A Look Back: 2014 Growing Season

Well it's not official, but I'm gonna call it. Winter is here in Minnesota! This weekend we got our first winter storm and it is sticking. The temps have been in the 20's all week and it is expected to stay that way for a while. So, it's safe to say that the gardening season is over. Since I have a few months before I can start my garden for next summer, I thought I would look back on this past years' growing season.

I absolutely love gardening, specifically gardening that produces our food. I guess it's in my blood. My father was the twelfth out of fourteen children. His family lived on a very large potato and onion farm in southern Minnesota. Along with potatoes and onions, my grandmother kept a large kitchen garden that provided a lot of the family's food. Ever since I was a kid, I have loved to garden with my dad. It wasn't until we bought our property four years ago that I was able to finally have a kitchen garden of my own!

That first year we only had a 50' x 10' patch of land that my husband and I created next to our tool shed (you can still see the patch of land in between the line of raised beds and tool shed in the picture above). The next year we expanded our garden to include an asparagus patch behind the tool shed and my hubby built me four raised beds. Then last year we more than doubled our current kitchen garden. My husband built me five more raised beds (that comes to nine raised beds total). I also dug out some more space behind the shed and another 60' x 30' tomato patch (which was a total bust, more on that later). We also have five apple trees on another piece of our property that we call "The Orchard." I think we are definitely done growing our gardening space, for now.

One of the things I love about kitchen gardening is that every year is a blank slate. If something didn't work this year, you can try something different the next year. That is why, like a lot of gardeners, I keep a gardening journal. I like to keep track of what I did each year, what kind of soil I used, what kind of vegetables were planted, etc. That way if something didn't work, I can avoid it the next year and if something did work, I can try it again the next year. Here's a look at my kitchen garden in 2014:

Here are my potatoes I planted in the "original" garden. I planted a few different varieties this year. I bought most of my seed potatoes from my local gardening store. I bought one kind of purple seed potato from Burpee and they did not do well. I think I will stick to my local gardening store. Potatoes always do well in our original garden so I will keep them there for next year. Why mess up a good thing, right? I also have my herb garden in front of the potatoes, not pictured.

My cucumbers did amazing this year! I got two good size batches of pickles from them along with some good slicers. My pickling cucumbers were open pollinated/heirloom and my slicers were a hybrid from Burpee. I will definitely plant the same pickling cukes, but will probably try an heirloom slicer this year as the hybrid just didn't do as well as expected. The foliage on the pumpkins did great and I got a lot of flowers, but I only got a handful of pumpkins. I will have to figure out what went wrong and fix it for next year.

This was one of my gradual gardens. I first planted radishes, greens and lettuce in spring. Around the time I started harvesting these veggies, it was time to plant the melons and winter squash, which need a lot of room to spread. By the time the melons and squash were ready to take off, all the radishes, greens and lettuce were gone or ready for final harvest like above. That worked out really well and I felt that I was utilizing my garden space efficiently. I will definitely do that again.

This was my bean bed. I grew some string bush beans, which did ok. I tried dry beans for the first time this year and they did amazing. I will definitely be planting more of those. I think I will try all pole beans next year and use inoculate again. The pole beans and beans I used the inoculate on fared far better than the bush beans and the non-inoculated beans.

Broccoli was a bust this year, mainly because the deer ate the tops and in turn the broccoli heads. I have never had luck with onions, until this year. In years past, I used onion sets, this year I went ahead and bought onion plants. That seemed to have done the trick. I had a great onion harvest! I also tried garlic for the first time and they also did well.

This was another one of my gradual gardens. I planted the peas early in the season then planted the zucchini and summer squash a few weeks later. By the time the zucchini and summer squash started to take off, the peas were done. I took them out and the squash had more room to roam. This worked really well and I will definitely do that again.

This is my tomato patch. My tomatoes were a total bust this year for various reasons. First, the season started so late this year, the tomatoes did not get a good start. Second, the soil in that area was just not good for tomatoes. Third, my green tomatoes got annihilated by critters of all kinds (deer, chickens and toddlers, yes toddlers, the girls thought it was fun to pick all the green tomatoes.) So, next year they will be moved to a better spot and fenced in. I've already moved my raspberry, blackberry and blueberry bushes to this spot. Hopefully they will fare better.

I have two more raised beds that used to have my raspberry and blackberry bushes until I moved them to the tomato patch. The other two raised beds have strawberries. This was their first year, o I only got a handful of strawberries. Next year we should have a great strawberry harvest. The rest of my garden space was used for experimentation.

Here are some pictures of my harvest from month to month.

May: radishes, spring onions & lettuce
Early June: lots of lettuce, spring onions and flowers
Late June: peonies, lettuce, spring onions and arugula
Early July: blueberries, lots of snap peas

Early July: wild berries, blueberries, green/purple string beans
Early July: garlic
Mid July: strawberries, wild berries, string beans, carrots, spring onions
Late July: sting beans, cucumbers, potatoes, zucchini, summer squash, storage onions



Early August: carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, string beans
Mid August: cucumbers for pickling
Late August: Butternut squash, melons, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash, dry beans (not pictured)
Late September: lettuce, greens

I will be dreaming about my fresh veggies all winter log. Only six long months until I can taste fresh veggies and fruit from my garden again.

 

Throughout this blog I will post growing guides for the various veggies/fruits I grow, along with tips on how to grow your kitchen garden with organic and sustainable methods. I will also show you the plans for my kitchen garden each year along with what varieties I plant, what works and what doesn't. I can't wait to see what next season will hold. Fingers crossed that it will be a short winter! Ok, that's probably not realistic, but a girl can dream, right.