Take a look at the fruit of my labor of love. My garden has had the final harvest of corn and turnips for the year.
Looking back, I decided to share all of the season's highlights in my garden. All of my vegetables, fruits, and flowering vegetables here in one place to view.
Everything in this post represents my 2019 garden progress. The theme this year for my new gardening style was Companion Planting Bundles. That means I researched all of the various companion plants, and grouped them together to provide the best growing conditions for various plants.
Take a look at the results.
Corn
This previously worthless space became super growing zone. It out-produced my super compost treated areas by far. The sunflowers attracted powerful aphid hunting predators. The corn grew tall and able to find lots of sunlight. The always muddy soil made it easy for roots to dive deep.
Not the biggest corn, or the largest harvest. These are about half the size of corn from the grocery store.
But my corn is GMO free and also pesticide free.
The little end bits where the kernels are smaller turned out to be quite edible. In fact, I ate through the husk on the smaller ends. The ends tasted tender, like the mini pickled corn used in salads.
Beautiful sweet corn colors.
This corn was called Candy Corn. Lovely red stalks, but tends to be dwarf sized. This the second year I've grown it. Since it never produces corn I can eat, I used it as a companion plant this year to help shade lettuce, radish, and carrots. The peas used it as a plant to climb on.
Tomato
Cherry Rapunzel tomatoes. They did not produce a lot of fruit this year. Either my soil was not very rich, or I have overcrowded the roots with other plants.
No more than two tomato plants per area would have been wiser.
The volunteer tomato plant that grows in my compost bucket every year. Each year it gets bigger than the one last year. I ended up with a giant heirloom tomato, and it was loaded with flavor.
Turnip
These plants grow surprisingly well in my muddiest soil areas. They seem to thrive in the shaded areas too. Lots and lots of leaves. Pick off all the leaves, and a dozen new ones will grow. I tend to let things like turnips grow a little bit too long, and the bugs start to bore holes in the bottom.
Still they are quite edible once the bad parts are removed. I'm not a fan of eating the leaves because they are slightly spiny on the edges, but if I was starving, a few of these plant growing in the garden could probably keep me alive.
Peas
This was a good year for peas. With all of the hot weather, I was watering the garden every day. The peas became super juicy and sweet. They only seemed to grow well up through August. After that they did not reseed well to produce any new plants.
Beans
Lovely pink blossoms. The beans also did better than last year. I usually found a couple bean pods to snack on in the morning every week or so in August. Fresh beans have a nice green crunch.
Strawberries
This year I had no idea the strawberries were going to grow so healthy this year.
Honestly, not a ton of berries, and most of them were small. Tons of flowers, leaves, and runners.
The new ones I planted near the fence grew really fast. Ozark Beauties. Looks like this area will be covered with berry plants for next year. They love the fresh compost in this area and the shade from the corn.
Pumpkin
A whole lot of pumpkin flowers this year. Just not a lot of pumpkins to show. Not one.
Looks like I still have a lot of learning to do for pumpkins. They always seem to fade away near the end of summer, even when the temperatures are still hot. I kept pinching off the female flowers and searching for male flowers. Maybe I found one male flower the whole season, but it was so weak it fell of.
Next year I am going to think of a way to grow a single pumpkin plant inside a large container with tons of soft compost and debris. The roots seem to really like soft soil with lots of oxygen and crawl spaces. I think the plant does not like to compete for nutritional resources.
They do love the full sun as much as any sunflower, that much is clear.
Brussels Sprouts & Cabbage
Also known as aphid magnets.
They also attracted some caterpillars for about a week. I plucked them off every morning. Eventually my companion plants started to deter the aphids. Anything stinky and smelly like green onions, mint, lavender, and sage. The companion plants do not help very much on the highest parts of the flowering Brussels Sprouts though. They have to be very close.
Later on I learned that the red nasturtiums were also attracting the caterpillars, except those flower also attract birds and other predators. I love how the red acts like a target for birds to quickly find a big snack.
Radish
This year I did not pay very much attention to the radishes. I did not even eat any.
They are growing mostly as companion plants and to improve the soil. In winter they will become compost to enrich the top soil.
Hot Pepper
Peppers make the most lovely tinkerbell flowers.
I only got one pepper to harvest this year from my Banana Pepper plant. I let it ripen on the plant as much as possible.
I managed to dig up all of my pepper plants in October, and they are overwintering indoors now. I doused them in neem oil and gave them new soil to prevent bugs from invading the house and other indoor plants. I also covered them with plastic bags, and it's keeping the moisture around the plants and making it so I do not need to water them very often.
Garlic
The garlic looked amazing in the garden for about two or three weeks.
And then they suddenly faded and became squirrel snacks. All gone!
Cilantro
I really love having fresh cilantro growing in my garden. I did have enough growing at one point that I had some extra leaves to use in cooking. I would need a lot more space to really develop lots of lush leaves to enjoy all season long.
It seemed to grow best in the compost bucket next to the tomato plant. They seem to help each other grow.
Lettuce
The lettuce was very finicky this year. It only grew well in this one spot. Then a volunteer popped up outside the grow bed area and it flowered within a few weeks.
Lettuce seems to prefer warm shade and lots of humidity.
Ginger & Turmeric
This is the final size of the turmeric and ginger plants. Turmeric has the broader leaves. I'm going to let the rhizomes over winter outside this year and see what happens. Maybe the soil will protect it enough from the frost. I also have a batch of turmeric indoors I am working on regrowing.
Carrots
Another plant I grew mainly to improve the soil. I think there is something wrong with my front yard soil because of the nearby trees. Plants are always stunted, and carrots never fully ripen. They will go to seed in the Spring though, so there is that to look forward to.
Radicchio
This plant will take another year to develop into what it looks like on the picture as I understand. It's related to chicory, which I have some experience growing. After winter, the leaves should turn red and white.
Time to level up and show my progress here on the steem blockchain.
Bonsai!
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
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