2018 Garden Recap: Vegetables (Part 2)

Now that we’ve mostly recovered from a record breaking, bone-chilling winter, it looks like spring may finally be coming. I thought it was time to get back to one final review of last year’s gardens before the spring growing season is fully upon me. I checked in on the flowers, 2018 Garden Recap: Flowers and started reviewing the veggies here, 2018 Garden Recap: Vegetables (Part 1). Time to finish the veggies!

As I wrote back in December, my vegetable garden was not very successful for a bunch of reasons. In Veggies Part 1, I described the attack on my squash by the very devastating squash vine borers. But that was only one of the things that hindered my garden this year.

So what else happened? First there were the chipmunks who have a taste for ripe tomatoes. I planted my tomatoes in bags this year to free up space in the main raised bed.

They grew fine in the bags, but the cold spring got them off to a slow start. Just as I finally started to get red, ripe tomatoes, the chipmunks helped themselves and took a nice big bit out of each one. 😡 They did it to so many I actually entertained the idea of just cutting off the bit side and eating the other. Decided not to…

One chipmunk truly had a sinister sense of humor and dragged a ripe tomato across the yard to taunt me by leaving the remnants on the back patio.

I had trouble with the garlic and leeks this year as well. A lot didn’t come up in the spring and what did grow was small.

The previous winter and spring were tough, so that may have had an impact. But more importantly, I hadn’t realized how shady that this particular raised garden had become from the thriving ash tree nearby. When I put the gardens in, the ash was suffering pretty badly from an Emerald Ash Borer infestation and was pretty thin. We had been treating it for years, but a few years ago switched to a trunk injection treatment. I’m thrilled the ash is doing so well, but I need to rethink what I plant in that particular bed going forward. Need to leave autopilot and do some planning.

What was successful? Carrots! I had one of my best carrot harvests this year. I switched varieties this year from Danvers to Little Finger Baby Carrots from Botanical Interests, so that may have helped. I also changed out the dirt in the carrot bag so maybe some fresh soil and nutrients was also needed.

Cabbage and kohlrabi grew unusually well this year. I got the plants from a local nursery and the weather must have been just right for them to grow huge. That was a lot for the two of us, but luckily they store really well.

Rainbow swiss chard (Burpee) was also a great grower late into the fall, especially in the shady raised garden bed.

What to do with all that swiss chard? I’ve decided that I am not a huge fan of kale (even though it is probably the vegetable of the decade) so I pretty much use swiss chard in place of kale in recipes. I use a lot of swiss chard in stir fries and love this recipe for Creamy Polenta with Sausage and Chard from Real Simple.

I’ve done some seed shopping for next year already, and have been thinking of a bunch of garden projects to tackle first thing when the weather cooperates! Starting to think that spring might actually come. Just need to get through March.