What are you most proud of in your garden this year?

Since we are almost in September and many of us are winding down for the year, I thought it might be fun to ask what you are most proud of in your garden this year. Even if it wouldn't be a big deal to other people, what was an accomplishment to you personally? If you can include pictures, even better!

I'll start!

I was proud that I tried new vegetables/herbs (eggplant and stevia) and that we expanded our garden space to approximately double what it was last year.

Now, what about you?

How did the  stevia do? How do you process it? I’m happy I have wood chips on half my orchard, I have an interesting squash cross, and I’m raising tomatoes for seed for Victory Seeds. That’s a lot of things, I couldn’t pick one. I’ve never brown eggplant!

Bethany Brown wrote:How did the  stevia do? How do you process it? I’m happy I have wood chips on half my orchard, I have an interesting squash cross, and I’m raising tomatoes for seed for Victory Seeds. That’s a lot of things, I couldn’t pick one. I’ve never brown eggplant!

Hi Bethany! Regarding the stevia, I don't know how to process it yet. That will be one of my next searches to find out! Because I am on a keto diet, I use a lot of stevia in cooking, so it would be nice to make it into a powder but I am not sure how to do that. I just saw a few of the plants at the garden centre and decided to go for it.  Once I get to it, I will post about it!

So, you are raising seeds for a seed company? That's cool! I always assumed they had their own gardens ... I didn't realize they farmed out the seed raising to others. Interesting!

Hi Bethany! Regarding the stevia, I don't know how to process it yet. That will be one of my next searches to find out! Because I am on a keto diet, I use a lot of stevia in cooking, so it would be nice to make it into a powder but I am not sure how to do that. I just saw a few of the plants at the garden centre and decided to go for it.  Once I get to it, I will post about it!

So, you are raising seeds for a seed company? That's cool! I always assumed they had their own gardens ... I didn't realize they farmed out the seed raising to others. Interesting!

I’ve thought about trying stevia, but haven’t made room for it yet. I’ll be curious how it goes for you with using it.
Victory Seeds, a small seed company that used to be local to me and I bought from for years, sold because the owners needed to slow down. The new owners want to expand the company a little and we’re looking for gardeners to increase their supplies of certain seeds. The ones I got to grow out were part of the dwarf tomato project. So I was super excited to be involved in a small way. It’s a lot of work for not a lot of money, but a good experience. I have to get three ounces of seed to meet their minimum. I’ve been picking and fermenting and drying in small batches as the tomatoes ripen, so far I have about 5 grams. My dad does grow veggie seed on a large scale as part of his big conventional farm, so the big guys contract their growing out to someone as well.

I've been working on installing my raised beds followed by some frustrating work filling the beds over the last few years.

I am most proud of actually taking a decent harvest this year. I've been able to share my produce with around eight people and that is the joy of gardening for me.

I now know areas I can adjust to maximize my harvests and a gameplan for the spring in terms of hitting the ground running.

It has been a good year for me.

I'm far from a beginning gardener, so pardon me if I'm speaking out of turn.

But I'm pretty damn proud that we have any gardens at all this year. We're in a multi-year drought. The amount of water we have carried and hauled for over three months, fighting heat waves and zero precipitation, is insane. If you search for "dogged determination" our photos will probably come up.

But then the skies started to open up a little, and we had occasional hits of thunderstorm water and a few showers. And then a couple of good soakers and -- woo! And the garden, laying low, went nuts.

And now we are firing out text messages trying to convince neighbours to take some of the surplus. And that's a sweet thing. And I'm pretty damn proud of that too.

Never give up! Cheers, all!

I'm proud of expanding my range of successful propagation with plants. We are moving, so for the past year and half I've been trying all sorts of ways to take as much of my existing garden along with us as possible.
Growing trees from seed, root cuttings, hardwood and greenwood cuttings, and splitting have all been tried on a bunch of things and lots have worked.
Being able to share plants is really helpful for out reach and education about food gardening and permaculture so I'm really glad to have had so much practice and success! ( I admit that the tons of rain and cool temps probably were a big help, but at least now I know how much watering is needed)

This is my first full year gardening, and there is much I am proud of.

Pollinator Habitat:  I am am happy every time I see the various bees, hummingbirds, dragonflies, butterflies, wasps, and ladybugs enjoying my garden. I worried in vain that it would be another year before I had enough attractive plants blooming to entice them into my garden, but they are here! I am proud knowing that on my bit of land they have a respite from all the industrial chemicals and pesticides that they are exposed to elsewhere. Seeing them tells me I am on the right track and helps me commit to not use pesticides. I am glad I eschewed the common advice to beginners to just start with a couple of plants and instead loaded my garden with a huge variety of plants.  

