What is THRIVING, in your garden, this year?

Tereza Okava wrote:I also finally figured this out this past year. Built some boxes and just rotate things in and out. Works so much better and things can survive a day or two without water (if I need to get away for a day or two). The little trays, not a chance.

I plant to next try a method I read by a small-scale permaculture farmer. She cuts the top and bottom off 2 litre (half gallon) plastic milk bottles and places them on a tray to stop the soil falling out. When it’s time to transplant she makes a hole in the soil the same size as the bottle then slips the container in with the plant then pulls the container out with no transplant shock.

This thread just popped back into my notifications, and I think it's time for a revival! Last year, the biggest issue was too much rain, at least here, in the midwest. This year, the troubles are worldwide, and more of a socio-political-healthcare storm. So, tell me again! What's THRIVING in your garden, this year???

Tomatoes ...even the volunteers, green pepper, okra, potatoes,  .....in fact everything but pumpkins.

It's been a good year for the gardens!
My first year growing onions from sets produced more than enough to get me through the year.
The yellow squash has been slow to produce, but the grey zuccs have more than made up for it.
The runner beans produced a lot until it got too hot, and then the yard-long beans picked up.
The "bush" cukes have been giving a few per plant every day or two.
Ground cherries and volunteer tomatoes are staying pretty consistent, and sweet potato vines are starting to grow (haven't tried the greens yet because the grasshoppers eat them first).
I've even gotten a couple of eggplants, which usually doesn't happen until the end of the season.
Sweet corn produced, but was a little disappointing, so am going to try and sprout some seeds to plant for a small fall harvest. Brassicas started off strong, but the harlequin bugs showed up and put an end to that, but I should be able to do a fall crop for them.

Now that the "dog days" of summer are here, I expect most things to slow down or die out, but they've totally been worth the time and work I put into the spring garden.

I had to think about it!

I have kale, lettuce, potatoes and tomatoes that are doing splendidly.  The strawberries were lovely, but I need more!  I have one winter squash plant - stuck impulsively into a container with basil and zinnias - that's thriving; the others are ambling slowly along.  The garlic looks great.  

I planted sea kale (crambe) and Good King Henry.  I have to do more research before I try GKH again; nothing has appeared.  The sea kale has tiny little seedlings (3 of them), with their first true leaves slowly developing. I have decided that these plants are thriving!  They are clearly slow growing; they've been given every advantage I can think of, and they do get bigger (even if you need a micrometer to tell).  (Is a micrometer what I think it is?  I hope this makes sense.)

My old beds (1 year old amateur-hugel raised beds built on useless construction sand) are producing quite well.  The newer beds (same thing, started last fall and this spring) don't offer the plants enough to ward off the pests.  But, armed with sluggo, assassin bugs, and endless time to tinker, I am beating back the slugs and bugs and saving most of them!  The potatoes are growing in year-old wood chips, with a dose of aged goat poop spread around.  They look great!

The only thing that is not thriving this year, or at least doing reasonably well, are carrots & potatoes. Carrots just hate me. The potatoes were started with grocery store potatoes because I didn't go to the co-op to buy seed potatoes. All the other seeds were from previous gardens or purchased last winter before the creeping crud hit.

We've had a nonstop supply of chards & kales since last fall. Still plucking a few cabbage leaves. Harvested a nice batch of turnips & beets this year. Some tasty asparagus too. Garlic & fava beans both did very well over winter. Recently started harvesting several types of beans. Tomatoes are just now starting to ripen. Picked the first few yesterday. Strawberries, corn, sweet potatoes, black eyed peas, & okra are all doing good. We've been eating a small but steady supply of yellow squash & zucchini. Butternut & spaghetti squash are about baseball sized now. No sign of watermelons or pumpkins yet but they look healthy & are starting to flower. Sunroots are 6-7 feet tall & starting to flower. Walking onions are walking. Rhubarb has HUGE stalks & leaves this year. A very late frost impeded things a little but it's hard to tell now. Except peppers. Didn't restart enough of them. Buckwheat & peanuts are doing good. Those are almost guaranteed to grow here. Buckwheat is mostly for chickens & bees but so far I've harvested 10 or 15 pounds for people food. The elderberry looks good except one that was knocked over by storms twice. They are fairly young plants so this year looks to be their first significant harvest.

Borage, comfrey, sunflowers, & flowers in general are all blooming. The yarrow looks like it needs help. Cukes are marginal but will probably continue to produce. Cantaloupes are picking up the slack!

Peppers for me, I also just planted raspberries, hope it will yield a lot.

Our luffa is out of control.  The left side and the top/front of the arch is all one plant!

I planted 15 sunchokes this year and they all exploded. Now all plants are way above 2m/6ft and looking great. Let's hope for nice tubers in autumn! I will post a pic later if I am back home.

Cucumbers! We were away for the weekend and when I got to the garden after I hadn't been there for 72 hours (yes, I counted) there were 8 of them on one plant (and I have 6 plants that are producing). Oooh, I'm so looking forward to all the fermented cucumber!

The zucchinis are doing great as well. I have nine plants (NINE! And my husband can't have them! WHAT was I thinking?). They are just getting started and I have already harvested 15. Everyone I know will be eating zucchinis this year...

