I spent Columbus day putting the summer's garden beds to rest. As you can see from this picture that I had let it just keep growing, and growing and growing.
The month of August was a crazy busy and fairly stressful one with Woolen Rabbit demands and September was pretty much a bust for working in the garden because of back issues, so as you can see things are pretty darn over-grown, but not any more. All of the beds, except for the herb bed have been emptied and turned over for winter's rest. I did leave some carrots in to sweeten over the next few weeks though.
This year's garden had some high points and low points. Tomatoes, peppers and corn really didn't do that well. I had enough roma tomatoes to freeze a number of quarts of sauce, but my heirlooms did nothing...boo. Broccoli on the other hand was the plant that kept giving and giving and giving. We had amazing broccoli all summer and I collected another batch when I pulled the plants out. Bush beans, lettuce, carrots and onions all did well too. The herbs were amazing this year. That bed is exploding right now with herbs to dry...and as you can see my marigolds were ginormous!
Remember earlier in the spring I did some companion planting. I can honestly say that I don't think it made a whole lot of difference. I didn't find that one thing did better than usual in the garden other than the broccoli, but the Rosemary didn't keep those pesky cabbage loopers away.
Next year I will try a few different things. Now that the kids are mostly grown there is not the same need to plant so much. I really love strawberries, so I think I may try dedicating a bed for strawberry plants. I will plant less tomato plants, but definitely a yellow tomato plant. I discovered how much I really love them in a Caprese salad...mmm.
Every year when I face the task of putting the beds to rest I groan because it is a lot of work, but when it's finished those empty beds make me smile. Another clean slate for next year.....
