LOL, Liz, I'm with you. I have giant cabbage but for some reason the Brussels Sprouts weren't as happy. Late blight and BER got most of the tomatoes, but the beets made up for it, as did the beans. Not so good on cucumbers but the zucchini haven't even hiccuped, they're still going strong.

Great potato crop, and the butternut squash and pumpkins are still just going crazy. Corn was OK, but the leeks are still not happy.

Could you maybe talk to those leeks and brussels sprouts?

and like you, we used the pool twice this year, I've already got it closed and covered. Weed pulling, now that kept me busy and in shape, as it usually does, but it seemed to be a pretty easy gardening year all around here.

Now we've had no rain for nearly three weeks, and the second cutting of hay is a no-go, but the first cutting was great.

Annie

No second cut of hay? We are on our 3rd cut here! That doesn't happen very often.
I didn't plant butternut squash darn it, have to call the farmer and get some

I let the pool get "furry", lol, on the bottom from not bothering to run the pump and cleaner, so now paying for it.
Have 3/4ths of the algae off the pool floor sucking it up on waste mode, so I can close the pool when I normally do, next week or the following week. We are coming up with a plan for the deer around the pool this year, gosh I hope it works so tired of the deer ripping the pool cover with their pool parties.

The produce better slow down soon, noone on the hill has wood cut for the winter yet, at least the power company put in a new access road and we can now get back to the power lines where they cut on my side and the neighbors side last year.

Definitely a "Really Good" or "Really Bad" year:

Really Good (I'm mentally walking through the garden here :-)
Garlic
Broccoli
Spring Onions
Summer Squash
Beets
Beans
Peas
Winter Squash
Peppers
Cucumbers (well, lots better than last year)
Basil
Parsley
Lavender
Swiss Chard

Really Bad so let's not even talk about it :-(
Tomatoes
Eggplant

I guess the best thing about gardening is that next spring we get to start over, and we'll forget about this season!

Liz, it didn't get above 60, I swear, until some time in June, first cutting wasn't until July, and we had floods in May, some parts of the counties around me were federal disaster zones. Then we got the wind storms and tornados in late July, early August. Still, if we'd have had some rain the last couple of weeks, instead of this "sunny and 80" weather, I'd have had a second cutting, albeit small.

That's OK, I have neough to winter my animals without buying any, I think. Just enough, but enough, so I'm happy...

Annie

Had a decent amount of red raspberries, but mine are thornless and not everbearing. Nearby black raspberries have just ended, and I only got a few. The red ones were a mix my dad had growing for for years and I added a mammoth type, which are as big as store bought. Last year, not one single raspbery showed up. I apply some Gardens Alive fruit tree fertilizer to them and it helps to give me well formed berries of both types. It has a trace of boron that also is needed by strawberries, and even brussels sprouts. Only got one little cantaloupe, and two very small green somethings, that might be watermelons. The melon plants were started indoors in early April, as was the brussels sprouts. Both have done poorly this year due to a June and July of temps in the mid 60's. Plan to try again next year, and leave out cukes, tomatoes, and corn, and just plant some more brussels sprouts and some buttercup squash, and melons. The sprout plants were short like 3 feet. Some years ago, I had a type that reached over 5 feet and did a lot better. Wish I knew what kind they were, but I think is was a 'bubbles' type.

The only melons have a tough time are the honeydews, they are not getting vine ripe, will pull and see, have 15 of those. I still have 9 Sugar Baby Watermelons to pick, just last night finished the picking of Iriqouis Cantelopes about 20 of those. D sowed the seeds in first week of June here. Still waiting for the Hybrid Savor to get ripe, they are in a "special" spot.
The red raspberries here aren't everbearing either, I am delighted they are producing is well. These raspberries "came home" as I say. The family that owned this farm before my Grandparents, the daughter who was born here, moved across the ridge when married and had a fruit farm with her DH. She grew the red raspberries, sold them for 2.50 a quart. The plants were produced from the pulp of hers I threw in the compost pile when I made jelly.
I just give them a side dressing of chicken or cow manure in the Spring. Never have babied them, usually get 6-8 quarts a year, but now allowing to grow on the other side of the fence to get more production.
I love red raspberries.

