| Bak Choi | Worked great first time w. massive yield. BUGS the next year. We'll try alternating brassica growing years. Freezes great for use in soup. I saved seed from first year to plant the second, I don't think this had anything to do with the bug problem. |
| snap peas (Oregon Sugar pod) | Need to remember to plant early. Great a couple years ago. Trellising was a waste of time. This year, seed may have rotted in ground, or had cat issues, tilled in to plant beans instead cause ran out of time/space. Cannot quite remember details but dissapointing. |
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| Parsnips | taste amazingly good compared to store bought and last in the ground over the winter. Didn't find time/space to plant this year |
| pole beans (Kentucky Wonder) | Good, but maybe I'll skip next year. Did a huge trellis this year. a bit of a pain. In theory a nitrogen fixer. |
| bulb onions (red) | Small. Garden onions taste wonderful, but not really effective producers in my experience. May try again in sep. location. They do taste much better than store onions. I start from sets (little bulbs) here. |
| Tomatoes | Roma and cherry tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes have better flavor. Make sure to use limestone or they'll get end blossom rot. We've got the tomatoes on the North side this year.. trick is, the N. side gets plenty of summer sun becuase the sun is high.. so really, the plants we want on the S. side are winter plants. But, they don't get the reflection here like on the S. side. So they come on later, and I expect they won't produce so far into the fall. |
| Soy Beans/edamame | Grew surprisingly well last year.. right up against the south wall of the house, so they're getting some reflected sunlight and heat. I think they taste better than the packaged edamame, but truth be told production here is light.. soy likes lots of heat |
| Sweet corn | Polination was bad this year. it rained for a week when the pollen heads were out. We did get some decent corn. First year we were here we got great crop of corn. I think we grew "bodacious". Last year had total failure becuase poor soil (first year north side) and spaced too close. Am thinking about tearing up lawn next year and using synthetic fertilizer to grow large ammt corn, given prices in store this year. But wife not into row crops in front yard. |
| Beets (Detroit Dark Red) | I like beets in soup. Nobody else likes beets. Actually, Lisa's folks like beets. We got great production this year |
| Eggplant (Ichiban) | Grow the Japanese style long eggplant here. We used starts from Portland Nursery. This year was great. We got some huge, fast growing eggplant. Probably ought to tear out and put in Garlic now. |
| Cucumber (Babylon) | There is nothing as good as truly fresh cucumber. They're best after being in the fridge for 1 hr. Even if you don't have a garden, everyone should just get couple sacks potting soil, crack soil somewhere, and plant a couple hills of cucumber. Maybe container? |
Swiss Chard (Fordhook Giant)
| The big leaved plants right behind Lisa Planted spring, it's still going. First time I've planted. Extremely valuable plant. It's like Bak Choi, but doesn't bolt or get bugged. Productive, now we're sick of it. Wish I'd started some a few mo's ago becuase afraid got some mildew of leaves now and am wondering how will hold thru fall/winter. Will mildew make us sick? Mad Chard Disease? Should I cut all leaves and hope for resprout? I really want chard this winter!!! Great in soups. Actually a beet or spinach grown for leaves and stalks. Tried "Perpetual" variety last year in small area apart from main garden.. not as nice variety or maybe had soil issues?.
