Season 3 Post-mortem OR How 'bout this heat?

What a strange year this has been. What started out as a very cool dry summer turned into a very wet and hot one, just in time to become very dry again. I have to admit I haven't been doing this very long, but that is a lot of variability in one year.

This is a bit early for the complete post-mortem, but I pretty much know what will happen between now and the first hard frost in a few weeks. I still have tomatoes producing as well and jalapenos a-aplenty. I am sure they will be producing past Guy Fawkes Day like last year. So I don't feel too much like I am jumping the gun here. So, without further ado:

Ye Olde Pumpkin Patch:
Alas my poor orange gourds. What an amazing show they put on this year, snaking the whole 30 feet from the patch, over the fence and onto the periphery of the Main bed. Several baby pumpkins formed only to be aborted when the temperatures hovered around 100 for a few weeks. Once it cooled back down to the standard Virginia 90 degrees, the patch was beset with PM. This stuff spreads fast. Faster than you realize. I've found that once you really see it, it's already too late. Something to be proactive about when you get a long period of very sultry weather. I ultimately mowed down all the vines in September since I could not compost them because of the disease. Next year I plan to move the pumpkins into the main bed but a little further west than where the 3 Sisters were this year. Need to have the crop rotations since I will be experimenting using no-till next year.

The potatoes. The plants did very well, they got tall and green and lush. When the plants died back in July (as they are want to do) I dug them up and only found a few anemic spuds. This soil was new, they plants fertilized with broad-spectrum fertilizer, but just nothing happened. I'll chalk it up to heat stress and hope it doesn't become a theme.

The Main Bed:
The 3 Sisters did very well, however I timed it wrong and overestimated the ability of Virginia Piedmont clay to hold itself together. Since the mounds washed away in July, I will have to either forgo them next season, or build a berm around them with bricks to hold the soil in. After harvesting all my corn in July, my squash in September and my beans last week I think I understand the timing; Plant the corn in May, the beans in June, and the squash in July. This way the beans don't pull the corn stalks down, and the squash don't over shadow the baby corn stalks. The beans are drying on my porch, 6 stalks each with bunches of bean pods with 5-6 beans. I also plan on succession planting the corn so that I can still be harvesting in August. It seemed so short to have it all over by mid-summer.

The spinach and onions did well in the spring and we ate spinach plenty until it bolted. Like the potatoes, the onions did not produce. No lettuce came up at all, but I suspect it may have been eaten by forces other than me (I'm looking at you Slug Sappers). I planted more in September, and there are lots of onion stems, nothing else came up. Strange, but the jury is still out on the new onions. The broccoli only grew stalks, no florets. Other gardeners have told me: heat stress. *sigh*

Sunflowers had absolutely no problem growing and I was impressed at how big they had actually gotten. Both varieties (Mammoth and Evening Sun) were the hit of the garden. I noticed passers-by stopping in my driveway to look at what I had wrought from the Earth. It was quite cool. The sunflowers were ready in August and I cut the heads off to keep them away from the birds. Sadly I left then too long in the house without taking the seeds out and they molded. I had to compost them uneaten. I have to remember to get them out of the flowers within a week, or wrap them with cheesecloth next season and let them dry on the stalks. The Evening Sun's made flowers until mid-September much to the delight of the bees and The Littlest Giant: "fow-were, beezzzz bzzzzz." Again, the most native variety of anything in my garden makes the Giant the most happy. It goes without saying they will be back.

Carrots. I actually have some! Not the huge size or numbers like last season, but they are there and more like the baby carrot variety. Nothing was happening until September, and then they started packing on the size. Say it with me now…"heat stress." They taste great and will be replanted with the tomatoes next season. Speaking of which, the tomatoes did great. They were hit with blight but by the end of the season they were growing much faster than the disease was taking. I have to remember to trim them back next season since they turned into a bramble and probably hurt production. Jalapenos, the success story as usual, I have to give then away. No need to plant so many next year. No Thai peppers, dunno why, but the Jalapenos were so hot it doesn’t matter.

The Driveway Bed:
Soon to be the Main Bed Annex as I plan on connecting the extra 8 feet between them next season. What did not come up; Strawberries, sweet peppers, eggplant, bell peppers. What is it with bell peppers? I can grow some of the other hot varieties, but not this run-of the mill type. Next season I will plant them in pots in the front of the house (the former Front Bed) and see if it has to do with my soil. There must be a common pH issue with these that did not come up. I'm still looking into it.

I thought that the Cayenne peppers had not come up either, but last month one did. It's about a foot tall now with flowers. Since the frost is soon I don’t expect anything, but it's nice to know something happened and that the seed hung out all season. The watermelons I planted are still nice green vines with flowers, but that’s about it.

Cantaloupes were anemic but very tasty. The Littlest Giant loved them, and so did The Wife. I'm thinking of switching them out with honeydew next season or maybe just watermelon as I prefer those species. The 3 bean salad beans did very well. They were very crowded though, and I didn't know which to thin. Ultimately the Squirrel Squadron ate the beans in the pods as they all came in at the same time (as bush beans are want to do). It's ok, they can have them, this was just a proof of concept. More sunflowers here did amazing like the others, and just broccoli stems.

Take away
Heat stress seems to be the buzzword this season. Fertilizer still plays an important role as well. PH and soil composition is important too. Man, how do people do this for a living? If you mess up, you don't eat. So much knowledge passed down was lost to the average person. It's hard pulling it all back.

For next season it would be wise to get some heat-reflecting fabric for the root veg to keep the ground cool. Leafy veg need to go in as soon as I can work the soil because they will bolt by June. Pumpkins have to wait until Independence Day to keep them productive instead of playing host to disease. All crops need to be rotated. Lots of work. I need more kids to help me. :)

Future
I will be experimenting with growing tomatoes and peppers indoors this winter as soon I get some cleared space in The Engine Room. Grow-lights, pots, maybe some hydroponics. The works. Will keep you updated. I am also looking for cheap farmland further out west. 2 acres should do it. Anyone have any they want to sell? Yes, I know. Solar Panels. Need them to offset the pump and now the grow-lights. I wish Toyota would come out with the plug-in Prius so I can upload to the grid at night. That would make things much easier.

With this I close out this season, and bid you peace:

The Harvest Prayer
(Anonymous 17th Century Sermon)

Please be gentle with yourself and others.
We are all children of chance,
And none can say why some fields blossom
While others lay brown beneath the harvest sun.
Take hope that your season will come.

Share the joy of those whose season is at hand.
Care for those around you.
Look past your differences.
Their dreams are no less than yours,
Their choices in life no more easily made.

And give.
Give in any way you can.
Give in every way you can.
Give whatever you possess.
Give from your heart.
To give is to love.

To withhold is to wither.
Care less for the size of your harvest
than for how it is shared,
And your life will have meaning
And your heart will have peace.