2017 – First Year Garden

I shopped for the bulk of my seeds online at www.Burpee.com and www.ParkSeed.com as well as a local nursery.  My husband had only two requests, we have okra and a variety of vegetables and flowers;  so when he looked out the window he just wanted to see ‘stuff’ (but definitely okra) and hummingbirds and butterflies.  Okay, so I got an assortment of vegetables, some fruit bushes and vines, and flower seeds and bulbs.  Again, please remember I have grown NOTHING in my life, absolutely NOTHING.  The vegetable ordering was relatively simple, I have seen a carrot before, and so I understood the size.  With flowers, well my reference point was very limited.  So I ordered ‘pretty’ flowers, with no understanding of their eventual size.  Evidently I felt dahlias were very pretty and so ended up with 13 of them.  I planted those closer to the house with poppy and other flower seeds.  Lessons learned from that:  Understand staking requirements when you are planting your flower garden is very important!  Trying to stake huge dinner plate size plants which were as tall as I was, after-the-fact is not so easy.  And poppies from seed are not like any poppy I ever saw in front of grocery stores.  Mine got half as tall as the dahlias or just as tall, yes, almost four feet!

As for vegetables, so much information is online, square-foot gardening, edible gardening.  I was getting advice from my mom, from my husband.  It was coming at me from all sides.  Looking back, I feel the most helpful information was to understand that plants need a little bit of their own space.  You cannot crowd plants under the ground or above the ground.  And squash!  Well, they have absolutely no understanding of square-foot gardening.  They were laughing at me!  You want me to stay where?  Sorry lady, but we have our own plans.  I knew I planted broccoli, but the zucchini was everywhere with no broccoli in site.  Oh it was there, but I had to hunt for it.  We began propping up the zucchini with wood and PVC supports, which helped some, but not enough.

It was now April and we had not planted anything in the garden.  Well, all my raised beds were not in yet, and I was waiting for everything to be done.  Then I got needed advice, if you don’t start planting now you may have very little come up, things take time to grow, don’t wait for everything to be perfect, just start!  Again, I am reminding everyone, I don’t know what I am doing here!

And we are off!  Here is what we did:

4-9-2017  Seeded inside:

• Bell Peppers – sweet rainbow blend
• Broccoli – castle dome
• Brussels Sprouts – Hestia
• Corn – butterfruit original early
• Cucumber – marketmore
• Eggplant – black beauty
• Eggplant – purple comet (did not sprout)
• Eggplant – Turkish orange
• Green Bean – blue lake
• Green Bean – trionfo violetto
• Green Bean – tenderstar
• Okra – jambalaya
• Okra – spineless
• Pea – green arrow
• Pea – snap crunch
• Pea – snow
• Pea – sugar snap
• Pepper – cayenne
• Pepper – jalapeno
• Pepper – thai hot
• Strawberry – Toscana
• Tomato – beefsteak
• Tomato – little Napoli
• Tomato – roma
• Tomato – supersweet
• Tomato – yellow pear
• Yellow Squash – delta
• Zucchini – black beauty
• Zucchini – contender

4-15-2017  Planted in black bags:

• Potatoes – princess laratte
• Potatoes – purple majesty
• Potatoes – red gold
• Potatoes – red luna
• Potatoes – red Pontiac

4-17-2017  Planted in raised bed:  Sweet Potatoes – Vardaman and store variety from mom

4-21-2017  Seeded in raised bed:

• Beet – Detroit
• Cabbage – Copenhagen
• Kale – blue vates
• Radish – garden party
• Spinach – catalina

4-23-2017 Transferred to garden:

• Bell Peppers
• Broccoli
• Corn
• Cucumber
• Peas
• Zucchini

4-30-2017  Planted in garden:  Passion Fruit Vine

5-6-2017  Bought from nursery and planted in raised beds, as my seeds were not making it):

• Eggplant
• Bell Peppers

5-6-2017  Seeded in garden:

• Broccoli Rabi
• Green bean – blue lake

5-13-2017  Seeded in garden:

• Cantaloupe
• Onion – bunching
• Onion – chives garlic
• Onion – chives
• Onion – cippolini
• Onion – red barron
• Onion – red creole
• Watermelon – crimson sweet
• Watermelon – triple treat

5-20-2017  Seeded in garden:  Radish – garden party

5-23-3017  First flower to say ‘Hi’:  

I planted a lot of poppy and dahlias and other flowers.  However, it took them forever to come up.  But I did plant them late.  I only had poppies and dahlias, no other seeds took hold.  But we did have rats come sleep in the flower seedlings as they were coming up. I found many seedlings laid on, and eaten, so this could have killed some of what I planted.

Photos of raised beds 5-27-2017:

Here is a garden video taken 6/30/2017:

Here is a full panorama:

I was excited; I was having a lot of success, and starting to see vegetables coming up.

Here are a few of my harvests in pictures:

We realized that in about three-month’s time, we had spent $500 less in our groceries than normal.  I was a little shocked by that.  I can really save that much money?  Yes, I have to count in the seeds I bought and the cost of the raised beds to get a true amount, but I was starting to see that this could actually be a great thing I could do.

And then came August 2017.  I saw what looked to be dust on my zucchini.  So I tried spraying it off with water.  Then I saw it the next day too.  What is this stuff?  I started examining the leaves, the stems, this stuff was everywhere.  I went online and found out about powdery mildew.  I mixed baking soda and soap spray every day.  I sprayed the tops of the leaves, the bottom of the leaves, the stalks, and the ground.  But I would return the next morning to find still more, with little benefit.  I started looking at other plants.  My crookneck squash was starting to have it, and I found it on my brussels sprouts, my okra, my poppies and my dahlias.  Oh my goodness!  It was spreading by air and by pollinators.  The zucchini was out of the ground that day and into the garbage.  I cut off leaves of my crookneck squash, brussels sprouts and okra as they had not been overtaken yet.  Cleaned my scissors well with soap and water and bleach spray and went out to trim back and spray my dahlias, which were by now the prized flower of my whole backyard.  I loved those flowers and admired them daily.  I week later my poppies were overtaken, I could barely see any solid green leaf they were so covered with powdery mildew.  They came out immediately.  I could not bear to lose my dahlias.  Eventually I lost my brussels sprouts, my crookneck squash, a couple of my tomato plants, a few cabbages, all my dahlias, my echinacea, and my spirit.  This had overtaken my garden!  How am I going to ensure I can battle this successfully next season?

My take-a-ways from my 2017 garden:

• Watch for powdery mildew – overtake it before it overtakes the WHOLE garden, started losing lots of flowers and vegetable plants to powdery mildew
• Build up my dirt to be better quality
• Put in an irrigation system
• Buy supports for more plants and flowers and be prepared for their growth
• Understand how much I am growing and how much this is saving me