Haven’t updated this thread for quite awhile, so here goes:
Had seven varieties of lettuce from the garden, and we are now terribly, terribly spoiled in regards to lettuce. Unfortunately, a month ago a deer got into the garden and ate about 2/3 of the lettuce. And I think some of the local bad-boy neighbors made off with some of it (deer do not pull up entire heads and neatly slice off and leave behind the roots). It’s finally petering out, and with prospects of an early fall I did not feel it worthwhile to have a late planting. So we will be back to store-bought in a bit, but summer was fantastic for salads.
5 rounds of radishes, but the last one yielded no round radish roots. Oh, well…
4 varieties of beans again, green, wax, yellow, and burgundy. The non-green varieties launched like gangbusters, then about 2/3 of the plants just died. The green beans took over, though. Not as productive as last year, but still acceptable.
Bok Choy - doing well. I did sequential planting, harvesting stalks until the plant started to go to seed, then harvesting the whole thing and moving on to the next group. Now harvesting and freezing it for winter yummies.
Turnips: Invasion of the Giant Mutant Root Vegetables! Seriously - five pound turnips, like small pumpkins. Two of them… well, it’s like they exploded and liquefied. Another one had something gnaw a hole in it and move in and live there. I’m am not entirely certain what it was, just that it was rodent-like and had two beady eyes. The Giant Turnips harvested were tasty and normal turnips, albeit huge. Have a small line of more normal sized turnips, too.
Beets: Doing better this year. Need to harvest and freeze them.
Spinach: Several plantings. Didn’t do terribly well. I think perhaps we did not have ideal weather, and there seemed to be substantial loss to wildlife. What we did get was sufficient for several meals, though, and quite tasty.
Cucumbers: still aggressively trying to take over the garden. I think they ate the potatoes, which I can no longer find. Much more controllable numbers this year, but still had some give aways.
Kale: I never had kale before this year. Fortunately, I have discovered I like kale as I have incredibly plentiful amounts of it. I expect to wind up with about 10 pounds of it. No joke. Anybody want some kale?
Carrots: heavy losses, about 50%, to wildlife. The remaining ones, however, came out quite well. Would have liked greater numbers, but it was my first year for carrots so I am content.
Malabar spinach: never got going much. Starting to flower. Don’t think I’ll bother to harvest, not really enough to make it worthwhile and between the spinach, kale, bok choy, kale, turnip greens, kale, beet greens, and kale I have plenty of green leafies anyway.
Watermelon: were doing fine until, I think, something laid on top of them. Like, maybe, a deer. Or something. Kids running through the place or climbing the fence or something. Now deceased. Don’t think I’ll try them again.
Potatoes: as noted, I think the cucumbers strangled them.
Okra: never saw 'em. Either they never sprouted, or something like the turnips or cucumbers ate them.
Basil: Either I mistook it for a weed and pulled it up, or never came up, or something ate it.
Parsley: already harvested about twice what I had last year, hope to get that same amount again by the end of the season. Had both curly and flat leaf (but no cilantro - yuck)
Marigolds: going nuts, as usual. Very pretty right now.
Forget-me-nots and asters: apparently eaten by the more aggressive marigolds.