Comments on: Goodbye Garden 2010

By: Bananabug

Bananabug — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 19:38:10 +0000

I agree that it’s great to have herbs available every season! But in case you don’t feel up to hauling them in next year I know for a fact that your oregano will be just fine over winter and will come back in full force in the spring. Parsley will also come back bigger and better and often Thyme stays green all winter (mine is still good even under the snow!) Basil gets a little weedy inside and if you hauled your rosemary in be sure to spray it with a spray bottle to keep the leaves nice and plump.

What a clever idea to haul your pepper plants in! I wish I had thought to do that. Ours didn’t really start to produce till the end of fall, by then it was too late!

By: Melissa

Melissa — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 02:15:11 +0000

i love the chicken in the photo!

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 23:35:07 +0000

This was my third year gardening, and by far my most successful. Not so much because of the fruit I harvested, but because I managed to keep most of the plants alive all summer! My rosemary and basil both danced at the brink of death several times but were still going strong when I closed up shop a few weeks ago. I grew all my herbs in pots this year so I brought them inside before the first frost.

My tomatoes were OK; I accidently bought 8 plants (instead of only 3 like I thought) so I wound up with more than enough. Considering how many plants I had the amount of fruit wasn’t too spectacular, but they tasted amazing though.

I can’t wait until next year, I’ve got even bigger plans!

By: Sayward

Sayward — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:26:55 +0000

It’s so interesting to me hearing from people all over the country (and the world!), and it seems like we all had really similar experiences . . . with bummer gardens and crappy hauls, ha! Oh well, it just inspires me to double my efforts to do better next year, right? =D

@ Annie – I always love your stories and the Southern Belle party sounds SO awesome. Way to spin it positive!

@ Meredith – I love the surprise plants! Sometimes I compost whole seeds on purpose just to see what might come out. =)

By: Vicki

Vicki — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 02:22:20 +0000

I’m in Wyoming, and our whole planting season was basically ruined by rainy and very cold weather. Many people gave up on a garden, including us, which was sad as we had been composting. This summer hopefully! we have such a short growing season anyway. :(

By: Meredith

Meredith — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:25:46 +0000

The best thing that happened in our garden was an accident! We have a community garden behind our house, so in addition to planting our backyard garden, I planted a few things in the community garden too. I used my compost to spread over the dirt and much to my amusement, I got these tiny orange tomatoes that I’d never even seen before, and I also got this enormous squash plant that no one could identify, even when it fruited, we couldn’t figure out what it was! It was good though! That’s what I get for not separating out my seeds from the compost!

By: Jade @ No Longer 25

Jade @ No Longer 25 — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 14:17:46 +0000

Next year I’m going to try and grow my own pumpkins, we had our first garden this summer and managed potatoes, onions, strawberries and herbs. Next year we’re adding pumpkins, cucumbers, rhubarb and whatever else I can get in the ground.

By: Callie

Callie — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 14:03:00 +0000

Our tomatoes over here on the East coast were also sad. My plants were big and healthy and came up pretty quick, but I didn’t get any ripe ones until very late, and they were extremely thick skinned and slightly unpleasant to eat. I got maybe two handfuls and some stragglers. We only did tomatoes and herbs this year, so that was a bit disappointing, but the herbs were very nice!

By: Amy

Amy — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:52:52 +0000

My husband and I are finally renting a house, so I’m looking forward to starting a garden in 2011. I’ve tried indoor gardening, but we have cats; cats and plants don’t seem to mix. Maybe I need to install shelves in a sunny place?

By: Annie

Annie — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 02:39:02 +0000

I live in Australia and my last crop of tomatoes also went a little odd. Most of them just refused to turn red. So my best female friends and I had a ‘southern belles’ party and ate a lot of fried green tomatoes, made green tomato relish, drank mint juleps and laughed at each others ridiculous (Australian) attempts of southern accents.
When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. When life hands you green tomatoes, have a southern belle party!

If your herbs don’t survive in the windows, you can always pick them and store them in ziplock bags the freezer. It’s still not a good as just picked, but the defrost pretty nicely and you can add them cooking foods still frozen and they defrost in seconds.