Early warm, then cold; dry then wet, wet, wet. Everything slow and late to ripen. Then a freeze mid-July, and frost mid-August. Ah, the wonders of gardening in the north woods! But, as always, things to learn.

I didn’t stake the TOMATOES this year, though almost all of the varieties planted were indeterminate. This turned out to be good since they were easy to cover when the summer freezes and frosts hit. Though I did loose some to rot because of the wet weather. A compromise, as usual. The earliest, and best cropper of the eight varieties I grew was Minn. Large Yellow. Oligvose, a 1.5 x 2.25 pink paste, came in pretty good, too. Two large, convoluted varieties, though not as early or prolific, made a good showing and I will probably grow them again -- Acme and Wedekind. In a better season, they should do well. All in all, not a bad tomato year, in spite of the weather.

The POTATOES took a bad hit with the July freeze, but most managed to at least mature enough small tubers for seed for next year. I’m thankful for that, but this year did bring home how easy it would be to lose them all due to weather or disease. For the first time in the many years of growing potatoes, I had to look elsewhere to purchase a supply for winter. It made me particularly appreciate the potato seed I harvested several years ago when I had a few varieties that set seed. I’m still growing two varieties that started from that home grown. They seem to have settled in and are growing true to form every year.

I trialed quite a few SWEET PEPPERS this year, and one called Red Belguim, a yellow fruited non-bell, came out tops for earliness and a good crop. I had put the cold frames back on the peppers the night of the freeze, and left the frames on the rest of the summer. So the peppers did particularly well. This is where stacking frames really come in handy, you can just keep adding them as the peppers grow. I’ve done this a number of years with great success, as peppers aren’t generally a reliable crop in our area.

I decided to grow some HOT PEPPERS since I noticed the variety Caliente had been dropped from commercial seed sources. This is a great early variety, and I had a few seeds left purchased from Johnny’s Seeds many years ago. It was time to grow a new supply. But since I also wanted to save seed from my sweet peppers, and they cross, I couldn’t put the hot peppers in the garden. Instead I potted them up into 3 gallon plastic containers (with holes punched in the bottom) and set them within a stack of cold frame frames by the house. The frames served to hide the rather irritating white plastic. I ended up with five plants which matured and gave me a good supply of seed for future years, and, when dried and ground, some delicious hot pepper seasoning.

Many crops in the garden made it through the freeze with little damage. This was their year to shine, and to remind me how important they are as the reliable base of the garden -- peas, barley, wheat, chard, parsley, spinach, lettuce, onions, carrots, parsnip.

WINTER SQUASH, CUCUMBERS, AND CORN were all lost with the freeze. The SUNFLOWERS were hit but they grew back to produce small heads, which the birds appreciated. The squash also grew back, with some setting fruit, but there wasn’t enough summer left to mature a crop.

Thank goodness, I hadn’t planted any dry beans (usually a good chunk of the garden) due to the cold and late feeling in the spring.

It was certainly a year to make one appreciate individual crops -- those that made it through, and those that didn’t. One unexpected success was a plot of green manure, which had been planted with a mixture of leftover, old, and extra garden seed. It was an interesting mix of plants. Through the summer I kept cutting it down with the scythe, and most plants kept growing; shorter and shorter and shorter, but still striving to blossom and set fruit. One crop that was well represented in the mix was Lettucy CHINESE CABBAGE, which grew well in spite of the crowded and haphazard conditions. I ended up harvesting quite a bit of it in the fall, as it continued to produce, and so much of the rest of the garden did not. Neat rows are, after all, our idea, not the plants.

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Though May was cold and wet, it warmed up in June so things grew well. Then, after a couple of light frosts the first of July, it turned hot and humid into August. The vagaries and varieties of weather do keep one on one’s toes!

Though the plants were healthy and vigorous, fruit set on the CUCUMBERS and SQUASH was poor, so it was a pretty sparse year. I assume the cause was the heat and humidity at the wrong time.

The Red Belgium SWEET PEPPERS again did well, they loved the weather and I had some turn color while still in the garden (not common for peppers here). It was nice to have a good crop, and be able to save seed. I will have to compare them now with the Georgescu pepper, which has up to now been the top early pepper for me.

