2010 Garden Round up

Despite the fact that edible greens can be grown year round in Seattle, I was not on the ball in June and July when things needed to be seeded. So for this year the garden has been put to sleep. She is covered in layers of newspaper and cardboard which will compost over the winter and turn into a nice layer of dirt.

Despite our cool summer we had a great harvest of things. The weights aren't exactly right because, to be honest, some gatherings got weighed and some didn't. What has been nice though is that this year we even had enough to give some of it away! Now that is a delight.

So here is what we harvested:

1lb of carrots
8 salads - each of which was too big to eat and then the lettuce bolted because we didn't eat it all.
4 Oregano bunches
Dozens of Basil bunches with some in the freezer in olive oil for a possible pesto in the winter
27 lbs of potatoes- yes that's for real! Some canned, some in the basement, most eaten
8 lbs of green beans with lots of them handed over the fence to the neighbors before weigh-in
3 heads of broccili. This was by far the most delicious of the eats from our garden...soo much better than grocery store broccili.
15 lbs of tomatoes. ..this includes the green ones we harvested and turned into chutney. Sadly the green ones were better eats than the red ones! The red one's ripened in the September sun and never took on the fabulous red tomato from your garden flavor. It was a sad year on the tomato front.
2 cucumbers. Not 2 lbs. 2 period.
8 un-weighed squash. They are not too sweet but are edible and squash nonetheless.
Mint- enough for mint icecream
Lavender


So not a bad year, all things considered! When you look at the yeild of things you can tell how cool it was. The heat lovers like broccili, cucumbers and tomatoes (and even squash needs heat to get going well)and basil really didn't do much. On the other hand the potatoes and green beans rocked out- they aren't too finicky and are not heat lovers in the same way.

Just while I am thinking of it here are some of the changes I hope to make:

It would be nice to do less greenbeans (maybe just 4 poles) and something else that climbs a pole. Perhaps peas or cucumbers (need heat though!). S likes peas so maybe we should do some of those... We love broccoli way more than lettuce but planted them reverse to our preference. Several rows of broccoli. Maybe just a bit of lettuce? I would like to build a raised bed in the front yard for some early plants like kale, chard, or various early produce.

I will keep the tomatoes where I kept them. Next to the wall made them absorb some of our summer heat. I think we are one of only a handful of people in the entire region who had tomatoes. I would like to put in more squash as well. S and I eat squash in the winter like crazy people. So having more would be nice. The potatoes did really well...but I am not sure that potatoes are expensive enough at the grocery store for it to be worth it...

All in all, it was a good season. I can tell that a fair amount of bugs thought so too. I am a little concerned that I might be fighting pests next year! We shall see!