Potato harvest - these are Yukon Golds, my favorite potato ever. They're so soft and the mashed potatoes that come from these are amazing (especially with roasted garlic!). I only did one potato bag so I harvested enough for about 3 meals total. Last year I had 5 bags and it was too many potatoes all at once, I made a note that I think 3 potato bags will be enough for us to eat fresh and I won't have to worry about saving potatoes or eating too many and getting tired of them. I'll stick with Yukon Golds and possibly add in a baking potato or a red potato for some variety.
I have decided that I'm actually really terrible at preserving or saving fresh food - I just really like eating produce freshly harvested from the garden. I truly have zero interest in canning and freezing anymore besides the occasional tomato sauce or tomato basil soup.
Tomatoes this year were a little weird. I had a ground wasp queen decide she wanted to make a nest in my brand new raised bed that I did JUST FOR TOMATOES. So I need to pull out the soil because I did use a ground wasp spray several times to keep the numbers of wasps down until it freezes overnight, the hollow log I used to fill in the bed hugelkulture-style. It's going to be a really cold chore the day I do that and I can't wait until all the stupid wasps are dead.
But I digress. My tomatoes this year were just kinda ok. The sungolds were delicious as usual but everything else just seemed to wait too long to get ripe. I ended up with maybe 12 large tomatoes for BLTs or salads, half as many small snacking tomatoes as I wanted, and only enough for 2 medium size leftover containers for tomato sauce. I didn't even get to make homemade tomato basil soup.
I think maybe because my mom died my head isn't exactly in the right place for gardening this year. I really just didn't feel like doing what I love - and to make up for that I just planted the bare basics to get through the year. That's fine because both of my kids had sports that took over the whole summer and I didn't have time to cook anyway. My husband seems to love not being home whereas I would like to enjoy our mortgage a little bit more. LOL. Next year I don't want to be so busy, I am fully exhausted from summer and sports. It's really a lot and too much - if we can't eat at home for the majority of the week, then I'm at the point where I don't want to do activities. It's too much work and we all need to rest. I think by the end of the summer both of my kids truly question whether or not they want to continue anyway.
Green beans were absolutely prolific and I will be doing green beans again next year. I don't think I want to do multiple varieties though - we can only eat so many fresh beans! I'll stick with bush beans so I don't need to build or find any trellising. My family prefers them roasted with garlic!
Because I knew in May after my mom died I probably wouldn't be too interested in gardening this year, I replaced a lot of my veggie areas with annual flowers. Zinnias are the easiest to grow so that's what's sprinkled around my yard in very colorful bursts of fucshia, orange, pinks, and reds.
This was an ok garden year for me. I have more hopes and dreams for next year and I'm hoping I have more time to do what I want and to grow more. Pumpkins are on the list as well as loofa, and tomatoes. My Arriba peppers grew so well that they're on my list for next year along with sweet peppers. And the perfect amount of zucchini is one plant so that's what I'll be growing next year too!
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