Things are just a bit gloomy here this fall, garden season is winding down, and not one second too soon.
My normal goals are to have all we want or can pass on to non-gardening friends and enough to sell to pay for next years' seed and fertilizer.
This year has been just about a bust. Not trying to be a whiner, I realize that sometimes things just flat go bad. I've also picked up a bit of the stoic attitude that farmers show in the face of adversity, "Next year will be better!"
I was handicapped by my bunged up wing to the extent that what might have been 10-12 days work, getting tillage done, took the better part of a month. The result was that almost nothing got planted on time.
Once things started growing there was a growing list of things going wrong to keep me amused.
Virtually all the cucurbits(sp) went in within a 2 day period. No changes in soil conditions and, doing it all myself meant it was all planted the same. Here's how they shaped up: I put in 2 packs ea of Snack Jack and Triple Treat pumpkins, both from Burpee's and both have hulless seeds. Out of all four packs I got Tom, Dick and Harry growing. Two packs of Waltham Butternut squash went in, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came up.
You know it's bad when you can name them!
I think there were five varieties of cucumbers, three did so-so, two were disasters.
Prizewinner pumpkins were planted from saved seed. The resulting fruit are NOT gonna win any prizes. Maybe cross polination of last years crop or genetic fading,, no idea except that if it weren't for what I got from the saved seed I would have no PWs this year. I had two packs of new seed, planted as insurance, that never sent up a sprout.
I had started cauliflower, brocolli and cabbages. The cauliflower got hit first, followed by the brocolli and cabbages. Eaten off right to the ground over a couple nights time. Had to be some sort of bug but I never found a smoking gun. Out of the three species I did get a few cabbages that didn't split (too much rain at just the wrong time) or get some sort of slimy, stinky, black rot. Out of 80+ plants that I set out I got less than 20 cabbages. Those went to the local food shelf.
I set out 48 tomato plants in mid-May. Lost three the first week to a few days of 90+° temps. The survivors were doing good until a spell of serious rain, at the wrong time had them splitting. Some of the remaining fruit healed and kept growing and the green fruit started ripening,,, only to get steamrollered by late blight. We saved what we could by making soup stock.
Nothing was coming off regular enough to make it worthwhile to take it to market. I was hoping for a good corn crop but that was also not meant to be.
I tried "Seneca Arrowhead" this year, looking for a short seasoned bi-color. This one has the growing days but was underwhelming to a fault. My planter was setting the seeds in double and triple lumps. Theoretical seed count was just about right but the undesired hill drop planting caused it to fight for space. Lots of small, 4" or less, ears and not a real good flavor. Won't play with that again next year.
Had Early Sunglow planted as well, it didn't do squat either.
We've had all we wanted, I picked 20-25 dozen and took it to the food shelf. Everything left, and there was a lot, was either too small to sell or gone by. I wish I had a couple pigs to feed it to.
Had a few things go good as well. Started onions from seed, they are starting to die back now. I will do those another year.
I planted a lot of Acorn Squash as I had a standing order for several hundred to go to the local diner. One batch did really well and partly offset the several plantings that did just about nothing. The good ones were "Tay Belle", the bad ones were a couple different brands of "Table Queen" The first of those were planted 5-9 and four more batches 10-14 days apart. So far I have taken 80 Tay Belle to the diner and not a one of the Table Queen yet. The Tay Belle were planted 6/4. There are a lot of squash on the others but not maturing worth beans. There are even a few that are a light cream color, I have no clue where those came from but I'm going to save seeds from them if they have agreeable taste and texture. I think the color will go good served as baked halves at the diner.
The $30 I got for those squash are all I have had for saleable produce this year.
Some of the pumpkins are doing really well with one monster too big for me to even make it wiggle.
Popcorn and broomcorm are both doing real good. There is going to be a learning curve to deal with, I told the granddaughter that we would have a try at making her a witches broom out of our broomcorm. That stuff is ginormous!!, some of it over 14 feet tall with stalks too hard to cut with a knife. I cut one stalk, right above the brace roots, and had to use my pruners to cut it as a knife would not make a mark.
OK,, whine mode is now off, things will be better next year.