Posted on by Cara

Garden Review 2021: Warm-Weather Vegetables

This past year I grew a variety of warm-weather vegetables as well. My favorites are the winter squash and watermelons.

Cucumber, Baby Persian–My second year growing these, and still no luck 😦 I’ll keep trying. These are my favorite cukes to snack on during the summer.
Cucumber, Silver Slicer–I grew this variety mainly due to Jess from Roots and Refuge. It grew well, but the skin was thinker than I’d like and it was slightly bitter. (To be fair, I’m highly sensitive to bitter foods.)
Cucumber, Snow’s Fancy Pickling–Grew pretty well. The variety originated in my hometown, which is why I decided to try it. It’s a basic pickling cucumber, and grew pretty well.
Melon, Delice de la Table–I only harvested one of these, and it was right after a big rain and the melon had split. Very tasty lobed cantaloupe variety with a matte orange rind. I’ll grow again this year.
Melon, Kajari–Another variety I grew mainly due to Jess’s ravings about how good it was. Like my other melon, though I only harvested one, right after it split. It tasted like a basic small honeydew melon, imho, though the rind is a pretty orange with green stripes. Will not be growing this year.
Watermelon, Mini Love–I picked this one up on Amazon and tried it because I had not have a lot of luck with larger watermelons, and I’m the only one who likes watermelons in my house in any event. I planted it late in the season and only harvested one fruit, but that fruit was amazing–perfectly sweet, firm flesh, not too many seeds, and just the right size for one person. Upon doing more research I found it was a Johnny’s Seeds F1 variety, and an All American Select winter. It’s also one of Johnny’s most expense varieties. I fully understand why. I will definitely be growing this one again next year.

Summer would not be the same without the nightshade family. I really went overboard in this category as I’m trying to find the varieties that are worth the acid reflux that they usually bring.

Eggplant, Listada de Gandia–This was my first year trying eggplants. This eggplant produced cute, 4″ long purple and white striped eggplants. Very pretty, but as I found out, most eggplants are covered in thick spikes. Probably will not be growing eggplants again this year as I rarely cook with them.
Pepper, Alma Paprika (sweet)–This variety was productive, but unfortunately not as spicy as I had hoped.
Pepper, Aurora (hot, decorative)–This was a decorative pepper that produced yellow, orange, red, and purple 2″ long peppers on a small plant. It made for a nice decorative plant until the peppers started to get overripe, at which point they turned from purple to a grayish-violet color that was pretty gross looking.
Pepper, Bangles Blend–This variety is meant to be a stuffing pepper. It was very prolific but the peppers were small which very thick flesh and a hard skin–no one who I gave them to liked them.
Pepper, Biquinho Yellow (hot)–Cute, small novelty pepper. Moderately hot, slightly lemony taste. This variety took the longest to mature by far–at least five months. Once the plants were up and running, though, they were very productive.
Pepper, Black Pearl (decorative)–The longest growing decorative pepper I’ve grown yet; took four months before it set some fruit. Very cute pepper plant–black-purple leave sand little black berries. I’d actually recommend this one as a nice medium-height decorative plant for a garden.
Pepper, Fish (hot)–Grew relatively fast but took forever to bear fruit. Did not become very prolific until the very end of the season. The varigation was on the leaves and peppers, but it was very slight.
Pepper, Pasilla Bajio Chile Chilaca (mild/hot)–Received this one from Botanical Interests as part of my “black plants” buying spree. I’m pretty sure the seeds they sent were not this variety at all; they look more like Shishito peppers. The peppers never turned black and were smaller that they should have been. That said, I really loved the flavor–mild and sweet with the perfect level of heat for my tastes of heat. Great for stir-frys for the flavor only, as the peppers themselves are not more that 4″ long and think skinned. This variety also grew very fast and started putting out fruit early and often.
Tomatillo, Grande Rio Verde–All of my tomatillos grew a lot faster and a lot taller than the seed packets stated. This one, in particular, grew really tall. Both of them ended up toppling over several times b/c I had them in grow pots that were too small. Because of this they both got some kind of bumpy growth on the stems and started to wilt, and neither produced fruit. Will try again this year.
Tomatillo, Purple–Same as above.
Tomato, Barry’s Crazy Cherry–These took a while to start fruiting, but once they did it was relentless. The pale yellow fruit was moderately sweet and had a hard, spiky end.
Tomato, Carbon–Moderatley productive. Tasted less complex than a Paul Robeson.
Tomato, Paul Robeson–Moderately productive. Due to our really dry summer, many of the tomatoes had catfacing. Still, the ones I harvested tasted amazing fresh, especially sprinkled with salt. A must-grow for this season.
Tomato, Sun Gold Pole Cherry–A very profilic and tasty orange-yellow cherry tomato. Very sweet, think skinned. Everyone seemed to like them.  
Tomato, Thornburn’s Terracotta–This one was moderately productive, with an interestingly matte red/orange color. t was not very tasty, however.
Tomato, White Tomesol–This was a free seed packed I received from Baker Creek. It was by far the most prolific tomato I grew that wasn’t a cherry tomato. The medium-sized tomatoes turn a slight slickly yellow when ripe. The taste reminded me of a watered-down Paul Robeson. 

