I wanted to share my garden vegetable list of experiments this year! It was a good year in my garden.
This year I had some outstanding harvests. Gardening is a huge part of our farm and makes up the majority of our food supply. It's also the biggest money saver on the farm.
**ALL photos you see are from my actual Homestead. I do not need to use purchased stock photos. What you see on my blog is REAL!
For the last 6 years no matter how small something is always growing in my garden.
In the fall and winter, there may be greens, onions, garlic, spinach, and carrots ... Early spring with mass amounts snow peas, carrots, broccoli, more greens, radishes, and kohlrabi .. Summers filled with tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, okra, peppers, squash, grain corn and more!
This extra long Summer's end has left us still with peppers, okra, wild tomatoes and sweet potatoes not yet gathered!
Waiting for that first frost to sweeten the fall/winter greens! Spinach, broccoli, cabbage and hopefully Brussel sprouts!!
The garden is never boring. It's a ton of work. But boring?? NO!
Gardening at this rate can be totally overwhelming if you have other things going on.
Like kids or like trying to handle livestock, gardens and a farm business! Or simply just trying to actually enjoy living your life!
Overwhelm happens on a farm but especially when you are trying to level up and grow a part of the farm. Which is what I've done with my garden every year so far.
And no matter how good you think you are at gardening... There will be failures!
Every single year...
No matter how tried and true you plant the weather will rule your outcome.
Now this year, yes, I had huge harvests and lots of success.
But I also had loads of fails this year, mostly because I did a lot of experimenting. Never know till you try and garden experiments are so much fun for me! I'm a major plant geek so that helps fuel the motivation for the extra work and time garden experiments take!
So this year winners and losers in the garden list!
Winners:
•little tyke cucumbers ( extra early hybrid) planted in wall o waters in March. I was harvesting cucumbers in April! Seeds and Such is where I found these little gems! Great seed company!
•Red stripped greasy beans( hands down best tasting green bean I've ever eaten, we loved these! unfortunately so did the rabbits.. Next year I will protect longer!)
•paymaster dent corn (grain corn that can be grown on sub-standard soil,, needs another run because my goslings broke in and ruined most of it. But it did produce even without the additional mid fertilizing I have to give other grain corn)
•red ripper cowpea
•Dixie Lima peas
•Bertha low Lima beans
•snow on the mountain Lima beans
•Charleston grey watermelon (amazing! but have ALOT of space for these guys!)
•spaghetti squash ( 88 days, netted and planted with protection extra early to avoid SVB. When planted late it couldn't hold up to the heat.
•tender green mustard ... Love!
•dragon tongue mustard. So hardy! But very hot and sharp! Needs frost to mellow the flavor.
•glacier tomatoes, This is an extra early, more cold tolerate tomato and only does well here ( zone 7) planted extra early! Done right this plant will give you tomatoes by the end of May/first of June. Which is way better than waiting until July for most tomatoes! They do die out at the end of June.
•sugar Ann ... Great sugar snap peas! Early and long producing for a pea here!
Losers never to be planted again...
• any *new* specially bred OP tomato! ugh! I devoted huge space to plant these newly improved tomatoes .. none of them could hold up in the humidity here. Some never produced a single tomato, some produced a small number of unimpressive tasting tomatoes! I'll stick with my 3 tried and true favorites next year! Maybe try one of the hybrid specifically bred for humidity!
•mouse melons .. Hardly produced until late summer. Took up a lot of space. Then they produced a load of tiny fruit and have an odd, unappealing texture. Nope!
• buttercup squash.., supposed to be more insect-resistant .. Lol! Produce 2 squash and died from SVB!
• shark fin melon ... It's huge .. Grew and grew took over a huge area. It's weird and it produced 2.. Never again!
• cassabanana ... No.. Just no!!
•triple treat pumpkins... A naked seeded pumpkin that's supposed to be good for eating, 'naked' seed production and carving, Produced 3. They were terrible keepers. Not a lot of seeds.
So.. No...
•Job's tears... Used as a grain like barley. They grew beautifully! I had high hopes for these as an alternative grain. Formed perfect seeds and then kinda molded ☹️ not good for high humidity obviously..,I may try a different variety at some point.
•tiger nuts... Grew great!! Produced well, But what a pain to harvest and clean!!! If there was an easier way to harvest them they'd be great. Very hard to see them! Would be good in a food plot to draw in turkeys.
•any variety of sweet corn ... Just no! They suck up a huge amount of nutrients, attract pest like crazy and take a lot of space For very little food. And are kinda a one trick pony compared to a good heirloom dent grain corn. Which can be eaten off the cob in its milky stage or left to dry for cornmeal either way. Dent corn Cobs can be used to make corn cob syrup too!(which I made this year and it's amazing!)
• flour or flint corns... They are just to attractive to pest here. And they typically only produce 1 ear per stalk. I like dents that produce 2 ears per stalk. For obvious reasons.
• any snow pea but Norli ... I planted 4 different types this year and others the previous year. Snow peas don't exactly like this climate and must be planted very early to get a crop .. I plant in February.
Most snow peas still yield too little for me, All but Norli. I won't bother with any other again.
•runner beans... Did surprisingly well planted extra early but wow! They take up tons of space! Not worth the space for the yield they gave to me.
• fava beans... They are yummy and different but they yield low and I've decided they must hate it here. Only 1 variety I planted produced anything. I'd rather just have more snow peas planted in their space.
I think that sums up all the experiments this year!! Except for the sweet potatoes which haven't been all harvested yet. I planted 8 different heirloom varieties! Can't wait to get digging!
I don't experiment to this extent every year. Years I've had commitments to livestock I just don't have the extra time, unfortunately. Downsizing the livestock is going to have to happen. The gardens have just become too big of a money saver and key in self-reliance.
Part of the reason I'm able to grow all our veggies and grain corn is that I experiment so it's really important!
For a garden list comparing Snow peas check out this post- Snow Pea Variety Comparison
and for my January Garden Checklist go here What to do for the garden in January
Hope some of you in zone 7 find this helpful!
Blessings for great future gardens!!!
To help you achieve this check out this free GIvers and Takers Garden checklist to help you plan your garden! Givers and Takers Checklist PDF
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