I'd like to say that I'm not quite as negligent a gardener as I am a blogger. I've been taking care of my plants, but there hasn't been much to write about. In all honesty, this summer was a big bummer and I've spent the past several weeks trying to figure out what went wrong. Sure, the weather was a big factor -- the "cold" spell we had for much of August was the worst possible timing for the hot-weather plants that I'd filled my garden with. Also, the soil -- I had set out for this to be a "re-building year" of sorts, but I still expected things to grow. I probably harvested less than 2 dozen tomatoes from 10 plants. I will maybe get one eggplant.
This year's artichoke experiment was a failure as well. The plant was neither pretty nor contained artichokes (but it did grow to be HUGE).
But, as down as I feel about this now, there were some successes and a few surprises. The cucumber plants started out shaky but in the end they were my highest-producing plant, and we now have plenty of pickles!
I also harvested enough cayenne peppers to get us through several football seasons (my favorite use is to dry them and use in chili), and the mystery squash turned out to be a spaghetti squash.
Over the next week I'll work on cleaning out the garden and then throwing down a nice layer of compost before I research cover crops to plant. I'll take whatever measures I can now to ensure a better season next year.
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