I’m not a huge summer squash fan, so I didn’t try to grow many. That said, I haven’t had much luck with them–either from seed or seedling. No buckets full of zuchinni–I feel like a failed Midwesterner 😦 Maybe this year.

Summer Squash, Fordhook Zucchini–Not much luck. Small plants.
Summer Squash, Yellow Scallop–Plants were good sized–bushy, and produced pretty well. I didn’t start this one until late summer so it did not have a long harvest season.

Winter squash, however, are definitely my favorites. I always try to grow more that my city lot can handle. Usually I’m pretty successful, but this past year was not a great squash year overall. Here are the varieties I tried this past year:

Pumpkin, Musquee de Provence (c. moschata)–My favorite pumpkin by far. It looks exactly like an antique Cinderella pumpkin–in fact , in many seed catalogues label this the “Cinderella pumpkin”. It is absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately it’s a full-sized pumpkin (15-20lbs average) grown on a long, vigorous vine, and I have a moderately-big city yard to grow in. The first year I grew it I let it take over my back fence and grow into the alley behind us, and I harvested one big pumpkin (and several smaller ones). This past year, however, I tried to limit the vines to one main vine and put it in a less sunny area, my blossoms never seemed to get fertilized and I did not get any pumpkins.
Pumpkin, Casparita (c. pepo, F1 hybrid)–This is an adorable small white pumpkin–it’s abotu as wide as a Jack-be Little pumpkin and twice as tall. They ended up being smaller than I had hoped, but they are still very cute–and given that it has a bush habit, I can grow it in a grow bag anywhere with no issues with space. Definitely growing this again next year.
Pumpkin, Jack Be Little (c. pepo)–This is that tiny little orange decorative pumpkin that you see in every store come fall. The vines for this one turned out to be longer and more vigorous than many full-sized squashes I grew. It was cute but not worth the space it took in my yard, especially when you can buy it anywhere.
Winter Squash, Blue Hubbard (c. maxmia)–This is our favorite winter squash–firm, dry orange flesh with no strings. This is a hard variety to get ahold of; the only place I can find it locally is at an apple orchard about 30 min away. My own plants grew pretty well at first, but then the squash vine borers took down 90%b of my winter squash plants. I did a second sowing in late July, which avoided the vine borers but did not give the fruit enough time to ripen. I ended up buying a few from the local apple orchard.
Winter Squash, Honeynut (hybrid, moschata/maxima)–This variety is one I got from Botanical Interests. It’s meant to be a baby butternut squash. I hoped that the vines would be shorter than the massive Waltham Butternut squash plants I grew last year. I had to re-sow these pants due to vine borers. I had plenty of time to do so but even so the squash did not get bigger than 4″ long, and remained mostly green. When we ate them, they were pretty stringy and the taste was eh. Not recommended.
Winter Squash, Butterscotch  (F1 Hybrid)–We got this variety from Johnny’s Seeds–I believe they bred it but I’m not sure. These squash had a medium sized vine and produced pale orange mini-butternut squashes which were 6″ or so long. I had to resow these due to the vine borers as well, and still got a decent harvest of them. They tasted fine.
Winter Squash, Jester F1 (Delicata) (c. pepo)–This ended up being my partner’s favorite squash this year. As with every other winter squash, the vine borers got to it. It has a nice bush habit, so it should fit in the garden fine next year. I ended up buying mine from the local orchard. This squash does not store well–ours were dried out by December. Until then they are very sweet and tender.
Winter Squash, Red Kuri (c. maxmia)–I had not luck growing this my first year, but I did have luck this past year. I did a second sowing in July, and I was able to harvest a few squash by October. These squash store pretty well–I cut into the last one this week as hte rind was starting to go, but the interior was as juicy as a newly harvested squash and showed no damage at all. Vines are medium length.
Winter Squash, Starry Night (Acorn) (c. pepo)–Again, the vine borers got it. I was able to harvest one from my second sowing. Bush habit.
Winter Squash, Thelma Sanders’ Sweet Potato (Acorn)–I planted these later in the summer and avoided the vine borers. The vines were very vigorous and grew medium length–I can see them goring longer given the chance, however. These vines were very prolific. I either harvested the squash too soon, or the flesh itself is very pale, but none of the squash I harvested stored very well or looked very appetizing when I cut into them. Probably not going to grow again.

