Planning for Next Year

This is the time of year when gardeners take stock.  What worked?  What didn’t?  What will next year’s experiment be?  What will I try to do better?

Successes

Fordhook chard is always a winner.  It grows vigorously, is slow to bolt and the stems are just as delicious as the leaves.  This year I planted a fall crop and I’ll definitely do that again.

Young Fordhook Swiss Chard Plant

Stiletz tomatoes.  I didn’t grow enough!  Okay, I had 4 plants, but I needed more.  This tomato is early, big, juicy and doesn’t have a lot of seeds.  The plants are determinate, which means that they don’t need as much staking as the vine tomatoes.  Next year I need to start about a dozen plants for my own needs and to give away to friends.

Lacinato kale.  This heritage kale is tall, but due to its growth habit, doesn’t take up as much room as some other varieties.  And it’s pretty, too – the leaves look like ostrich plumes!  Not really a winter kale, I'll have to grow another variety as well.

Snow pea fence.  I might be able to count this as a success.  The peas haven’t reached full height yet, but so far my zig zag fence is working.  I took a length of wire fencing and folded it back and forth in 3’ sections, then stretched it out a bit and anchored in place with bamboo poles.  It’s stable, providing sufficient support and the bamboo poles threaded through the wire seem to be holding it in place.  When the peas are finished, I’ll burn the dried plants off with a blow torch, fold it up and tuck it away for the winter.

Zig Zag Snow Pea Fence - not the best photo!

Failures

Sasha’s Altai tomatoes.  What a disappointment this one was.  The first tomatoes were small, which is okay if all you plan on using the tomatoes for is salads, but since I need tomatoes for salsa, I need bigger ones.  Its indeterminate growth habit means that it needs stouter staking.  The extra work is just not worth the result.

Rhubarb chard.  Pretty, but not reliable enough.  This chard bolted almost immediately!  I guess my raised beds are just too warm for most chards.

Next Year’s Experiment

Must grow shiso – or perilla.  It’s a member of the mint family.  I bought a bunch at Jollity Farm’s market garden.   Samples of shiso cordial were given out as well as the recipe for making it.  When I got home, I made the cordial, which is wonderful mixed with tonic water or club soda – also gin or vodka!  I plan on buying more shiso, but I’d like to grow it for myself as well.  Now if only I could find some seeds….

Next Year’s Resolutions

Rhubarb.  I have such a problem with this.  We don’t have enough soil to grow it properly.  Last year I cleaned out the “rose bed” which never really got off the ground and planted the rhubarb in there.  I bedded it down thickly with maple leaves and put in drip watering to supply the moisture.  It didn’t work.  Possibly there isn’t enough organic matter in the soil there to hold the moisture as the soil’s pretty sandy.  I’ll keep topping it up with maple leaves and eventually maybe I’ll win.  There’s nowhere else to go.

Onions.  A lot of the Copra and Candy onions went to seed this year.  Much of it was due to the cool wet spring we had, but some of the problem was the shade that the onion bed had.  There was lots of sunshine on the onions, but a small arbutus tree provided a spot of shade at one point in the afternoon.  That tree is coming down this winter, but I’m also going to grow onions in the bed that housed the basil next year.  No shade there!  And grow more!  Copra stores extremely well and you never have too many onions.

Principe Borghese tomatoes.  I only grew 2 plants this year and I needed a lot more.  This little cherry tomato is a mini-plum.  It’s pretty bland when eaten fresh, but once dehydrated it has flavour in spades.  It’s the only tomato I dry.  Next year I need at least 4 plants so I have plenty for my own needs and enough to give away.