators until we have a hard freeze.
Thoughts for 2023: Plant 2 cherry tomatoes, 2 plum/paste, 2 bush steak hybrids, 2 early girls + borage and marigolds. These tomatoes did better than all the others hands down and were the most widely eaten by the family (and were easily made into small batch sauce when we had too many).
Dahlias
The surviving dahlias bounced back and starting reblooming, all of them except Labyrinth (which took the most damage of the survivors). Apricot Desire didn't make it. All the dahlias got frost burned during a 3 night cold snap, but it wasn't a killing frost as predicted. I'll pull them up once they are fully wiped out. Hopefully all of these come back next year and that the bulbs are strong enough to survive over-wintering.
Thoughts for 2023: I need a replacement for Apricot Desire. And possibly Labyrinth if that one doesn't come back.
Mixed Flowers
The mixed flowers this year were an ideal balance for bouquets. Half snapdragons the bed was, 2 cosmos, 3 rows of zinnias (2 coral + carnival mix). It was just the right balance of flowers for my bouquets. Even the random dark magenta celosia ended up growing well here.
Thoughts for 2023: Move the globe amaranth to the corner so it can get more light. Plant one pink lemonade cosmos and one of those new apricotta cosmos that I'm seeing everywhere (it's coral and I WANT it).
Vines
The nasturtiums took over this bed, as always, during August and September. Chard and carrots remain (they don't mind a nip of cold) and will be harvested at the end of the month/first frost so I can tuck this bed in for winter too.
Thoughts for 2023: I need to only plant one nasturtium here not two. They get so big! I say that every year and always forget in the spring. No other changes - the successes (melons, peas, nasturtiums, carrots, chard) and failures (cucumbers) here were pest related.
Herbs and Strawberries
Herbs were top notch this year. Rosemary, sage and lavender were dug up and brought into the greenhouse for overwintering. The calendula self-seeded so it might come back on its own, and the oregano, thyme and strawberries definitely will. I'll restart the sage, calendula, dill, borage, and chamomile from seed in the late winter/early spring. The sunflowers were really pretty here as always. This bed will be tucked in with lots of leaves for insulation once we have a killing frost.
Thoughts for 2023: Hopefully next year we'll have a better strawberry harvest with the new garden defenses in place against the chipmunks. There's nothing I would change here - this stellar herb harvest this is weather related, not effort or strategy related.
Pots
The potted rosemary also went to the greenhouse, along with the brown turkey fig tree for overwintering. The lemon balm will come back next year in the pot on its own, I usually put it up against the house for protection and residual heat. We were happy with the hot pepper harvest, Mike made plenty of hot sauce. The potted herbs did great this year, just like the beds. The potted flowers were a mixed bag - the morning glory was a dud again this year.
Thoughts for 2023: Next year in the big aqua pot against the trellis, I have to pick a new vine. This is the second year in a row that the morning glory did terribly. I didn't even bloom! I could probably try one somewhere else (against the chain link fence perhaps?) but no more wasting pot space.
Elsewhere in the Yard
One elderberry bush bloomed, one did not, before the deer came through. I knew both bushes have to bloom for cross-pollination, so I harvested the flowers instead. The birds ate all the blueberries before they ripened. The raspberry-loving bird (that I call "raspberry bird") ate some of our raspberries in July but had already flown South when the small random September/October harvest happened so we didn't have to share. The blackberries were tart this year from lack of rain but we had plenty and they made nice sorbet. The fig tree has had a decent harvest, but not as many as last year (the harvests are cyclical).
Thoughts on 2023: Next year I'm adding deer netting to the back fence in hopes of keeping the greedy deer out of the yard and hopefully spare my poor elderberry bushes (and hostas!). The blueberry bushes need blueberry boxes, which is still on the "things to do" list. The citrus trees need a repotting in the spring. I also want to do mini pumpkins. Outside the garden though, because they attract those awful squash vine borers that hurt other vines like melons. So I'm including pumpkins here instead, they will be elsewhere in the yard.
Flowers Elsewhere
While not part of the main garden, I want to note flowers for next year beyond dahlias. The dahlias were a struggle, but hopefully the mite issue won't be an annual thing and next year I'll be sure to do an early spray with neem oil.
The flowers in my pots were a mixed bag. The same flowers in different pots were beautiful or terrible. I'm not really sure what happened unless there were insects or blight. The coleus that did the best was the one that sprang up from self-seeded seeds. This has inspired me to try growing it from seed next year.
I REALLY liked what we did in the front yard this year, mixing snapdragons (including ones I started from seed), lantanas and dahlias across the front bushes. It was a great mix of colors and textures. The only thing I want to do differently is to note dalinova colors, something I never thought about before until I had 4 orange dalinovas in a row out front this year. I made sure to tag them before the frost so that I can put all of the orange into one bag, pink into another bag. None of my red or yellow survived overwintering I guess.
The Greenhouse
Here's the greenhouse right now with what I decided to overwinter. It's mostly herbs and flowers. The geraniums had a rough summer so only a few were worth saving. There are lots of snapdragons (and that's not even all of them, just the little ones that fit in pots in colors I wanted to save). A few of the snapdragons are a little meh looking - I debated keeping them but decided to give them a chance to bounce back - they have surprised me in the past. Worst case I'll pull them up in the winter to make room for seeds and dahlias in late Feb. I also saved the lantanas from the front yard. It's an experiment. I really liked the colors and how big they grew this year, I'm hoping if I can overwinter them they'll have a head start next year. Two look terrible and one is fine, I think this is due to how I pulled them up (lessons learned for the future).
The begonia bulbs have a reserved spot in the greenhouse, same as last year on a bottom shelf. They really like overwintering in dry dirt in the greenhouse and came back better than ever this year.
So that's the garden right now and my big plans for next year. Or not so big, since I think I'll just be ordering a few seed packets and maybe a replacement dahlia (but maybe not... it might be smart to hold off and use what survived next year and see if the mites persist... I'd hate to re-invest only to lose more stock). I have a lot of cleanup work ahead of me to get everything ready for winter this November.
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