So, 2021’s gardens was moderately successful, on the whole. I’m excited to see how 2022’s garden will turn out!
Posted on by Cara · 2 Comments

Garden 2021 Wrap up: Successes

So if you’ve been reading any posts in this blog, you’ll know that I planted way too much this past year. Such is the way of life during Covid.

I planted during only two seasons this year–Summer and Fall–due to my knee surgery in the spring, Even so, I was able to get a large amount of new-to-me species in the ground. This was my first year planting many tyes of plants: leeks and onions; tomatillos and eggplants; dahlias, snapdragons, and a variety of other annuals; rudbeckias, echinaceas, and other perennial flowers; and turnips, rutabegas; and apples and lilac trees. I also grew the usual: tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, herbs, lettuce, winter squash.

Successes: Flowers

Madame Butterfly Bronze snapdragon

Probably the biggest surprise this past year were my snapdragons (Madame Butterfly Bronze; Rocket mix). The seeds of the snapdragon are as small as grains of ground pepper, and they took a while to germinate and grow. Once they were established, though, it seemed like nothing could kill them. They have long, strong stems; bright , frilly flowers; and they are easy to clean for flower arrangements. They also seem impervious to the heat (we had a record-breaking hot, dry summer this past year) and they were my last flower to die off this fall. I hear that you can plant them early spring, which is my plan this coming year–I should have snapdragons for flower arrangements from May until November.

My second pleasant surprise were my bachelor buttons. I planted the basic “Blue Boy” variety and wasn’t expecting much just from looking at the picture on the seed packet, However, I was very pleasantly surprised to find that they grow fast and tall and bloomed quickly. And the color–an electric, true “blue” which is so rare in plants–is absolutely gorgeous. The color is practically fluorescent. I finally understand why describing someone as having “cornflower-blue” eyes is a compliment.

Bachelor Buttons

I was also successful in growing both rudbeckias and echinaceas–specifically Autumn Colors rudbeckia and White Swan and Purple Cornflower echinaceas. They were all really slow to germinate and really slow to grow past seedling size. However they did eventually grow! The rudbeckias grew the fastest, and ended up having a really fascinating texture–the petals are almost velvety. And echinacea flowers are unexpectedly hard and spiky. But still, all in all, they were a success.

Another plant that was hugely and surprisingly successful was my nicotania plant (Indian Peace Pipe). The seeds took easily and grew fast–spreading out a 3′ wide diameter within a month before shooting up to 6′ tall with tall spikes and massive leaves. Apparently the seed pack wasn’t lying when it said that the plant could get 6′ tall! It is a huge space hog, however, so I don’t think I’ll grow it next year.

Indian Peace Pipe (Nicotiana)

Successes: Vegetables

My tomatoes, as usual, grew very well this year. (Honestly, I don’t know of any area in North America where it is hard to grow tomatoes.) This year’s new tomato varieties were Paul Robeson, Carbon, Terracotta, Sun Gold, and Barry’s Crazy Cherry, all of which grew well. I was particularly happy with the taste of the Paul Robeson and Sun Gold tomatoes; I will definitely growing those next year. (Fresh Paul Robeson tomatoes sliced and sprinkled with salt are amazing. And this is coming from someone whose acid reflux prevents her from eating fresh tomatoes!) The Sungolds were sweet and made great gifts to friends and family.

All of the many peppers I grew this year were successful as well. My favorites were pimento peppers, which I picked up as starts from the local nursery, and the Pasilla Bajio Chile Chilaca pepper, which was considerably milder than expected and extremely prolific. It was a great pepper to cook with eggs or fajitas.

The only other veg that was really successful this past year was the garlic. I grew Chesnok red and Duganski, both hardnecks. I ended up harvesting them mid-June as the greens had already started to turn brown and shrivel due to our extremely early summer heat. At first, I thought the crop had failed as bulbs were small, but later I found out that these varieties are just small by nature. Given that, they were both successful!

Successes: Trees and Bushes

This year I purchased three apple trees–Haralson, Fuji, and Honeycrisp. The Fuji was supposed to be a dwarf tree but ended up being a standard sized tree. I got a refund but ended up keeping it. All three have thrived and the Haralson even put out an apple! So far so good.

Peach Knouk-Out Rose Bush

I also picked up five rose bushes–one Peach Knock-Out and four Double-Red Knock Out roses. All five thrived. Three of the red ones are now lining my side fence, and the fourth is in front of my detached garage. I ended up potting the peach one and giving it to my mother for Mother’s Day–she brought it inside for the winter, and it’s still growing and putting out a ton of blooms.