Oh, and the carrots! They are amazing, no worms, and I planted the rainbow variety so every carrot I pull is a lovely colorful surprise. My son loves the purple ones (pull another one mommy!).

This is a great idea, to look at the stuff that is going well instead of being sad over the stuff that is languishing. lol.
It is nice to have some victories when we have fire bans, watering restrictions, and some insane Martian-levels of heat frying most things into crispies.

Cucumbers! This year I dont know what happened, but the faeries danced magic around my cucumber bed or something, and they have grown up so tall and bushy! The vines are massive, up over my head and spilling out all over. Ive never had cucumbers like this, Ive alreasy harvested more than probably all last year. A small family of voles have taken up residence under their roots. Maybe it is a magic vole dance and not faeries, or maybe the voles ARE faeries...lol.

Beans! Almost all my beans are doing well, but the Blue Jay Snap bush beans have gone bananas. I have been harvesting a solidly packed big handful (enough for the two of us with a dinner) every single day off 7 little bush plants.

Celery! This year my regular celery has gone nuts. I have never gotten as good celery plants at this. It is very exciting. This location is very good for them, wedged in between a massive pile of calendula, strawberries, and bush beans, where they have avoided the frying rays of this relentless sun. I have a massive pumpkin overhead on one side that shields all this section from the worst of the afternoon sun. I have made notes to try and design for this sun shielding for next near, since this area has resisted the heatwave damage the most.

Sage! My lavenders are also doing well this year, although the biggest bush looks messy and ratty, since he got a bit crushed under falling tree logs from some of the snow storms in winter. My sage was the joyful bee bush while it was flowering, and it's huge this year!

It is some strange weather this year :) Matches the rest of the events lol.

Ben Knofe wrote:I planted 15 sunchokes this year and they all exploded. Now all plants are way above 2m/6ft and looking great. Let's hope for nice tubers in autumn! I will post a pic later if I am back home.

A bit later but here are the pics! All plants are short before flowering!

For us, it's the blackberries basil and stevia! Both herbs are thick, beautifully colored, and bushy! My wild blackberries have, essentially, taken over the property, lol. Oh! And the peach tree! If the squirrels leave us even a quarter if what's on the tree, we will be buried in them!

So far, everything! My zucchini survived whatever was eating them right after I first planted them, the replacement acorn squash survived my stepping on the seedlings, and now both are growing like never before. One even has a small zuke growing. Tomatoes are doing well little green fruits are popping up all over.

I reported on this here (with photos): My first really good garden

We're operating our biggest garden yet and so far, most successful. Though it's still the first or second year for a lot of the beds and trees/shrubs and I know their production will get better. But highlights:

- Garlic! We had some volunteer over from last year which turned into enormous double heads, and the crop we planted this time around was very successful too.

- Beans! Producing wildly right now. Many types, including Carol Deppe's Beefy Resilient Grex.

- Peppers! Lots of Jalora jalapenos and Jimmy Nardello's frying peppers in particular.

- Maypops! Fruit is just starting to set, but the vines are 6-8 feet long so far and that bodes very well for the harvest.

- Coreopsis! First year growing this dye plant, and boy are they prolific without much care.

- Yarrow! Another dye/medicinal that is thriving for us.

Below, pictures of a maypop flower and the arbor my wife built for them out of prunings harvested from our property.

...gray zucchini. Not regular zucchini, not gold zucchini, not round zucchini, not patty-pan squash, not delicata squash, not red kuri squash- just gray zucchini.  I don't get it.  

Strawberries have knocked it out of the park, setting a couple dozen fruit every time it rains and kicking out 3-4 runners and plantlets per plant.  

Cherokee Trail of Tears pole beans.  You blink and they set seed.  

...and this may be the year I succeed in growing eggplant.  Most of the time they're devoured by flea beetles this year I've been religiously spraying them with Neem weekly and they seem to have taken off.  

I am having a banner winter for fennel (gorgeous, full bulbs) and my kale is finally getting going (wet, cold, raw weather makes it very happy).
I also noticed that in the middle of winter, I have a whole fleet of volunteer zinnias! I threw a bunch of sunflower sprouts out in the garden as rabbit fodder, some of them took, but I`m realizing that some of the seedlings I thought were sunflowers are actually zinnias. That will be a nice surprise.
Finally, I had a buggy container of popcorn that I threw in the garden for rabbit fodder (may as well get some use from it). It looks great! Corn in the winter! Who ever would have imagined. It's probably not going to head up, I'm cutting the big ones for the bunnies already, but I might leave some to see what happens.

The sunchoke starts to flower now!

Weeds!  Weeds are thriving in my garden this year.  I'm also getting tons of squash.  I tried a new one this year called golden egg squash (one of the seed packets I got for free) It even out produces the zucchini, I didn't think anything could accomplish that.  Its good to eat, and it makes amazing bread because its a bit softer and sweeter then zucchini.  The melons in the wood chip garden are growing and producing better then I have ever had.  If I can keep the chickens out I may actually get to eat crenshaw, cantaloupe, honeydew, and watermelon. My grapes produced very well this year. I also had a ton of peas very early this spring.  There is nothing better then eating fruit and veggies you grow yourself.

Lettuce stalks