Death Of A Garden

We put our garden to rest this past Saturday. It was time since the community garden is closing for the winter and the frost had killed most everything anyway.

Dead Corn

It was a little sad to say goodbye, but we might plant again next year — depending on how cooperative our little bundle will be. For now we have the blog posts to look back on and the yummy tomatoes to remember fondly.

Here are a few pictures of the end.

A couple weeks ago before we had frost every night.

After the frost – only green tomatoes left on dead bushes.

The frost made the tomatoes fall off.

The melons tried to grow. Maybe next year.

The strawberries actually liked the cold weather! 

And this is the dismantling part.

Tearing out the corn, tomato plants are gone.

Jake chopping up the corn stalks for fertilizer. Fence is gone.

We spread the plant remains around to enrich the soil. Goodbye, garden!

A few final words about the garden:

Before the tomatoes died we found this huge, ugly creature hanging out: Tomato Horn Worm - NOT good for growing tomatoes. He found a home outside of our garden.

We made the last few dishes with our garden produce: A potato-crusted, Swiss chard quiche with tomatoes and cheese.

Potato crusted Swiss chard quiche.

And an attempt at jalapeno poppers. I love these and haven't been able to eat them since going gluten free. They came out well in execution, but the jalapenos from our garden were waaaaaay too spicy. We'll have to try again with less spicy peppers.

Both Jake and I really enjoyed our garden this summer and look forward to having one again. We learned A LOT about what worked and what didn't work. I'm going to list some of the things here so we'll remember for next time, feel free to skip or skim these notes, though.

• Don't use plastic fencing! Next time use chicken wire/metal fencing that can't be chewed through. Bunnies are cute, but it's better not to have them in your garden.
• Plant in rows to maximize space better. Beds are useful, but were mostly unnecessary for the things we planted.
• Use more fertilizer. The tomatoes were the plants to thrive the most and I think it's because we buried a piece of fish under the plants (and we should do this again). Next time I would research the fertilizer requirements of the other things we plant. I thought that the rich compost we used would be sufficient, but I think we can do better.
• Carrots, peas, lettuce, radish, and the June-bearing strawberry plants really prefer the colder weather. Swiss chard is happier in cold weather too.
• The corn was not successful and took up a lot of space. We probably won't try this again.
• Plant the zucchinis sooner. The plants were never able to get big enough to produce a lot of fruit. Maybe try to start these indoors?
• Yellow Wax peppers are gross. Plant more Bell peppers instead - these were much happier once the rains came, they seem to require a lot of water.
• The fingerling potatoes were ok, but the Yukon Gold were much better. Maybe try red potatoes next time.
• The basil plant from Trader Joe's was really happy and grew very well. The cilantro and basil plants did not take from seed. Better to grow these indoors to start, or buy plants.

So long, Garden! We'll see you again soon!