However, I also purchased a bunch of raspberry bushes, which all died (except for one Ann Gold raspberry) due to some kind of leaf blight. The Japanese maple I bought also died (nursery issue, I believe). One of the lilacs I bought died, and all but two of my hydrangeas also died from some kind of leaf blight. Half of my strawberry pants also died of some kind of unknown issue. In general, it was not a great year for putting live plants into my garden 😦

Posted on by Cara

2020 Garden Recap: The Nightshades

The holidays have passed, time to start planning for next year’s garden! But before we do that, time to analyze how last year’s garden went.

Last year was my first year to have a full, real garden and not a tiny container garden on an apartment patio. We bought our house in May 2020 and moved in at the end of May, smack dab in the middle of prime planting season. Luckily we knew the previous owners (my parents) and I was able to get in mid-May to get some of my seedings planted (tomatoes, mostly). But in general, with the move, most everything got started at least a month later than I would have liked. Still, I was gung ho to plant pretty much anything i could get my hands on. And so I did.

I have a lot of food restrictions due to various food intolerances and sensitivities. Tomatoes, peppers (both sweet and hot), citrus, mints, kiwis, and pineapples are all not great for me, sadly. But each year I’ll be trying try a few different types of tomatoes until I find a good sauce tomato, and I’ll grow a few peppers mainly because they grow well in my climate and look pretty.

Garden 2020: Tomatoes and Peppers

Tomatoes: This past year, I was determined that if I was going to grow food I really shouldn’t be eating, it would be the best type of that species that I could grow. So I did a bit of research and landed on San Marzano tomatoes (seeds, misc Amazon sellers). This is an heirloom Roma-type tomato that is supposedly highly prized by chefs. I started the seeds for these in April 2020 and planted them early June 2020. Out of the 20-30 seeds I planted, I got about 10 strong seedlings, and kept 8 of them. They were moderately productive through the season, and then decided to put out a ton of green fruit in mid Sept. I harvested all of the green ones that I could and finished ripening them in paper bags, and end up with about half of my San Marzanos being vine-ripened and half being paper-bag ripened.

I also lost least half of my total crop to blossom end-rot–apparently this is the bane of Roma-type tomatoes. I did end up making a small amount of sauce from them, which I haven’t tasted yet. However, given their small size (a lot of work for a small amount of tomato pulp per tomato) and their propensity for end-rot, I don’t plan on growing them next year.

I also grow a Yellow Brandywine tomato plant (seeds, Baker Creek), as I was hoping that a mild yellow tomato wouldn’t trigger my acid-reflux reaction as badly. The plant grew very slowly, had bad germination (hence only 1 plant), and only produced 1 tomato. It was a big, beautiful Brandywine-style tomato, and tasted juicy and amazing, but I’ve come to find it’s not the type of tomato but whether it is fresh or not that triggers the acid reflux. I can somewhat get away with small amounts of cooked tomatoes, but not fresh ones 😦 So, another no-go for next year’s garden.

A Yellow Brandywine tomato, shown here with a Musquee de Provence pumpkin

Peppers: I eat peppers even less than I eat tomatoes, but I wanted to try something new, so this year I grew Sugar Rush Peach Peppers (seeds, Baker Creek). I started them at the same time as the tomato seeds but then took considerably longer to germinate. I even had some seedings sprout two months after planting them, after I had already given up on them and reused the potting mix. All in all, I got three plants out of the 10 or so seeds I planted, and one of them was able to reach to full maturity before the end of summer and produce a ton of peppers. These are extremely hot peppers, and I made the mistake of harvesting and chopping a bunch of them without gloves on. I see now why Mace is a legitimate weapon–pepper juice is painful! I haven’t decided if I’ll grow this one again next year. The flavor is a very nice spicy-sweet, but I would only use two or three peppers in my cooking, total.

A friend gave me a Lilac Bell Pepper seedling to grow. It grew well and produced much fruit despite never growing very large (possibly the pot it was in was too small.) As I’m not an eater of bell peppers, I ended up giving most of them away 🙂

Lilac bell peppers, shown here with Trionfo Violetta pole beans

I also gave in and grabbed a bunch of pepper plants mid-summer from various big box stores. I ended up with poblanos, jalapeños, and banana peppers. They grew well, but after tasting each of them, I found that the poblano and banana peppers were mild but tasted just like green bell peppers (which I despise), and the jalapeño was too spicy and also tasted like raw green bell pepper. Ugh. So, not planning on growing any of those unless a friend or family member wants me to. (My fiancé Erik likes spicy food, but doesn’t regularly cook with peppers.)

Next year’s tomatoes and peppers: I’m going to stay away from Romas, despite them theoretically being the best sauce tomato. Instead I’m thinking of trying a Paul Robeson (Baker Creek) or Carbon (Baker Creek) or Bonnie’s Best (MIGardener), or an Italian Heirloom, if I can get ahold of the seeds from somebody. As for peppers, I’m still up in the air and haven’t bought any new pepper seeds yet. It’ll likely be something more ornamental than edible.