The Gardent - 2012 Report

Wife undertook a massive expansion of the types of produce attempted this year.  It was a tough year.  Like so much of the country it has been much hotter than normal (sure glad the global warming is just a figment of our imagination).  So lots of the plants suffered.  We also had an aphid infestation which did a number on lots of things.  That being said all in all it was a pretty good season and we enjoyed the fruits of Wife's labors in my cooking.

On this year's growing list were:

Collard greens
Kale
Mustard Greens
Turnip Greens and the attending turnips (more on that later)
Nuclear Chard (more later)
Brussels Sprouts
Bok Choy
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Basil
Sugar Snap Peas
New Mexico Green Chile
Serrano Chile
Cantelope
Watermelon
Yellow Squash
Zucchini
Kohlrabi
Beets
Carrots
Peaches
Blackberries
Raspberries

Here is how it all turned out:

The Greens - In general the greens did well.  She planted them early and during the cool months we really enjoyed the mustard and turnip greens in our salad.  The Collards and Kale did well too.  When the heat hit they all pretty much bolted (went to seed).  But Wife cut them back and as it cooled down they all bounced back.  The Turnip Greens produced turnips (who would have thunk?)  But we didn't recognize that in time and they went too far.  I call the Chard, Nuclear Chard because I'm sure the original seeds were irradiated at Los Alamos Labs.  They're supposed to be an annual.  They've lived through two abnormally cold winters now and through going to seed and being totally cut back this summer.  While the Kale and Collards grew well, I wasn't happy cooking with them.  They take a long time (in my opinion) to become edible which doesn't fit into my daily cooking habits.

Brussels Sprouts, Bok Choy - These basically never did anything other than go to seed.

Cucumbers - Died

Sugar Snap Peas - These did incredibly well.  They are supposed to be very cold weather plants.  But ours continued to produce well into the very hot months.  Maybe they come from Los Alamos too.

Chiles - Mostly died.  Had a couple of plants produce.  This was very disappointing as chile is usually one of our best producers.

Squash - All the squash did pretty good.  The crookneck yellow squash didn't taste very good but the regular yellow and zucchini were great.  We has some kind of borer that killed part of the plants.  This was a good thing as for once we had only about as much squash as we could use and not enough for shipping to Manila.

Kohlrabi, Beets, Carrots - Wife grew these all from seed and they turned out fantastic.  The kohlrabi and beets were so sweet.  We keep the carrots in the ground and use them through the cold months.

Peaches - Wrote about those earlier.  They were great and we have bunches in the freezer

Raspberries and Blackberries - These continue to do  well.  We've had tons of raspberries during the last part of the season.  The blackberries didn't produce as much but were very tasty and produced over a long period.

Tomatoes - Most years we get lots of leaves and not so many tomatoes.  This year the plants looked sad all year put they produced a very good crop for the plant size and they were very tasty.

Melons - I'm not sure why Wife does these.  We get one or two microscopic little melons.

All in all although Wife was frustrated with the heat damage and the pests, we were able to get a lot of good eating out of our garden this year.  So thanks for all the hard, hard work sweetie :)