Despite my efforts (or lack thereof this summer), the vegetable garden just isn’t producing a heck of a lot. However, we’ve had some gorgeous weather this week so I went out back to take a good hard look at my garden, dig up a few things, address the weeds, and make some peace with our shady conditions, all while sacrificing any exposed body parts to the swarms of mosquitoes who have left me covered in very itchy bumps. Bat box, I’m ready for you to take up residents!
First up: the garlic.
Last fall I planted over a hundred rather large garlic cloves. The bed I chose is the shadiest bed and I let it get pretty overtaken with weeds. Both factors didn’t help the situation. However, despite the poor conditions, I was able to dig up several incredibly tiny bulbs of garlic and it tasted great in our summertime pasta this week! However, for the amount of garlic I planted this harvest is dismal and I am definitely going back to hard neck this fall.
The potatoes.
Every year I try with potatoes because they are so fun dig up and harvest. However, they never really produce for me and I spend more on seed than I would on 10 times the bounty I produce. Oh well. This week I dug up a few of the potatoes I had growing in the garlic bed. I have more potatoes in grow bags and I am going to let them chill for a bit longer.
The peppers.
I love growing peppers. For the most part pests shy away and nothing excites me like having hot peppers at the ready when I need them instead of wasting or pickling when I overbuy. Peppers aren’t plentiful this year, but they are again the backbone of the Kimble Farm and at some point I may just make all my beds pepper beds in order to feel more successful in my efforts.
The tomatoes.
The poor tomatoes. I use a net over the entire bed to keep birds from using my tomatoes for drinks of water and that approach this year hasn’t helped a lot. I’ve still had several tomatoes look like they are doing great only to find that one side has several large pecks and is now rotting. I also had several plants that I bought die on me and I’m thinking vacation, the multiple heat waves, the shade that I just cannot help, and major lack of watering efforts on my part contributed to the problem. I’m owning my losses here. Despite that, I had one pink boar tomato at lunch today and several yellow cherry tomatoes are producing. Tomatoes love the garden state but they also love sun and we just happen to have lots of trees and not as much sun.
