Well, I haven't formally introduced myself to everyone yet, but here goes:

Last summer I had problems with wilt on my tomatoes, so I decided to solarize my garden beds this summer, and to experiment instead with veggies in containers on my driveway.

The containers were a rip-roarin' collosal failure because of that heatwave we all had. I kept everything alive, but the tomatoes were mealy, had blossem end rot, and ended in the trash. A honeydew melon got off to a great start, then succumbed to a nasty mold patch on top of the fruit. The basils liked the heat, and could stand my occasional neglect, so they were o.k.

Here's the bright side: My regular beds are now solarized and ready to go for fall/winter. AND I realized that my garden will be more successful if I stay away from containers. I just don't have the discipline for them. That helped me hone in on my design plan. So it all worked out in the end, and I'm looking forward to planting soon

I can certainly empathize, it has been a tough summer for most of us with all the issues with heat and drought.

Someone recently asked me what a potager was, and I said it's a vegetable garden with an extra steep learning curve!

Last year I was real new to vegetables and went a little crazy with the cow manure, and my tomatoes really suffered.

This year everything went pretty well. I had so much of everything, I had to start giving it all away.

I still have green onions coming up, and tomatoes like crazy. My herb bed is overflowing.......I still need to
get those cut and dried.

So I had a good year to make up for my "crappy" one last year!hahaha

Haziemoon

I have to say the thing that went 'most' right was the eggplant. I had a nice crop a bit earlier in the year and now getting another bunch. The eggplant required the least attention from me and had the fewest bug and fungus problems.

The biggest producers were the squash and zucchini. I did have to keep spraying with tea for the PM but I had so much produce that people got tired of me giving it to them and my freezer is full.

Basil was slow all year long until now - we have a sudden jump in growth and I now have a gigantic basil plant.

Tomatoes did pretty good. I've decided from now on I'm growing 3 Sun Gold cherries instead of 1. Those little babies are good in so many different ways ... salads, fresh sauce, sauteed with butter over green beans, on pizza, etc. Not to mention just popping 'em in your mouth like candy as you walk through the garden.

Jalapenos did great too. I let 'em turn red and made a couple batches of hot pepper jelly.

oh yes, I love Sungold too! Sungold is an absolute must for my garden!

talking about basil - I have noticed several of my favorite seed catalogs carry "Magical Michael" basil and African Blue Basil...they are suppose to be prettier than other varieties. I am thinking hard about trying them next year.

Anyone tried either?

I'd like to try African Blue too. I think you can only buy plants.

I have to say that I always have luck with lettuce so I guess I can't count that. I was successful with cantelope (first time) and butternut squash (also a first). Next year I will plant more since I only got 5 cantelopes (which I hate but grew for DH) and 6 butternuts. Tomatoes, cucs, basil, parsley, strawberries, beets, carrots, peas, arugula also did well. I still stuggle with summer squashes and the beans were wiped out this year. Always something to challenge us!

The porter tomatoes were plentiful, but tasted bland. The hybrids Celebrity, Carnival and Heatwave produced decent tasting medium sized fruit before July 4th. After that, they croaked. The bunnies managed to get every other heirloom before me.

Something fungusy attacked both plantings of squash. Green beans did great, but eventually bit the dust.
Corn was done before the 4th and did great. The blackberries did well--fat and flavorful.

I put a little too much fresh cow manure on the raised beds. Sluggish/stunted growth. I have hope for next year.

The herb bed is looking great. Nothing like heat and drought to kick the basil and rosemary into high gear.

My happiest success is the clematis I planted to grow over the arch. The heat made it suffer, but as of yesterday, it is small, but has two lovely purple blooms. What a trooper!

Here's to a great gardening year next year!

Happy

The biggest thing I did was to get a garden even started at our new (to us; 96 yr. old) house. When it was time to get going in April, I was just 6 months into recovering from a stroke. The garden became my therapy, my symbol of recovery, and my quiet refuge from the demands of a job and people that just gave me no slack. So! After getting 1/4 of the projected final plot going, I then broke my foot. Luckily, I had just done a major landscape cloth/wood chips mulch, so the garden was able to keep going with some watering from some (non-gardening) fmaily members, and a few weeding sessions with me in a wheelchair or a wheeled seat/cart. So if I got anything at all out of the garden, I figured it was already a small miracle!

