In order to increase garden success next year, and avoid certain missteps taken this season, I've created a summary of my experiences and opinions on each vegetable planted...
1. Husky cherry tomatoes - by far the heartiest tomato, not as sweet as grape tomatoes, but perfect for salads
2. Plum tomatoes - resilient and produce the highest yield of all tomato plants, perfect for cooking
3. Grape tomatoes - relatively easy to grow, the tastiest - so sweet, my all time favorite
4. Heirloom tomatoes - most difficult to plant, the fruits are often much too heavy for their own branches so cages paired with a watchful eye are a necessity - bugs also seem to love these, a slug death trap of beer can help (thanks Jaclyn)
Zucchini and Squash: easy - Lily could plant these if she tried, watch for monsters
Eggplant: a total disaster - got one really long weird looking thing, and we didn't even eat it because it was as hard as a rock
Sweet Peppers (Cubanelle?): loved these, not too difficult but need a tomato cage, they too are heavy and can drag down their own branches, low yield
Thai Basil, Italian Basil: again, Lily would have success growing these - but watch out for earwigs/pincher bugs/nastiest insect ever created, they hide under the leaves!
Landscape fabrics are the most amazing invention ever. It took me about a day to cover the entire garden with this black material and plant each vegetable, but prevented me from having to do ANY weeding during the entire summer.
The fabric that I used allows water and air to penetrate the soil and also holds moisture in during dry spells. On the down side, during the crazy rains in August (and Hurricane Irene), the soil never dried out which caused some of my plants (mainly the zucchini and squash) to rot.
May 2011
July 2011
Tomatoes:
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