TOMATOES were left to sprawl again, and due to the wet weather, quite a few were lost to rot and slugs. I guess I will go back to staking, or maybe will make short cages. The slugs seem to be proliferating faster than whoever or whatever eats them. Apparently the weather was great for them. But there were plenty of tomatoes for us as well. My old stand-by, Earligrouge, was, as usual, the top tomato in the field, with Early Chatham close behind, though with smaller fruit. Oligvose did well, too. Tiger Stripe ripened well, but the loss to rot was great. As interesting a tomato as it is, I don’t think I’ll grow it again.

CORN (my own mixture of dry corn varieties, mainly flour with some flint) was OK, but the ears were spotty. Pollination occurred during the high heat/high humidity time, so I assume that is the cause. Unfortunately, most of the crop was ripe for picking green during an extended cloudy time. When we finally had a stretch of sunny days, where I could harvest and process for drying, they were past their prime. Very disappointing, as I do love dried green corn. So the entire crop was left to mature for dry corn to be ground for cornmeal/flour. Which is good, too.

POTATOES were planted later than usual, June 5, in hopes of missing the usual early frosts. It worked, they grew and matured well, and we had a good crop. I had covered the plants for the two early July frosts. We had a medium year for blight, and a good number of potato bugs, which the birds kept in check until mid-summer, when that job was turned over to me (the usual routine). I had planted three rows per plot, 18" apart (about four foot wide beds). The soil can handle that number, but the middle row is hard to dig (I prefer not to stand in the beds). Maybe next year I’ll plant two rows, with plants closer together.

As you might guess, it was a poor year for GREENS. They got by, but they much prefer the colder years. I tried several new lettuces and a couple of them did particularly well -- Bronze Arrow and Rouge. The others (Rodan, Bologna, and Winter Density) couldn’t handle the hot weather and bolted early. ((For those in warmer climes, I realize "hot" is relative"! But for us, extended periods with temps in the 80’s is hot. Along with the high humidity, it makes for an uncomfortable summer for lettuce and northern folks)).

The regular seed ONIONS didn’t care for the heat either. Mid summer they stopped growing. So we had a crop of very small onions. And we harvested very small onions. And ate very small onions. Made us really appreciate the potato onions, which grew and matured as usual. Though not of a large size themselves, this year they were larger than almost all of the regular crop, and they filled in when the regular onions were gone. I think I shall plant more next year.

The SPINACH bolted fast this year, but I managed to harvest a good amount to dry. Normally, I dry Swiss CHARD because the leaves are so large and its easy to harvest and dry a large amount. But it was nice to be able to make use of the spinach since it was bolting faster than we could eat it. Dried greens are great for adding a bit of hardy summer green to winter soups and dishes.

The GARLIC also had trouble with the heat (obviously most of my garden is geared toward the cold). By the end of June, most of the hard necked garlic was dying down, with the bulbs going soft. I pulled and discarded them, along with some of the softnecks. I ended up with a small crop of hardnecks that made it through, enough to plant for next year, and enough softnecks to both plant and to eat, so it wasn’t a complete loss. But I didn’t have any to give away, which is what usually is done with a lot of the harvest. Next year...

The Ethiopian BARLEY crop was as reliable as usual, it doesn’t seem much affected by the various weather conditions we’ve been having. The WHEAT (a mixture of varieties) loved the weather and I had one of the best crops ever. I grow grains mainly to keep the seed alive (in case I should ever want, or need, to grow more). But it is also a lovely sight when the seed heads are filled out and maturing into those rich shades of beige that you can never get onto paper if you try to paint the scene. I usually grind up enough for a loaf or two of bread. And the barley (which is a hulless variety) is great for throwing into winter soups. Friends also sprout it and use it in beer making, but I haven’t tried that yet.

The ROOT crops did fine and I had a nice small patch of carrots to mulch for overwintering (there’s nothing quite like fresh dug carrots in that bare garden produce time in the spring). I don’t care that much for beets or parsnips (to eat--they grow great), but plant some to take for demonstration of older vegetable crops at a fun Heritage Day program at the Fayette State Park (in the Upper Peninsula) every year the first Saturday in August (Steve and I also demonstrate traditional woodworking). Fayette is the site of an iron smelting town 1870 to 1900 which has been restored. The workers lived in small log cabins and most had a small garden beside their cabin. The management lived in larger frame houses with larger gardens and fields. Unfortunately, there is not many details known of the gardening, since it was so taken for granted that not much was written, and there was little left after the area was abandoned. But since the workers came from cultures all over the world, and no doubt some brought seeds with them, it must have been quite a wonderful diversity of crops growing. Though it also must have been a great challenge with not only dificult and variable weather but the atmosphere of dirt and ash from the kilns. I like to think of what crops they might have grown, and I’m sure the root crops were of particular importance.

