With only a week left of the summer vacation (or "my relaxed life in America" as I've learned to call it), the garden here is also starting to wind down. We recently picked the last of the cukes, zucchini and summer squash, the basil has gone and the sunflowers all now have their heads. The tomatoes and peppers are still going strong, so we've still got some picking left, but I wanted to record some things I've learned to think about for my own patch next year.
1. Grow what you like
This year, we've grown lots of different vegetables, most of which I like to eat, but some, like the summer squash, I've not been a big fan of. Now admittedly it's not my garden, so I've been very much under the guidance of Kelsey's mother who has her own preferences, but for next year, I want to make sure that I'm excited to eat everything that comes off the land. Next year, I definitely want to be a position to make a meal fully out of the garden, so that will involve growing my own onions, garlic and salad leaves, as well as the tomato, basil, cukes and zucchini from this year.
2. Grow what you need
Today I put the final pieces of zucchini into some zucchini bread (my best effort yet!), and whilst it's been a tasty adventure through many zucchini recipes (including zucchini spaghetti with a spiralizer - tomato based sauces only!), we've still had throw multiple ones in the compost because we couldn't eat/use them quick enough. Whilst there's no official food wastage involved as they'll simply get reused to kick start next year's crop, there's part of me that cringes about throwing away good food.
The difficult here is that they tend to sell the seedlings in 4 packs, and whilst they don't look big and intimidating in the garden centre, each zucchini plant spread around 6 feet in diameter. Multiply this by a similar spread from the cukes and summer squash and suddenly the 300ish square feet of garden becomes much smaller. Whether the answer is to discard those that we don't need, or find other keen gardeners to take the unwanted seedlings, I'm not sure, but I do know that I want to maximise the efficiency of the lot next year.
3. Keep pictures of the final product
I was incredibly excited to discover that I could grow fresh chillies outside here, as the temperature gets hot enough for most varieties to grow to full height. My friend Matt wages an annual war in his greenhouse to make them grow, so having them as a simple part of my garden has been satisfying. However, I've run into problems as whilst I know what a ripe tomato or zucchini is meant to look like, there's at least two species of chilli out there that I only know by name, and I'm not sure when I should be picking them. Pictures on the internet are ok, but when the shade difference is from light green to yellow, it's hard. For some, however, my wife's mother put the label that came with the seedlings into the ground, and this has made it easier to recognise the fruit and when it's ready to be picked. Whether I keep the tags inside or out next year, I want to make sure I recognise the ripe goods when I see them.
4. Soil composition
We've had a particular problem with end rot in the zucchini and summer squash plants this year, and a couple of the tomato plants withered a fair bit before bearing fruit. All our research points to a lack of nutrients in the soil. This may be because there's a lot of big plants growing together, or that there's been a chronic lack of rain this year in New Hampshire, or simply that the soil is old and needs refreshing. In any case, I want to start my research early about the soil preferences of each of the vegetables that I want to grow so that I can prepare my fresh beds with the optimum composition of minerals and natural fertilisers.
5. Keep it organic
I've never really understood/thought about the organic movement in any great detail until we started discussing the vegetable patch this year. My wife's mother is a great proponent of pesticide free gardening and I've bought wholesale into this idea. Not only does it mean that the kids can eat straight off the plants, but it will help with our bee keeping project next year. It does mean a bit more time watching out for bugs and finding natural fertilisers for the soil, but it fits with my homesteading ideals, so it will be coming with me next year.
As we wade through chilis and tomatoes over the next month, think of me with a massive smile on my face each time I make a bolognese with just a few less ingredients from a supermarket.
Fewer.
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