In Z5 honeydews don't mature fast enough. Might be wise to start plants indoors in April. My red raspberries never bear any more after the inital production. Both types are thornless and the older one has smaller berries, but all are gone by the end of August. Same with the black raspberries, but they only get one set of berries and mature after the reds. My red raspberry canes reproduce with underground runners. Some have extended more than 6 feet from the main plant canes. The ones I grow are way out back, near pine trees that hang over them. I have to add a bit of copper sulphate to the soil every year as they don't do as well as the original location which was dead center of the garden, and leaves tend to get yellow. I may need a bit of iron out there too. I use the Roma food strainer and optional berry screen for extracting the juice.

I am a suburban gardner and had a line of 40 year old spruce trees at the back of the lot removed in March. Give a gardner / foodie a 20' x 60' area of fresh ground and all sorts of crazy things can happen. 40 years of spruce needles really messes with the soil pH, but that was easily fixed. Our spring started off ccol and wet, I planted corn and winter squash twice before anything came up. 23 tomatoes, all heirlooms started from seed I had saved, 16 peppers, beans, beets, bok choi, spinach, Cabbage, kale, garlic, lettuce, cucumbers, spring onions, dent corn. My family thought I was nuts when they saw everything I had planted. But when the fresh produce started they were all pretty pleased. I didn't get the late blight, and for the past few weeks have been picking about a bushel of tomatoes a week. Put up 36 pints of marinara, 12 pints soup, 16 quarts juice, and tonight I'm making Annie's famous salsa! The past three weeks have been hot, and not a drop of rain, so lots of hand watering. Overall, a pretty good year. I'm on the third planting of beans, as one row peters out I plant another, and should have fresh beans until frost. Second planting of spinach and lettuce, I think the fall spinach is even better than the spring, but in spring I'm just so happy to have anything fresh and green to eat! I have been lurking around this forum for a while, and only recently have started to post. I am continually amazed (and pleased) with the knowledge on this site. It's a great forum and even after cooking and canning for 20 years I have learned new things things. Like someone said, I didn't eeven know what I didn't know! Thanks to everyone.

Steve

Its always a good idea to get a good consise soil test done in early spring, especially where evergreens grew and hung over garden soil. Some tree types leave not only needles but also nasty chemicals in the soil (pecans for instance). You may find that iron level is very low. A good soil test isn't just for NPK, but also for many necessary minerals like zinc, iron, calcium, copper, magnesium and many others. Here, my garden has been kept over 40 years and three years ago was the first time it was lacking in iron. It was so low, that I had to add about 100 pounds to my soil. Soil samples taken from different areas is important, and a few more taken from where the evergeens grew will give a better idea of what is needed. This year, potassium and gypsum was applied as well as necessary nitrogen all in the form of natural like feather meal and fish meal. I also use soaker hoses to get water to soil without wetting leaves. A couple of frosts makes brussels sprouts taste much better, so I will leave them on the plants until mid October. You learn a lot as you go..

Steve, I'm glad you started posting, it's so much more fun than just lurking!

As for those brussels sprouts, I bought some green ones, plants already started. Then I bought some seeds for Falstaff, a red variety and planted both the middle of May. It was still pretty cold and wet, but I wanted them to get a good start.

Now they are about the size of my thumbnail, at least the green ones are. The Falstaff are just starting to make sprouts, so it's a good thing they can tolerate a few frosts or I wouldn't get a darned thing. I might not from the Falstaff anyway, the seed was an "experiment". If it fails, I start early from seed indoors next year.