Gardening Perspective Shift: My garden lagged behind everyone else's by a month and a half, which was a bit demoralizing. I think the reason is because I did not fertilize my plants beyond adding compost to the soil upon transplanting. I started to worry I had made a mistake and was maybe doing gardening wrong, but my plants were healthy, albeit growing on their own schedule. It made me realize how much of standard gardening practices are done for humans' benefit rather than the plants'. I of course understand the desire to maximize production yields, but I realized that gardening success can be measured by more than production for consumption. And I suspect that the significant lag in my garden's production is part of the reason why (along with the attraction of beneficial insects through a diversity of plants) I have not had much trouble with insect pests so far despite not using any pesticides, which I am proud of. My garden was on a different schedule than the pests, who likely busied themselves with more productive gardens in the area.

Winter Squash: Of all the crops I planted, I am most proud of the pumpkins and butternut squash. I saved the seeds myself a couple of years ago, so I was happy to see that they germinated. Plus, it is wild to see pumpkins growing in my garden.

Medicinal Harvesting: Finally, I had good success with my first plantings of calendula and passionflower. I recently started harvesting them for medicinal purposes, and I am so excited that I may no longer have to purchase these items. It has me itching to plan a full apothecary garden for next year.

Shari Clark wrote:Hi Bethany! Regarding the stevia, I don't know how to process it yet. That will be one of my next searches to find out! Because I am on a keto diet, I use a lot of stevia in cooking, so it would be nice to make it into a powder but I am not sure how to do that. I just saw a few of the plants at the garden centre and decided to go for it.  Once I get to it, I will post about it!

So, you are raising seeds for a seed company? That's cool! I always assumed they had their own gardens ... I didn't realize they farmed out the seed raising to others. Interesting!

Powdered stevia is heavily chemically treated. I don’t know why someone would go through the trouble of growing it fresh if they wanted it to go through all that processing.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/287251

It’s been a terrible year. My vegetables were eaten by some critter, my mother stood on top of my sprouted potatoes (now they’re gone), my chickens and portable power station were stolen, and my logger didn’t work out.

All i have right now are 2 chainsaws that I can’t start, an Alaskan sawmill, 4-1/2 acres of hardwoods, and 16 magnolia trees I’m fixing to plant next month 🤞

Geez, Vanessa, you've been put through the mill!

Keep your courage. The sun also rises.

Vanessa Smoak wrote:

Powdered stevia is heavily chemically treated. I don’t know why someone would go through the trouble of growing it fresh if they wanted it to go through all that processing.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/287251

As I mentioned, I haven't been sure how to preserve this plant but am keen to learn. I had thought it would probably be good to dehydrate and then grind to a powder. This blogger explains how she does that:
https://gardentherapy.ca/herbal-guide-to-stevia-leaf-how-to-grow-harvest-and-prepare-green-stevia/

So, I wasn't sure but this article is a great resource for doing that. She also says that it's best to harvest when the weather gets a little cooler, too.

Thanks for the info, Vanessa. I do use stevia instead of sugar or other harmful sweeteners such as aspartame. It was my understanding that stevia was one of the best sweeteners out there, but this article shows me that I need to be careful of this one,  too. I think the stevia plant shows good promise because it won't be processed.

I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s responses, and sorry for the rough year Vanessa has had. I apologize for not paying attention to which folder this was posted in, as I don’t think I qualify as a beginner, but I am always learning. You are all doing amazing work.

I am not sure you can call me a beginner, but this is the first year I have taken the gardening back, after having been on bedrest for over 5 years. During that time my husband tried and did have some success, but most failed, since he doesn’t have the time for it.
In this first year back (we grow food year round), I am proud:
that I have doubled the growing space in our backyard raised garden
That I have grown a year worth of garlic, over 400 cucumbers and 200 pounds of winter squash/pumpkins
That my son and I installed irrigation in the backyard garden
That I grew a years worth of kitchen herbs, plus chamomile, comfrey, mullein and tulsi.
That I finished planting threes, shrubs and vines in our forest garden (3300 square feet), planted some vegetables and now are very close to being finished with it all. All I have left, is covering everything in compost and mulch, plant strawberries, wild onions, wild garlic, currants and wild flowers. It has taken us 7 years to get to this point.
That I finished the master garden course videos and book here on permies
But most of all, I am proud that I didn’t stop when things got overwhelming, and didn’t feel discouraged when some things didn’t work out. I am still sick and it’s chronic. I got to the hospital for treatment once a week and get a different treatment at home once a week. Those often makes me feel sick, so I am very proud that I didn’t give up. I also found out that just being in the garden helps with the side effects from my treatments, since I focus on something else, something i love.

