Growing tomatoes in any given year in Calgary can be a challenge. I only grow short season varieties and I put them in Kozy Coats in spring to give them a headstart, plus keep them in pots in the hottest area of my yard. Usually I get a fairly decent crop. But this year the crop has been sparse, to say the least!
Here are all my poor little tomato plants shivering in our unusually cold, wet September weather. We've had a lack of heat all summer and everything is very behind! I'll be cutting these tomato plants off in the next few days (tomorrow?) and bringing them inside to hang upside down as per a previous post. I probably could have done this weeks ago and it wouldn't have made a difference for all the lack of sun we've been having lately.
With all this rain I haven't had time to do much construction in this area of the yard either, as you can see. But I'm slowly making progress laying down those recycled concrete patio stones.
But enough complaining. All this moisture is great for the trees which suffered a lot of stress from a too-hot September last year. Plus the cool temperatures and extra moisture are sure making the perennial garden lush and the flower blooms extra vivid in colour. Also, my cool-season vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, chard, beans and peas all did very well this year. I guess you can't have everything!
And while I'm on the topic of the harvest, I must add that my strawberries and raspberries did very well this summer. I can't say whether it's because the plants are now more mature or because I was a little more diligent in fertilizing this year (probably has at least something to do with that!) or because of the weather or who knows what else. My neighbour's Saskatoons did extremely well this year too and they are quite old shrubs so the Saskatoon harvest, at least, didn't seem to have anything to do with plant maturity.
What did well (or not) in your garden this year?
Like you, my tomatoes did poorly. It was a particularly frustrating year for tomatoes - I would write a small novel about my tomato plants this year and the issues I had (I'll spare the details). The pepper plants didn't do super well either, but I'd never done those before so I didn't know what to expect.
I planted my beans and cucumbers too early - the seeds didn't even come up. Live and learn.
On a positive note - my beets, carrots, zucchini and herbs did really well!
I've planted a fall salad garden as well and I purchased a frost protector for it - I'm excited to see how well it will do. All the seeds came up, even with the lack of sun and all the rain, so I am staying positive!
Posted by: Megan | September 17, 2010 at 08:08 AM
I had a really good apple harvest this year. They are quite big compared to past years - this is going to be a weekend for pies, jellies, and sauces.
I should get together with Megan to figure out beets, they never grow for me!
Cool thing that I grew for the first time - celery! Yum.
Posted by: Paula H | September 18, 2010 at 08:40 AM
Megan: peppers like heat too so they were doomed this year but your fall salad garden sounds like a great idea!
Paula: normally Id never consider growing celery but now that you mention it, if youve ever had really good celery you discover it is quite yummy, isnt it?! Maybe Ill make some space next year. It requires tonnes of water, doesnt it? Was it otherwise easy to grow? I see some good caesars in my future... ;-)
Janice
Posted by: Janice Miller-Young | September 19, 2010 at 06:30 AM
Lucky for my water hungry celery it rained a lot this summer! I only watered it a couple of times and did nothing else for it, so, I will give it a go again next year. Yummy, though.
Posted by: Paula H | September 21, 2010 at 07:35 PM