Annie

Many of my sprouts are just pea size. I break off leaves at the lower end of the plants now. I did find that they do need extra boron to reduce the opening of the sprouts. Some of mine are far beyond eating as the sprouts are no brances with new leaf stems. Terrible variety.. Te good sized ones are right next to my fruit trees, so its probably why they are grwoing well, but its limited to just 4 plants, the other 25 are pretty much useless, unless we get some more good weather. I just added more fruit tree fert to the plants. For a weed block mulch, I use degradable brown paper which has pretty much decomposed now.

Never had such a bad year for the garden. Tomatoes are dismal, squash bugs got the squash so quickly I barely got a dozen squash. Got a few cucumbers but melons just died before blooming. Kale only had 3 plants come up but those are doing ok. Don't know how they will be for flavor when the frost comes. Rabbits got every green bean, chard was good, onion fair but very small, garlic produced tiny bulbs. About the only thing that did anything at all was the ground cherries. They were mostly volunteer and just went wild. Peppers are just now starting to get going. I'm giving up on the outside garden and starting my indoor winter garden early. Planted peppers, eggplant, okra, and tomatoes and will get them going for the sun room. The indoor lettuce is up and going good. Will get green beans planted in the next week. I think I'll try some chard indoors this winter too. The outdoor garden will just get tilled and mulched.
C

If your going to start tomato plants indoors now, its very early and they would be diffcult to manage once they grow up to 3 feet tall or more. I don't start tomato plants until early April, as they are fast growers and are quite big when ready to plant in the garden the end of May. This goes for peppers too. Eggplant and squash are going to be way too big and spindly if they are started now for next year. To prevent squash bugs, sprays are used, and you can actually inject (with syringe) Bt into the squash vines near the soil level. This will search out vine borers and destroy them without any plant damages.

Pest-wise, the garden fared much better. I've taken a kinder attitude to all of the birds and lizards that are now permanent residents. The biggest threat seems to be the cabbage butterfly, and I resorted to some 7-Dust (I'm organic, too), but it saved the broccoli, cabbages, bok choy, so we had our fill.

The big problem is keeping it all going now that I planted it! I go from kitchen to garden and back - to keep it all working. Plant, water, harvest, can, dry, freeze, compost, start over!

Boysenberries great, apples from low chill trees - fabulous, apricots - for the birds.

Cabbages made lots of kraut, and bok choy fed the chickens -and compost - very hardy, especially pac choy. Even the cucumbers were happy - with lots of canned pickles and the beans were good too.

Now working on 2nd crop of pole beans - never tried to 2nd plant before -- planting times are soooo confusing here anyway.

My banana tree is going great. It is next to a concrete block wall with LOTS of heat and loves it. No fruit yet, but putting out lots of "pups" and lush growth. I thought it would be a tuff one, but likes it -- so far. An unseasonably cold winter could kill it tho.

Starting new plants and planted some broccoli, choy and cabbages today. They look so helpless - but in a week or 2 they should adjust.

Water rationing may "rain on my parade" this year, but trying hard to mulch, mulch and find ways to keep this merry-go-round alive. We are allowed 3 days a week, and they are making sounds like we may be getting a "rate hike" - this may make a big change in the daily routine alright.

Just my 2 c's.

Cabbage moths are always fluttering around here too. At first my brussels sprout leaves were chewed, but I sprayed with Bt and then released the tiny parasitic wasp thatgoes after the cabbage loopers. I also had sprayed the corn silks to help prevent the corn earworms. The wasps did teh best job of protecting the plants, and I had to release some about every 3 weeks. They are shipped on a small postage stamp card and placed in a small box wth holes in it, protected from the weather. Next year, I plan to get the mixture of two types. One for lower plants and one for the taller trees. It seems that the caterpillers/worms also like to destroy oak leaves. Bananas love potash too. Soaker hoses are the best way to go for watering.

Here is a link that might be useful: Parasitic wasps