WYSIWYG

It's the 20th of September and Summer is starting to wind down. So is the garden. Looking back I can clearly see the results of my successes and failures. But a failure is only so if you don't learn from it. Right? As promised, I will be documenting the good, the bad and the ugly or What You See Is What You Get.

These three raised beds held so much promise. First, I started about 95% of the plants from seed and saved a lot of money. The list of different vegetables I tried reads like a seed catalog but I consider it an experiment to see what would grow in Denver for this transplanted Cali girl. Some lived up to the promise and some, well, just didn't. The two on the left are 4x4 raised beds that were an addition this year. The one on the far right is the original bed that I revived last year. It's 9x9 that I sectioned into four 4x4 beds.

Since zucchini took over nearly half of the 9x9 bed last year, I decided it needed it's own space. That would be the pot on the left. The two in the middle are cantaloupe while the one on the right is Early Girl tomato. Sad aren't they. So I've been in Denver for 10 years and last year I finally grew decent zucchini. This year's was again a failure. The cantaloupe were a surprise. I can grow melons and I can grow them vertically. Note to self: don't use tomato cages next year as they keep falling over. I need something really strong. I have ideas but the jury is still out. Tomato was the best of the year and even it didn't do well. Why? Water. It needed more and consistent water. All the pots did. I'll have to improve my drip system in 2013.

Ah, mint. This barrel had seen nary a plant in over 10 years. I put in some mint I bought at Home Depot, watered well every day and it's happy. So, that is the extent of my veggie garden. Yup, next year I'll be expanding again. More on that later. Oh, and about the grass. That is not my domain. But next year I may have some ideas on how to improve it a bit. More rain would really help. Mother Nature, you listening?

Since my blog is just a baby, and since winter is coming and the garden will be frozen, I will be writing about what I did in the garden this summer in future postings. May help me beat the doldrums.  I've already circled the heck out of the Burpee Catalog. Are you as obsessed as I am?

\GM

Fall Garden

It's the middle of October already! Seems like just yesterday that I set out my little seedlings and now I'm already planning next year's garden. I added two 4x4 ft gardens this year and will be adding a 9x4 for next spring. Then I'll have 128 sq ft of planting area, 32 sq ft more than this year.

This year my garden gave me very few tomatoes, a couple of zucchini (I know, really?!), lots of cucumbers, carrots, beets, kale, Swiss chard, cantaloupes (although they are still on the vine and it's the first I'm time growing them), peppers (although I lost half of them), bush beans (even though most of them never germinated due to the early heat we had), parsley, tarragon like crazy, basil, some thyme, sage, tons of mint, onions, leeks, and radishes. Not successful were the peas, scallions, cilantro, all but one tomato plant, and the spinach. I blame the month-early Spring we had this year.

Never the less, I've made notes of everything and will be making some changes next year. One experiment will be the companion planting technique. We'll see if it works.

Another change will be installing the drip irrigation system earlier in Spring. This year we waited until August. I had noticed some of the veggies drooping a bit because of lack of consistent water.
After the installation, the garden became very lush. Note to self: don't procrastinate quite so long next Spring.

GM