garden notes for 2010

The community and home garden are the tidiest they've been in months -- just a few squash and beans and tomatoes to harvest, though the groundcherries are only ripening now and that means one more round of making jam (well, marmalade, actually). Winter crops of fava beans, carrots, beets, radishes, and garlic are going in this weekend and then we have about 6 months of blissful time off before I start getting the itch to grow stuff again. Oh, and I did manage to plant some bitty wee crocuses, daffodils, and iris in the front tree box last weekend, and it finally is starting to look a little more civilized out there. Not a small challenge when you're trying to choose items and a design that won't tick off the on-street parkers while discouraging the dog walkers.

Anyway, here are my top 7 "what I learned this year" items that may be helpful for my fellow Zone 7 gardeners:

1. plant more groundcherries. These are awesome little fruits that look like Chinese lanterns on the outside and tiny, orange, cherry tomatoes on the inside (a.k.a., Cape Gooseberries, but it turns out those are larger cousins). Stunning as a February dessert because the husks keep it stable for months; just peel back the papery outside and dip the fruit in a little white chocolate. Tastes like...well, it's hard to describe. It tastes like rhubarb, meaning it tastes like itself. Tangy and sweet, with a tropical vibe. Anyway, we're turning most of ours into the aforementioned marmalade and likely will plant them directly in the ground next year. Containers are OK but require a lot of water, and they didn't really take off until cooler weather hit at the end of August.
2. don't plant scarlet runner beans for food. I couldn't figure out why beans weren't setting. All summer long, lots of pretty crimson flowers and happily buzzing bees, but no beans. I had extra shoots that I gave away and one novice gardener was especially nonplussed, asking me twice what she was doing wrong. Turns out, nothing. It's too hot for bean production here. I'll give the handful of dried beans I pulled to the Moxie Sis and fam to see if the mountains are a kinder climate. They are pretty, but my space is at a premium and I'm DONE with major harvesting now. Every flower in the few vines left turns into a bean now, and they are just hanging there, mocking me.
   
3. don't plant cantaloupe. Oh, they were pretty, those 'lopes, and I had 6 fat ones, but like the scarlet runners, it's too hot for them here. Insipid, pale-fleshed milquetoasts they were. Wildly disappointing, and I'll be hitting the super and farmer's market for mine from here on out. Plus, the Boy Scout is not a fan and when you have 3 ripe cantaloupe and 1 consumer, you're going to get sick of them.
4. don't plant tomatoes in the home beds. They need consistent sun for 3 months and my backyard bed exposure changes wildly between May and September. That, and I was ready to kill flocks of thieving birds and scurries of pilfering squirrels after a while. Gardening is supposed to be peaceful. The community garden may have human vegetablenappers, but at least I didn't have to watch them do it out the kitchen window while I was trying to eat breakfast.
   
5. don't plant sunflowers. So pretty, bobbing in the late July breeze. So maddening to watch the aforementioned squirrels chew through the stem, right below the head, so they fell to the ground for easier access. Don't look now, but that tree rat just created another instant smorgasbord for all his little vermin friends!
   
6. get 2-3 Roma tomatoes and compost the heck out of them. We tried a variety of tomatoes, but since our main goal was to can them, we had a clear winner. One Roma plant that we put in the section of community garden that had been well-composted by previous owners probably yielded 2/3 of our gazillion quarts of tomatoes and salsa. We're not messing with heirlooms or eating tomatoes next year; we can go to the farmers market for those.
   
7. plant LOTS more cukes. According to family lore, the Boy Scout's first word was "pickle" and there's an excellent reason for that: he adores them. I didn't realize quite how much. We made quarts and quarts of Grandma K's lime pickles this summer, but we had to raid the local markets to get enough pounds for a full recipe. I had 3 hills (2 at home, 1 at the community garden) and I'm swapping beans for pickling cucumbers next year. We need to try our hand at dills, too. Anyone got a 10-gallon pickling crock we can borrow? The plastic mop buckets we used this year can only hold so much....