Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how did your garden grow?

**madhen** · 10-19-2008, 10:13 PM

Mine did not do as well this year as it has in the past. I had a lot of problems with squirrels and wild birds taking off with the produce, but I also did not have as big of yields as I typically do, especially on the simple to grow plants, such as the bell peppers and squash. I suspect the squirrels are responsible for the squash, but I never saw any fruit on those, not even babies. The tomatoes seemed to be doing okay, but the chickens kept snitching the fruit before I could get to it!

The fruit trees just got hammered by birds this year. I don't like to use netting because I have such weird hours, I am often gone from dawn to dusk, and I can't check them regularly to make sure no one is caught in them. I don't want to enjoy my fruit at the expense of a bird's life. Funny, last year, the birds totally ignored the figs. This year, I had to practically beat them back! Must have remembered from last year how tasty they were!

I am still gathering the random tomato, pepper, and green bean from my plants, but they are definitely slowing down. My windowsill herb garden, on the other hand, is going gang-busters. I have "cut and come again" with practically all the herbs twice now, and they are still robust and thriving. The container carrots may be a bust - the tops are getting really green and leafy, but the one I pulled had almost no root at all. At least I know the finches love carrot tops, so it wasn't a total waste!

**3tomboys** · 10-19-2008, 10:50 PM

My garden did not grow well at all. I am trying container gardening for the first time. I believe I had drainage problems. I was so excited because the plants were doing great, they grew really healthy looking and then once the vegies started growing they got very droopy and eventually they all died (tomatoes, eggplant, etc). I was concerned that heat would be an issue but we didn't even make it that far. I am determined to try again in the spring, so I have already started reading up on container gardening (the soil here is to hard, when the backyard was landscaped they had to use jackhammers to dig the holes for the tree,etc).

**Dave'sGirl** · 10-20-2008, 04:11 AM

Ours was a first year garden and surprizingly it did fantastic. We'll be eating veggies all winter long out of our garden (froze quite a bit). It was my first time growing potatoes. What a success! We grew Corn, potatoes, butternut squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers, zuch & summer squash, snap beans, italian beans, broccoli & caulifower, and romaine lettuce. I've always gardened, but never on such a large scale and we just moved here a year ago, so Dave and I spent more time in that garden than even in the pool for entertainment. We loved it!

**Lady_V** · 10-20-2008, 04:15 AM

Sticks!

Combo of me being in pain/surgery/hospital/recovery... and the damn landscapers sprayed something for weeds... Worked great! The weeds thrived on it!!!!

**Contrary Housewife** · 10-20-2008, 02:02 PM

I had mixed success. My tomatoes, which are usually very good all got mites early and after a small harvest died mid-summer. I had the typical early short squash harvest before worms got those. I had a couple nice cucumbers before wilt set in. All but one bell pepper plant died, and the survivor has produced one tiny fruit.

On the other hand, I had abundant lettuce until it got hot, swiss chard all summer and still coming, and a great row of fat carrots. This was my best year for strawberries, and the herbs are trying to take over the garden.

I can never seem to get stuff planted at the right time. If I plant early, we have a late freeze. If I plant later, we have an early hot spell.

**nandmsmom** · 10-20-2008, 04:07 PM

We got a LOT of rain this year. Some things liked it, some didn't. The tomatoes did poorly and ended up with disease pretty early on, so I didn't get nearly as many as I would have liked. The pumpkins and cucumbers did very well, as did the zucchini. I had trouble with keeping up with the weeds, so the root veggies didn't do as well as normal.

There is always next year.

**ri*smom** · 10-20-2008, 04:16 PM

Ours didn't do so hot this year. Too many rain and wind storms early in the season. And I cannot get rid of the squash bugs!! The annihilated my zucchini even earlier this year. They are on my list next year. I did put some milky spore down for the Japanese beetles. I will be interested to see how in works for next season.