I’ve been gardening for years but still consider myself a beginner because there’s so much to learn. My gardens did pretty well this year and I’m always grateful for that but I was absolutely thrilled to find my 27 year old son shopping in my seeds in preparation for growing his own garden this year. He did pretty well and learned a lot and made his old mom proud.

What I am most proud of is growing potatoes in cardboard boxes. Had my doubts. Filled the boxes with composted horse manure brought from the local stable about 3 miles away,, planted the potatoes following instructions on You Tube and they are doing rather well.

For next year, I am going to use landscape cloth to sew grow bags. This will be n ambitious project. They are going to be 8 feet long, 2 feet wide and 2 feet high with brass zippers at both short ends so that at the end of the growing season they will be unzipped and emptied. Cloth shaken to remove as much soil as possible that will probably adhere to the cloth, and they store in the garage for the next year's potatoes.

We shall see what we shall see.

Shari: if you're going to use your stevia in tea or beverages you brew or soak, I'd suggest drying it whole as if it were mint. Then just put some in with your tea (maybe crumble/macerate first) and strain it out.
I don't use stevia in other applications, but I have tried using the powdered plain leaf in things, it makes things muddy and leafy, for lack of a better descriptor, but stevia is fabulous if you mostly want to use it in iced tea, herb tea, etc. you can even just brew up a STRONG cup of stevia tea and then use that strained liquid to sweeten other things-- we use this to sweeten smoothies, lemonade, etc when we make such things. I've been growing stevia for a while and even here in Brazil where it grows well it's really seasonal and bolts quickly, drying is the best way we can have it all year.

I'm going into spring right now, but my peas were FABULOUS this winter. So glad I was optimistic and planted 3x the normal quantity, because we ate every single last pea, and the rabbits are still enjoying the vines.

What I'm most proud of are my Alpine strawberries and purple peacock beans. The alpine's have been producing non-stop from Spring and still going strong here at the end of August. They are small but, collected daily, I now have a big bag of them in the freezer. They are very sweet. The beans were also good producers. I also tried some new plants in the garden: sun-chokes, horseradish, potato onions and French sorrel. All are growing well. I even shared some with a neighbour. I have yet to try the horseradish and sun-chokes but looking forward to the harvest. Not sure when the sun-chokes will flower.

I have to bump this thread because I just harvested my first pumpkins today, and I am beyond elated. I saved these seeds years ago from a cheese pumpkin I bought when I was still living in the big city and gardening was but a gleam in my eye. This is physical evidence of a long awaited dream finally being fulfilled.

The thing I am most proud of this year, is that I am almost done creating our forest garden. The last steps are adding lots of mulch to prepare for wildflower seeds, wild garlic, wild onions and walking onions. I am also in spring adding regular sunflowers and Maximilian sunflowers to this garden. I have 2 black currant bushes coming in, that’s going into the ground after new years and I planted strawberries. It took a long time, especially since, for a while, I got too sick to do anything about it.
Soon it will be time to enjoy watching things grow and to start foraging in there.

Angel, that’s WONDERFUL! I was elated when I grew my first tomatoes from seeds and I’ve been a crazy, hoarding, seed saver ever since!

This is a hard question for me. Not many things to be proud of.
This was my second/third year gardening. Without a reliable water source, a severe draught, outstanding higher temperatures, the garden is in a disastrous state.
I guess what I am most proud of is for not giving up yet.

Lessons learned: I can't grow anything in mid summer without shade. Actually, anything not shaded by a heat, draught and UV tolerant tree is just going to die.

As small feats, this year I have been able to grow a few tiny tomatoes in pots, I've added a couple of terraces to the garden, reduced the size of our olive trees without killing them and added a couple of jujubes, one of which looks like it will survive. Oh, and this has been the first year we have been able to taste grapes.

In contrast, we've lost a small loquat, an arbutus, a few tiny oaks, a brachichiton, the nasturtiums, all the artichokes, the marjoran, all the lettuces were eaten by slugs (figures!), the tomatillos, nothing grew from cuttings or direct seeding. The little rains we had, came at the wrong time. Nothing could be grown on automn, we weren't prepared for winter, and spring rains came so late that all the veggies were dead by then.
Yes, not giving it up is what I am more proud of.