Final Count

Here we are at the end of the year and well past the last freeze. So how did Mark's 98 square foot garden do?

I stopped counting on the gross pounds from tomatoes after a leaf fungus took over the tomatoes. What I deducted was that the yellow pear tomato is not very hearty when it comes to resisting fungus and so it was sort of the host plant and helped it move to other tomato plants. The sixty days of over 100 degree days weakened most plants making them more susceptible to the fungus. In August I finally decided to cut the plants back down to stalks and see what happens. I had nothing to loose. They bounced back and if I had done it a month sooner we would have had a second tomato crop. My tomato lesson is this, no yellow pears taste bad, too many and no one likes them. Arkansas Traveller was OK in the beginning but too much square footage for a plant that produced so few tomatoes. Same thing for the Celebrity. The cherry tomatoes were fine. So I will probably plant one cherry tomato and a couple of porters next year for tomatoes.

The bell peppers did very well, too but they needed more sun so they need to move beds. The orange bell peppers were not hearty enough to do again but the reds and greens did well.

Eggplant did OK but I don't know what to do with them so they are out. The bush beans did pretty good but for the footage needed not enough. Sara, our dog, liked them a lot. She would walk by see one hanging down and bite it off. So I might plant one or two just for her.

The big winner was the basil and oregano. The basil actually helped bring the bees that pollinated the other plants. Before they were not coming around until the basil bloomed. We harvested and processed about 12 20oz jars of organic sweet basil and 3 of the same for oregano.

Overall we more than paid for the expense to start and maintain the garden. With the tweaks that we plan on making next year should be a more fruitful harvest.

I am thinking about creating a couple of grapevine style racks for the tomatoes. since our sun exposure is limited and from a specific angle this will help get all parts of the plant good exposure. It will also help with ventilation.