Notes From the End of the Garden Season 2019

Inside: We’ve come to the end of another garden season, and like every year, the garden abounds with lessons of what worked and what didn’t. Join us for a review of the end of the garden season 2019.

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Grouping pots together, one of our top ten gardening tips. — Coleus, planted in an old Weber kettle grill. An annual tradition for me!

Not to pick on the nursery rhyme, but the question begs answering: How did your garden grow? Well, for me garden season 2019 was a mixed bag this year. Some good, some not so good, and a fair amount of mediocre. Early on I had problems with a family of coons, and, if I’m being honest, I found them pretty aggravating! Dumping out containers, digging in freshly planted beds, and eating ripening peaches off the table were just a few of their shenanigans. I put some of those inexpensive solar motion sensor lights on all sides of my house (I highly recommend these lights!) to deter them, but they didn’t seem to mind the light. At least I ended up with a decent outdoor lighting system for under $40.

But I digress. So now let me answer my own question: How did my garden grow?

What’s New

I made some changes to a number of beds this year. I let the old strawberry bed go back to grass and planted new strawberry plants in the raised bed instead of putting tomatoes there, and I’m really pleased with the results.

Another view of the planting bed. — Trying out planting strawberries in a raised bed.

The tomatoes went into my small “whatever” bed, which seems to come in handy for whatever I have that doesn’t really have a designated space.

Young tomato plant in its new bed. — Tomato plant in its new bed.

I expanded the size of this plot by moving the herbs to the west side of the house–another move that has worked well this year.

My herb garden, 2019. — My herb garden, along with some purple cabbage.

Highlights and Lowlights

Although planted late, the tomatoes did well, as did the peppers, and we had a decent amount of fresh eating. The cukes, not so much. Early on they developed a fungus with all the damp weather, and I was only able to make one batch of my famous Curry Pickles. (Not actually my recipe, but I found it in one of my favorite canning and preserving books–The Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving. I make it every year, along with the Sweet Garlic Dills, which are amazing!)

As I previously posted, the sweet potato harvest was nothing to write home about.

Tiny sweet potatoes. — Tiny sweet potatoes easily fit in the palm of my hand.

The container flowers around the steps looked so much better than they did last year. (Rainwater will do that.) I was particularly happy with the Beedance Biden which I planted in my old milking boots.

Profusion zinnias fuller due to pruning. — Another favorite–red-orange profusion zinnias looking lovely in my container garden.

Beedance Biden, a flower new to my container garden. — Beedance Biden, a flower I’m really loving!

The peach harvest was one of those mediocre outcomes I talked about. Still, I have a gallon bag of cut peaches in my freezer, waiting for me to make some preserves. Sounds like a good idea this week, with the weather turning colder.

Peaches from my tree. — Peaches from my tree–aka raccoon and bug buffet!

The Stump Garden 2019

We’ve been doing the Stump Garden for three years now–see 2017 and 2018–and this by far is my favorite year. I resisted the urge to over-plant it, and while it was sparse in places for the first month or so, the Stump Garden gradually filled in and looked quite lovely most of the season.

What we planted in our 2019 stump garden. — Here she is–our 2019 Stump Garden!

The fall pictures don’t do it justice, as I should have snapped pics at the height of growth and beauty instead of right before frost, though it still looks good.

The Zinnia Story Continues

A few years ago I wrote about a huge volunteer zinnia plant that I let grow (I named it Super Zinnia), and the lessons it taught me that particular year–three years ago. I saved the seed from it, planted those and other zinnias the following garden season, and those crossed, creating a lovely pink zinnia that flourished in several flower beds last year despite the lack of rain. They were the high point of the garden season in 2018. But when it came time to save seed, I got a little lazy. My thinking was that they were so prolific that all I really needed to do was bend the spent flowers down back into the beds, and I’d have a huge crop of them in 2019. I even scattered some of the seed so the beds were generously covered.

Enter garden season 2019. The problem was, come late spring and early summer, I found no baby zinnias. None anywhere to be found! The great-grandchildren of Super Zinnia did not exist, despite the hundreds of seeds scattered in the various beds the prior fall. I thought about Super Zinnia and how she had been the catalyst for so much healing back then, and I was sad to think nothing was left of her. I said a simple prayer that somehow, someway, there was a seed that had survived so that this original zinnia would live on. Quietly I heard in my heart, “Trust me.”

Periodically I would check those beds for any sign of a little zinnia, but I saw nothing for the longest time. Then about mid summer, I spotted this little plant that was, lo and behold, a baby zinnia!

And here she is, the great-granddaughter of Super Zinnia!