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| Potatoes (early red from Wilco) | Great yield, very flavorful last year. Grew right in front of string beans. To store, put in paper bag directly on garage floor.. these stored very well like this. I think they like the moisture from the concrete pad. In fact, I planted sprouters June 29th that I found forgotton in bag under shelves.. They'd sprouted like crazy, but not molded from 2007! Hope they'll do okay, I've never replanted from a previous crop before, and they went in quite late. |
| Leeks (Giant Musselburg) | Leeks are wonderful. When you grow them yourself, you can get the white stalk much longer than the store bought leeks.. and the taste is of course better. Steve Solomon's book is a great reference for growing leeks. I'm afraid this year I've done the transplanting too late (first week Sept.) and they won't get very big before winter. The trouble is I like to put them in following something else, which always seems to go too long. This year (08) I put them in following the beets... also behind the potatoes in the north side, and where the garlic was. The transplant nursery bed was on the N. side.. the transplants didn't seem to grow very fast this year. We'll see. |
| Zuchini (black beauty) | The cliche of the garden, it's actually a very valuable plant.. good for stirfrying and putting in spagetti. Trouble is we get sick of it quickly. I've found that after the mildew strikes in early fall, the bad leaves can be cut off and new growth will sometimes produce more squashes. |
| Brussells Sprouts (Vancouver) | Nearly total failure last year. Probably went in too late, also got bugged badly. See Bak Choi and why we'll alternate brassica years. |
| Kohlrabi | same as Brussells Sprouts. We found Kohlrabi seed mixed in with the cheap Bak Choi seed we got first year, and it was great! But last year... bugs. |
| Bell Peppers | first year, last year, never really great. lots of leaf, tiny peppers that tended to rot. Calcium deficiency/ too much N? We grew peppers all the time as kids, but I've not been able to grow a good one here. |
| Artichokes (Green and Purple Globe) | These have produced surprisingly well here. The Green do a lot better. This year was fantastic for artichokes becuase we had such a cool misty late spring. I actually got sick of artichokes. |
| Garlic (Inchellium Red) | This is so good, and seems to be storing pretty well hung up in garage after curing under small shelter on back deck in sun. We had maybe 3 lbs from 1/2 row, staggered planting and spread out. Unsure whether to replant our own or get new seed cloves. Some say it takes time to adapt to the soil, I'm concerned about virus accumulaiton. |
| Popcorn (Orville Reddenbacker) | Total experiment on a lark. Tried sprouting between paper towels from curoiusity.. very Viable!!! Damaged while transplanting out of towels becuase stuck to towels and only got one out of say 7 that sprouted. But already late so didn't direct seed. Will try seeding outside next year. Small plant (in shady area, poor soil) but has one silk and pollen head. Hopefully will polinate sucessfully.. not sure. Supposedly we can't really grow popcorn here, not enough heat. |
| Butternut Squash | Put a couple plants out where the compost pile was, on N. Side. Not doing all that great.. suspect barkdust in soil even after liming. Also, cold, wet spring and late start. Maybe if we get a long late summer we'll get more than the 3 squash out there now. Many little squashes rotted after setting. Calcium deficiency? Water shortage due to raised hill? |
| Strawberries | Got lots of strawberries this year. Sam loves them |
| Blueberries | House had couple bushes in backyard when we got it, one of these produces pretty well, and over a long period. They're in a shady area. We planted bareroot blueberries in the front a couple years ago which had a few berries on them this year.. not much and they seem to be growing slow. An old timer blueberry grower in Dallas told me that I'd made a mistake by mixing barkdust in the soil.. should've used sawdust. It'll rot off eventually. One of the plants had some leaf burn during the 100+ hot spell, and I was pissed. I'd have thrown an newspaper over it or something had I known. The plants we put in are Duke and Blue Bell. Hopefully these will take off next year. |
| Apple | Our Neighbors gave us a random apple left over from the boy scout plant sale and I threw it in the ground. Didn't do much the first year. Now it's making really good apples, and I expect next year to be great. My Dad, of Lowell's Tools, has done high-end specialty fruit pruning professionally for years, so we have an edge in pruning advice, which is critical for fruit trees. I can't wait to get some decent varieties in next year. (Had planned to this year, but Spring was very wet for ground prep, and I invested the garden-time (comes after work and family) into asparagus bed.) |
| Asparagus (Jersey Knight) | An experiment.. I've never grown it before. It's grown commercially in Canby, and it's so good fresh. We put in crowns early spring after extensive working of soil N. Side of house... gypsum (helps break clay) phosphate rock, peat moss, compost, chicken manure and a little lime. Had been planning to pile soil up and put in a stone border, but never happened.. I put crowns in deep, not sure want even more soil heaped over them. This wet cold spring meant they took forever to emerge (months), for awhile I thought they failed.. But, we've got asparagus ferns now! The ferns have been sprouting progressively more vigorous, larger shoots all summer long. So hopefully they're stacking away enough calories to give us asparagus next spring. I worked my butt off on the soil prep back there and I hope we get something in return becuase otherwize I could've spent the time putting in a couple more apples. |
| Sunflowers | Experiment. First year I've grown. New bed in the front, shallow soil. Neighbor one street over planted a tremendous number of sunflowers probably a month before me.. and he's (she's?) was completely kicking my ass in the sunflower department, so I decided to cheat and use miracle grow, but I think really I planted them too late. They have developed decent flowers and we'll probably get useable seeds. A few needed staking to keep from falling over. Becuase of poor soil / late planting? Fertilizing?? |