I had overwintered Parma Giant SWISS CHARD roots (mulched heavily in the garden) for growing SEED and nine survived (out of about sixteen) to grow vigorously and large. I tied the whole patch together with twine to keep in somewhat contained. A good amount of seed was mature by the time it froze so I’m set for Chard seed for awhile. Plus I’m sure I’ll have a lot of volunteers in that spot next year.

ONIONS planted last fall for SEED this year did fine, though some seedheads grew bulbils in addition to seed. In addition, some of the previous year’s seed onions regrew to grow more seed. Some more of these also grew bulbils instead of seed. The unusual hot and humid weather was a challenge to all of the garden crops, and it was interesting to see how they adapted. I didn’t plant any onions this fall for a seed crop next year since the bulbs were all so small.

As might be expected, the BROCCOLI was so-so, being a cooler weather lover. But it provided some good food. The CABBAGE grew fine and fast, and split fast. The Marner Allfroh was the worst and much of it ended up in the compost pile. Primo not only had smaller heads (which suits us better) but split less. Red Drumhead had little trouble with splitting, with nice small heads as well. The cabbage worms and loopers loved the weather. I haven’t had that much worm damage in years. Interesting though, I seldom saw the worms. But the birds were constantly in the patch (particularly the wonderful Chipping Sparrows). They got my thanks often, though I know that is not their reason for being there! To discourage the worms, I tried sage leaves strewn over the plants, but that didn’t seem to have any affect. Then I tried flour dusted on in the morning dew. That did seem to help. But the birds were the main control.

STRAWBERRIES didn’t do well, but I can’t blame it on the weather. I had ignored them the year before and they were all too thick. Finally in July and August I got in there and thinned vigorously. I set runners into small clay pots set in the bed to start new plots. Though this works well, I’ve decided it is much easier to just dig up the naturally rooted runners and transplant directly and not go to the trouble of potting them. They do as well, or better, and you don’t have to worry about getting them planted before they get too root bound in the pots.

I decided to drop a few of the varieties I’ve been growing. Fort Laramie because of its blah flavor, although it does produce nice large berries and has done well. I prefer flavor. Goosecap is another vigorous berry that produces a nice crop but it is too enthusiastic. It’s hard to keep up with thinning the runners. It would be great if you manage your crop by tilling, but for the permanent bed, it’s just too much trouble. Lenore is an alpine that I got through the Seed Savers Exchange. A nice tasty berry, it is of the usual small alpine size and I found I often just didn’t bother to pick it. So I shall let it go as well.

In the fall, when the peas were harvested (because that spot was where I wanted one of the new beds) I transplanted the little pots of runners of Dunlap, one of my favorite strawberries for flavor. Then I transplanted Old North Sea among the pepper plants, as the peppers weren’t done yet. In the spring I shall buy a couple of new varieties as well. I set them all in four rows, 20 inches apart, and will let the plants set one runner between, so they will end up about 10 inches apart. I’ve found this to be a good distance for growth and air circulation, and to mulch. By managing the runners (when I DO it!) I can keep a good bed going for many years. But eventually the perennial weeds (particularly grass and dandelions) get a hold and it’s easier to move the bed to a clean plot. The roots get so thick in the bed that it’s hard to dig out those deep rooted weeds.

RESIZING -- Every year the past several years I’ve cut back a bed or two on the garden, and this year I made the final adjustment (for now). The garden is still fairly large, 20 beds 4 ft x 30 ft. But it is about 2/3 the size it used to be. And it feels good! We still have plenty of room to provide our food, but I’m not doing as much experimenting as I used to, and have settled on what we like to eat. The larger garden, and gardening, was great, and so will be the smaller one. And now we have all this vigorous and healthy hay growing around the garden (planted in the flattened out old beds) to mow for mulch. I’m looking forward to next year and a little less hectic gardening time.

