We increased the space in our in ground garden this summer by about 20 square feet.
We decreased the tomato plantings by eight plants. We increased the green pepper plantings by two plants. We planted a new sweet pea row that turned into a disaster–should have stayed with Oregon Sweet Pea seeds. Basil came on strong, as did our Rosemary plantings. But, overall, this was a very down season for the garden.
How did your gardens grow?
Im just now thinking of starting mine…we don’t even plant until October as it’s too hot and humid to grow much of anything over the summer.
We work out of a small patio area and I am happy to say that our herbs, small tomatoes and peppers are all doing fine. The only herb we have trouble with year after year is dill. Can’t figure out why. We may have to share some of our harvest with the neighbors…
I should be outside picking peppers right now- there are literally thousands that need to be picked (and dried, or turned into sauce or frozen, etc.) 160 pepper plants plus everything else this summer!
Summer tomatoes are done, fall ones wont be ready for a few months, onions and garlic are all harvested and cured, herbs keep doing their thing, etc. a few beds are ready for ammending in prep for fall planting.
Materials for more beds are sitting waiting to be assembled.
Terrific results!
Thank you! Pic #1 are aji amarillo, pic #2 are tap de corti.
For anyone building raised beds that may not want them permanent- check these out! I got 'em at home depot. These pics were taken at the store.
Looks great, Weezie!
About the same yield here of tomatoes albeit with a lot of cracking due to getting really heavy rains over a few weeks. Stocky Red Roaster has been an excellent and plentiful sweet pepper; Campeon and regular jalapeno have been producing like mad. Green beans are up to 19 pounds (not that many plants). As usual in August it’s tough keeping up with the harvest.
Have had great crops of lettuces, arugula and basil. Lots of eggplants and a beautiful lemon grass plant. But…the tomato failure this year was sad. I do not much sunshine due to neighbors trees and with only 4 raised beds I planted tomatoes every year for 10 years:(
in the same beds
Every year I had overwhelming bounty of tomatoes - this year the plants are not bushy or lush with leaves or tomatoes. Each plant has about 4 tomatoes. The one grafted plant is the healthiest but still very few tomatoes. Next year either no tomatoes or I will replace the soil in the beds!
I’m missing my plants, have been traveling now since a week (few more weeks to go…). I was complaining the other day that the French weather this year is so devastating that probably I won’t have much harvest (spring frost and early summer flood, cold July). Starting from mid August, there is the heat wave, a great boost to my plants, especially, tomatoes. Other veggies are ok, Meyer lemons, peaches, sages, basils, thymes, rhubarbs and strawberries.
I have a tomato plant that is quite brushy, growing very tall and very leavy but not much flowers until lately. It’s called pineapple tomatoes, second year trying to grow this variety, seems like a difficult or a very late harvest specie.
Now my neighbours is taking care of them, hopfully when i return, they will leave something for me. 
Is the soil fertile enough?
Lack of fertilizer, maybe?
Each year I have added 4-6 bags of compost and also a bag of organic soil. I also fertilized monthly. Def has been my worst year for tomatoes since that year with the late blight. I might try to get the soil and part of a tomato plant tested.
I’m not sure where you are but it’s been a challenging tomato year on the south side of Lake Erie.
Also, are you adding organic fertilizer?
Indeed. Sometimes it’s just a bad year. One year everyone I knew was struggling with their tomatoes. On a weekend getaway we visited a huge manor house which advertised 30 gardeners and sold the produce from the estate gardens in an onsite market.
Their tomatoes looked like hell, too…made me feel better that it wasn’t me…it was a bad year.
After four summers of “playing around” with very different varieties of heirloom tomatoes, we decided next year to put in four Brandywine plants and just relax. Brandywines we’ve planted in the past have always come thru for us in a pleasant way.
Even tho the tomatoes were a bust this year, my new (last year) Blue Paradise Phlox plant is right outside my desk window to enjoy. Magical, it is very blue in the early part of the day and then turns pink in the afternoon!
Our garden thrived this year, the best in recent memory. There was a bit of a silver lining to the drought in the North East - virtually no disease this year. As long as you diligently irrigate the crop was fantastic. We had more loss than usual from desperate rabbits and squirrels looking for any hydration they could find. However that was more than counter balanced by the bumper crop.
Early season arugula was abundant and the fall planting is coming along nicely. We have not bought lettuce, chard or kale since Memorial Day. We experimented with some new radish varieties in the spring (including purple daikon) which were delicious.
We are drowning in tomatoes. Red and Yellow Brandywine’s have been delicious as always. Despite some early blossom end rot, the Green Grandmas are now producing nicely. Black Cherry’s are coming in waves. The surprise of the season has been the Yellow Coyote tomatoes. Marble sized and yellow cream colored, with a delicious nuanced flavor. The Coyotes have been prolific with two plants yielding a gallon of tomatoes a week since late July. The Coyotes and Black Cherrys look like they are going to produce strong until the first frost.
The herb garden has done well with minimal bolting despite the hot 2nd half of the summer. Pepinex cukes were new for this year, and we’ll probably make it our primary variety next year. Italian eggplants grew much better than usual in our garden. The only dud this season was the sugar snap peas which vined and flowered like crazy but never produced peas. Oh well, can’t win them all. 2016 will go down as an epic garden season.
