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Let’s Get Gardening – Part 1

Photo by Jennifer Fairfield. Tomatoes.
Photo by Jennifer Fairfield. Tomatoes.

(Chelsea Update would like to thank Jennifer Fairfield, owner of the Garden Mill, for the information and photos in this column. This is Part 1 of four parts.) 

I’m having a hard time believing that it’s already September.

We had such a weird summer – not much real heat until almost the end, and odd rain patterns – that summer seems like it is over just as I was getting used to the idea that it was actually here.  And I can’t be the only person who is totally not ready for the winter everyone says we’re going to have.
Much like last year, my resolution to spend more time in my vegetable garden didn’t hold up, and my garden paid for it (and so did I, since I got very few tomatoes for the second year in a row.).

There were a number of challenges to overcome:

  • early blight got my tomatoes this year again, so we only got a few to enjoy fresh
  • the weather was too cool for my eggplant, so none of them ever got to full size
  • powdery mildew on my zucchini didn’t really hit until late in the season, so I did get quite a lot of those, but the squash vine borers did in the plants before they were done producing
  • there was the usual downy mildew on the cucumbers , but that didn’t keep those from producing more than we could possibly eat
  • But luckily, the beans – pole, bush, and edamame – were totally unfazed by the Japanese beetles that I kept finding on them.

Garlic

My favorite crop in the veggie garden – garlic – did OK this year, though not quite as well as most years, probably because of the cooler summer temperatures.  Most of the heads produced this year, but they generally weren’t as big as usual. I will be planting more this fall, though. I am not kidding when I say that it’s my favorite thing that I grow.

I’ve grown my own garlic for so many years now, I’ve become a bit spoiled in that I don’t like the taste of the garlic available in stores anymore – it’s just not as flavorful. I can’t wait until the fall-planting garlic comes into the store in a couple of weeks. I’ve already started planning my garlic beds for this year, which will get planted after we’ve had some frosts.

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