FALL GREENHOUSE CROPS

We finally got around to rebuilding our greenhouse this year. The cedar posts of the old greenhouse (a modified pit design attached to the front of the house) had completely rotted away (very active soil I’m told). So this time we built the walls of concrete and laid up local limestone. Though it takes longer, the look is great. ((We enjoyed both the making and the results so much, we are going to rebuild our shop and shed (and eventually a sauna, someday) the same way.)) Though the outer structure was finished before freezeup, the inside bed wall only made it halfway. And the floor is also yet to be done. So I couldn’t transplant plants into the bed as I usually do. Instead we put up a temporary bench along the front and across the bed to set pots on.

I dug up parsley and garden sorrel and potted them in 3 gallon plastic tubs. They did well, just taking more attention to watering than if they were planted into the bed. I also planned ahead for greens. The later part of August I set clay pots of soil into a trench in the garden (to keep them moist) and planted Arrow and Rouge lettuce, Lettucy Chinese Cabbage, Kyona and Pac Choy. As well as a couple of small marigolds (which are so bright and cheery in the greenhouse). I set a screen box over them to keep the late, large, and voracious insects (particularly grasshoppers) at bay. When freezing weather came they were all full grown and were moved into the greenhouse.

As we had a particularly mild winter, and since the new greenhouse was now airtight, the plants fared very well. The marigold even made it through the entire winter, and I transplanted it out in the spring! We had occasional salads all winter and spring by harvesting leaves here and there. In late winter, the Kyona, Pac Choy and Chinese Cabbage finally bolted, but the lettuce kept on into spring. By then I had started new plants and kept a few potted up inside, and put the others in a cold frame in the garden after the snow left. The sorrel was still giving us leaves when the outside plants started producing (one of the first things to be green in the garden).

It will be nice to have the entire bed to plant in next year, however. Then I will have room for Swiss Chard, and more greens. We don’t heat our small greenhouse, so it is for only the heartiest of plants. They not only provide us with fresh greens for the body, it is also wonderfully refreshing to look out into that greenery when the world outside is frozen and white.

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Well, so far, it is another variable year weatherwise. Which seems to be the norm now. Cold May, dry then very wet, warm June. Gardening success depends as much, if not more, on the traits of adaptability and flexibility as on a green thumb. It keeps one from getting bored with the garden (which I can’t imagine happening anyway!). But plants like the reliable asparagus help keep me centered. They have no trouble adapting. We are thankfully relishing asparagus dinners almost every night now.

We had little snow until late this past winter, and the snow melted early. Then we had some good hard freezes. The established garden plants did fine, but the newly purchased STRAWBERRY plants I put in the first of April didn’t do so well. My fault for not mulching them better (I’m rather used to the hardy, established plants I’ve had). I planted Catskill and Premier. A number of the Catskill plants survived (hardy souls), but only a couple of the Premier. A few of the fall transplants of Dunlap and Old North Sea also succumbed so I transplanted new plants from the old beds to fill in. They are doing as well as the fall planted ones. To fill in the rest of the new beds, I purchased plants locally (a VERY limited selection) of Honeoye, then transplanted some Goosecap runners from the old bed. So much for my plan to cut down on the number of varieties I’m growing! They are all doing well and keeping me busy nipping of blossoms. Though I usually don’t bother to do this, I thought I’d give it a try. I’ve heard it makes for stronger plants the following year. We’ll see. And I shall continue to look for a source for Fairfax, an old variety I’ve read great things about, but haven’t yet found anyone selling the plants. I hope this variety hasn’t been lost.

With this cold May, everything is about two weeks late this year (if one goes by the man calendar which is not very reliable). Last year I noted that June 10 when I planted beans the lilacs were fading and the apples were in full bloom. This year, June 10 the lilacs are just beginning to open their buds and the apples are just blossoming. I decided to plant the beans anyway and hope for warmth. So now the garden is pretty much in (except for some late transplants and seeding), the first weeding is done (which happens as I prepare each bed for planting), and the fields are looking about ready to start cutting hay for mulch. I’m liking this somewhat smaller garden a lot! Being a rather normal homestead, there is no lack of other projects to keep me busy.

