2017 Garden Wrap-Up

Well, 2017 was not a good garden year in my area, even for those of us with greenhouses/high tunnels.  I'm sure I didn't help my chances at all; we had a month between returning home from the States and getting the roof on the high tunnel, and I didn't start any seeds or work the soil in that time period.

What I planted:

• Carrots (4 varieties)
• Peppers (2 plants that I purchased, and seeds that decided they didn't want to come up)
• Lettuce
• Broccoli (only one seed sprouted...)
• Zucchini
• Yellow squash
• Peas
• Purple beans
• Yardlong beans

What I harvested:

• So farm most of the carrots I've pulled have been too small to amount to anything.  Most of the carrot bed is still left untouched.
• 5 peppers, which means each pepper cost about $2.
• Some lettuce for us (we weren't proactive in going out and grabbing it for us) and enough to sell a few bags of it at the farmers' market.
• Just one bite of broccoli.
• Quite a few zucchini for ourselves and to sell at the market.
• A few peas - most that got sold at the market.
• A handful of purple beans for us and a sandwich bag of them to sell at the market.

The pepper seeds never sprouted, the yellow squash plants were quite small and only produced male flowers, and the yardlong beans never made it to harvest.  As I was pulling out the yardlong bean plants, I could see that there were 3 total flowers that had started.

What I learned:

• I didn't care for this variety of peas - seemed like the pods were never soft/sweet enough for me.
• I should NOT have broadcast my carrot seeds, no matter what I read on the internet.
• I should have started fertilizing way sooner.
• I should have started seeds indoors.
• Even if the pea envelope says that they will be bush plants, 24" - 36" tall, don't believe them.  Those plants got so tall!
• Don't wait too long to address your grasshopper problem.  Sevn does work.
• Our high tunnel is way too huge and needs a lot of maintenance.
• I would be happy with a small greenhouse.

All pics are from 9-1-17:

pepper is hiding in there.

zucchini plants about to die...

so much growing time, so little broccoli...

pea plants, near the end...

carrot tops, the tops of very little carrots.