Still, I can be more objective to share what went well, and what I might want to re-think. I bought some Harris Sugar Snap peas. These were not organic, i.e. seeds had been treated. They did very well, and I do wonder if they're going to generally be more successful, comparing their performance to some of my heirloom varieties (but other veggies, so I can't make a scientific comparison here.) I had started my own tomatoes from seed, keeping my seedlings in a friend's greenhouse, so they could get natural daylight. Her family was going through one high-stress thing after another though, so they didn't get the constant care that I might have given them. So I ended up buying some heirloom seedlings, and they gave me so much pleasure, just watching and learning! I planted one each of Green Zebra, Rose de Berne, Big Rainbow, Italian Beef, and Glacier. They all yielded something, but the Glacier, Rose de Berne and Italian Beef did best. The zebras would fall off the plant before they seemed to be ripe, and the rainbows were huge, but with very sunburned "shoulders." They also split a lot. Next year, I plan to plant these all again, although rotating to a different row. I will try to put in some of those watering cones that Gardener's Supply has, so that when I water, it can go more to the root area. I've saved seeds from all, and also hope that these offspring will be more ideally suited to this micro-clime. We didn't plant pumpkins, but some volunteers sprouted from compost I spread. They took over a huge part of the garden, then these nasty looking bugs swarmed down and leaves turned silvery-powdery. From all that, we got 2 really nice, beautiful pumpkins. We're proud of them, but not sure if I'd keep the volunteer next time. A volunteer that I fell in love with was a sunflower--didn't plant its' ancestor, so don't know the variety. It grew to about 12', and had a very strong stem, so didn't flop over one bit. The flowers were three toned, plentiful, and beautiful! I've bagged two dead flowers, and look forward to planting lots more of them next year. The squash were a total failure; nothing survived (from Delicata and butternut varieties). We had a wonderful supply of leaf lettuce into early summer, including romaine, Black-seeded Simpson, Red Riding Hood, and more. I wonder if I'll keep my resolution to do more succession plantings next year?? I wanted to save some of those seeds, but not sure if they've blown away. After a late start, I have some calendula that I hope will establish itself and be back next year. I got the peppers in too late, and now I'm afraid there won't be enough heat for them to finish up. And I don't know what happened with my green beans; I planted a whole row of Fin de Bagnol, and only two plants came up. I'm going to save seeds from those plants and try again next year, but will also plant at least 1 other tried-and-true variety. Next year, I will rotate rows, and further develop another 1/4 of the total garden (I'm doing 4 wedges to make an entire circle). I also want to get more hardscape stuff in, such as a rose arch. I know you're supposed to do that first, but sometimes the funds just don't allow. Will also try to get some border that defines the outside circle.

Whew! And that's for a small garden!

Smiles,
Mountainsong

Same here: I was just happy to get the raised beds built and filled! Anything that grew just seemed like gravy! But I'm wondering if I made a mistake filling the beds with straight compost. My tomatoes got some really ugly early blight. Still got a decent amount of tomatoes, although not the "shock and awe" my husband was hoping for. :-) The Brandywines were delicious according to him - the Best Boys I got from HD: not very exciting. Both types just grew and grew and grew - I think I need to get determinant types for next year. My one cuke hill did great, but I need to trellis it next year to save space. Summer squash and zucchini were a bust - powdery mildew - I need to find something to solve that next year. I squeaked in a second round of lettuce and peas and beans in August - the lettuce is doing great, hoping to get a few beans and peas still, but I might have put them in too late. And Holy Tomatillo! Mine is covered in flowers - one plant, now pretty much sprawling over the whole 8'x' raised bed! - and some tiny fruit, but not sure anything will ripen in time.

My strawberry plants settled in nicely, they border the bed with the tomatillo, but I need to cover them with netting if I want to beat that chipmunk next June!

I got some nice rebloom on my new "Graham Thomas" rose put in to climb my new arbor - it didn't do much climbing but I'm happy it's survived and I notice another bud today!

Not too bad, all and all!

We had a whacky spring, so planting was weird.
I got 5 cukes, about 5 zuchinis (yellow instead 0f green???)3-4 peppers, the tomatoes started soooo late, but they're coming in now. I'm picking them as they become orange cause I'm expecting a frost any day now.
The green beans were heaven! I'm planting a BUNCH more next year!
We're adding a couple more beds for next year. One being for asparagus and one for green beans planted and trellissed to pland shade type stuff under the plants. THEN, HOPEFULLY we can have lettuce and stuff in the shade so it doesn't bolt.
We're adding gravel walkways, and some planters along the fenceline to grow something to fight horse dust.
Hopefully by next spring someone can teach me how to post photos on-line so I can show you the progress.
Nancy
P.S. Also put in a greenhouse this year, so I'll be playing with that also.