For me it was the planting of a couple of cucumber plants in the top of one of my black compost bins. They really produced well for being in the shade for a good part of the day.

Growing wax gourds aka winter melon. They did great, and I have a ton of them in my basement. So far, so good, no one is rotting, they seem to be keeping.

I've found it a very versatile vegetable, I can use it any way I would use summer squash or eggplant cooked, plus the flavor, while sort of mild and neutral, is pretty pleasant raw in salads, adds a nice crispyness. I haven't tried shredding any up to make a cole-slaw like salad yet, but I think it would be great that way.

All that being said, I might just have gotten lucky with the hot summer, especially the warm nights. It might not do so well other years.

Yellow Doll watermelon and Tahitian butternut.

I planted Lemon Queen sunflowers. I've never planted sunflowers before because I figured they would have to be staked and still might not take the wind.

The lemon queen only got waist high and didn't have any trouble with the wind or light freezing. They were very easy care.

The down side was that they went into my "quail food" patch and the tweeties ate all the seeds long before they were ripe, so the quail never got any.

On the plus side, the bees really liked them, so they are good fall bee food, so I will plant a bunch of them next spring.

Haikuri Turnips

Pink Beauty Radishes

Red Pearl Grape Tomatoes

Goldie Husk Cherries

Golden Sweet Grape Tomatoes

Purple Majesty Potatoes

Mountain Rose Potatoes

7 plantings of Green Beans

I too love those Hakuri turnips. Yum. I just picked the last of ours.

For me it was planting a fall garden. I planted most things the last week in August, and by the first week in Oct I was eating lettuce, kale, radishes, spinach, turnips.
Yum.

Komatsuna, Summer Fest! It was the tenderest green, Asian or otherwise, that I have ever grown.

Perhaps, it was because I planted the seeds in late August. Some of the plants didn't have time to really grow much before the 1st frosts began to slow them down. Still, a few made good growth . . . probably because we had a late 1st frost. Otherwise, I suppose I'd never know that they are so tender and tasty!

Next spring, I MUST try Komatsuna in the spring. Maybe, I will be able to get them to germinate and grow right thru the summer . . . maybe not but it is worth a try.

Senposai has been in my garden for about 4 years. Senposai is a hybrid of cabbage and Komatsuna, we are told. I'd had cabbage often enough and learned that I like Senposai both as a green and for its flowering stalks - like broccoli! I'm glad I got around to trying Komatsuna.

Steve

Late-season direct sowings. I direct-seeded carrots, beets, beans, peas, corns, basil, chard, kale, winter squash, sunflowers, and zinnias in several sowings and got a huge late summer to late fall harvest of sweet, young produce and fresh cut flowers. Germinated quickly in the heat and grew like crazy.

We really enjoyed the currant tomatoes this year, not just the wallop of flavor packed by the lil suckers, but their, um, enthusiasm? ;~)

I tried the Rainbow Inca sweet corn, it looks like indian corn but was quite nice to eat sweet, and so pretty. I didn't get a good stand of plants because of critters, but the survivors did well enough, i'd plant them again and plan a party around their due date.

Loved the red noodle beans, very tasty and prolific.

For me Sweet Peppers in a rock garden. They were the best peppers I have ever grown. The best of any gardener in the area that I know of. (Humble aren't I ;) So now I need another rock garden for crop rotation. It also grew great salad fixings early. I then followed with Sweet Pepper plants And added big rocks and bricks for mulch.

Curt

How are you guys eating your turnips? Do you cook them? I know guys who grow them for the deer...they get huge and the deer eat them all winter. I guess they really sweeten up when it gets cold.

Eggplants in containers. They did great, and kept me in a constant supply all summer into early fall.

Plant a few early tomatoes really early. I planted a couple of Sophie's Choice on April 1 and had my first ripe tomato June 28. The only protection was 6mil plastic on a low tunnel.
Next year I will add a layer of row cover as well. Oh and peppers (both hot and bell) went crazy in the swc.

For me it was seeing the benefits of ACT.
Truly the difference in my soil, produce and quantities of quality veggies was just incredible.
You should try it!

To beeman gardner:
What is "ACT" ? I tried Googling it but could find no garden connection.

instar, please tell me how you cooked the red noodle beans. I tried a couple of recipes but we didn't care for them. Unfortunately they were too big by the time I mentioned them at a new little Chinese restaurant in town where they offered to cook them for me because they are soooo good.

I will not forget to give the garden a top layer of composted manure in the spring. This year I had decent production from a bed I planted early before we got the compost but the same spinach planted in a bed that got the compost did much better.

Make sure early seedings get a good amount of water. Terrible germination this spring due to drought conditions while I was away.

Very happy with late planted veggies. Wish I had planted more spinach. The beets are wonderful. I picked broccoli last week here in NH that doesn't have any protection. Cilantro seems to grow if it isn't planted until August. Spring seeding just bolts.

Defrost49, I didn't care for yardbeans until I grew Red Noodle. They are prolific, easy to pick, and delicious. I usually do stir fry like I do fortex, maybe a tag longer. If you're interested, the following thread has pictures from someone in your zone who grew it successfully.

Here is a link that might be useful: Red Noodle and other yardlong beans

I built a greenhouse. Cost me around $250 for a 12 foot by 30 foot greenhouse.

It extends my growing season almost indefinitely. Those cold nights wreak havoc on tomatoes but our days are beautiful.

Run the heater on cold nights and open the door during the day... and viola...at least another 4 or 5 months of growing season...if not more than that...

Plus I am able to control the water and the environment. I am excited!!!!!

The other things are to grow things in containers. Had 60 tomatoes all in 5 gallon buckets and it worked beautifully. Also I used an existant barbed wire fence as my support and it completely eliminated the need for further staking of any tomato plants and it was free.

I will experiement with raised beds at some time or another...maybe even IN the greenhouse...

I have some other thoughts come spring as well for an in the ground garden...I will make rows...one swipe with the tractor tiller... move over 5 or 6 feet and make another swipe... and so on... 25 feet long...

I will cover the row with 3 foot wide 25 foot long weed cloth and it will be a no muss, no fuss garden that you can mow in between the rows.

"sconticut" asked 'What is ACT?' Short form for 'Activated Compost Tea', a second short form is AVCT, stands for 'Activated Vermicompost Tea'. The later is made using worm casts as the base, as against compost in the first example.

Passport melons. I got ripe melons really early from these, and throughout the season.

Great replies!

Have a photo of that greenhouse. How did you build it so big for so little $$??

I will try to post up some photos later on.

We had 35+ mph winds here and that created a slight problem, but other than that... everything seems to be going good.

Here in Sonoma county we had one of the colder summers for at least 10 years. Lima beans, eggplant and even corn did not not ripen before nighttime temps started to fall.

Watermelons are a bit hit-and-miss here in normal summers. This year I had a few watermelon plants that I really wanted to produce fruit, so I used green plastic mulch on them. I've been using the green mulch every year for melons, but had never tried it for watermelons.

It worked great and we had ripe watermelon in August and September, when the tomatoes were only just setting fruit.

I'll be using it for my watermelons from now on, and there probably won't be any more years where the watermelons are softball sized when the cold nights start.

Reminds me again that for many plants soil temp is more important than air temp...