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It certainly was a year for surprises. And I certainly got the warmth I was asking for! July and August had to be the hottest on record. And it was wet, wet, wet. We all wilted. This was not Yooper weather! But the garden made good use of that heat after the earlier cold start, and by August it was lush as a tropical jungle (well, a northern version of one). I was really glad that my GREENS beds were under the sheltering boughs of an apple tree. We had good salads all season, great corn, and a bumper crop of dry beans. The latter helped greatly by a very late first fall frost -- the latest I remember -- October 13. Then a few days later the temperatures plummeted, and we immediately got our first fall deep freeze.  

The ONIONS were my biggest disappointment. Like the true Yoopers that they are, they didn't at all care for the hot and humid weather, particularly after the slow spring start. I ended up with a bumper crop of smallish thicknecks. But I was happy to have anything, and harvested all but the smallest. I found that they kept fine well into January, when we ate the last of them.  The small crop of onions that did bulb and dry down were appreciated more than ever. And it turns out, I had picked a good year to try LEEKS. Not that they were such a fantastic crop, though they did OK. But they added to the smaller than expected store of onions. Though I don't think I'll bother again, as they are, to me, simply thickneck onions, which I try hard NOT to grow! Except that they don't store as well. But in November, I dug them, cut off roots and about half the tops, and packed them not too tight in a plastic bucket, then into the root cellar. They were OK in January but were getting pretty soft, and I threw a few of the last of them in the compost. The yellow potato onions, however, did their usual fine showing and are patiently hanging in the pantry waiting for the time when all the others are gone. 

I even harvested a few MUSKMELONS this season! I haven't tried to grow them for years (this isn't really melon country up here), but someone sent me some heirloom seed, and I had an empty spot, so I planted. They were called Spear, and did just fine (remember, though, this was an unusually hot and humid year). They did get me interested in melons again, though I think I'll try some early watermelons instead, since I'm the lone muskmelon eater in the family.

I finally came up with a very workable TOMATO trellising system this year. In the past I've tried both tying to stakes and letting the plants run on the mulched ground. But it's hard to cover staked tomatoes with blankets, my remedy for a short season. And in a wet year (such as this one), I lose quite a few to rot, even on mulch. So I looked around for something else. Something not disposable, something I didn't have to buy, something fairly easy to put on and take off, something that would keep the tomatoes up off the ground, yet allow me to cover them easily when frost threatened. Piece of cake, right?! Well, as it turns out, for me, it was right there beside the garden, just waiting to be reincarnated as tomato racks. Heavy woven wire fencing, or hog fencing as it's called around here, about 5 feet high, smaller openings at the bottum and larger at the top.. We had gotten many rolls of used and abandoned fencing years ago from a local farmer. I'd cut it up into manageable lengths and had used it for pea fence. But when I decided sticking brush in the ground was easier for the pea patch (using the annual apple tree prunings), they had been stacked aside. 

I took these lengths and bent them into U's, about two feet across. After the weather had warmed and the cold frames were taken off the tomato transplants, I set these wire U's down the row over the plants. As I plant two rows of tomatoes in my 4 ft wide beds, this worked great. As the tomatoes grew, they were gently encouraged through the top openings. I found that it is important to direct them in an open fashion across the wires when they are young, to prevent the plant branches from all falling over in one direction (and squashing tomatoes underneath. These worked fine for both semi-determinate and indeterminate plants, of all varieties. When it was time to remove them in late fall, I had to use the pruning shears to cut the tomatoes off, since they're too tough to pull the fence out from the tangle without bending the wire out of shape. But this was a pretty easy affair. 

And to finish off the season, I finally decided to do a complete job of rethinking my GARDEN. I did, and the result was to do some drastic cutting back, making this my smallest piece of acreage in garden ever (not counting my very first small city backyard garden over 25 years ago). I redrew, redesigned, dug, raked, spread out, and planted hay where former beds were. It wasn't nearly as hard (psychologically) as I had thought. In fact, it felt darn good! And the physical part didn't do me any harm either. I now have a 70 x 75 ft garden (approximately), made up of about 20, 30 foot beds. I dug up and transplanted small and large ASPARAGUS plants to make a new bed along the east side, and moved chunks of rhubarb roots to finish off that long bed. I also transplanted some horseradish from the field where it had been thriving just find among the grass after being abandoned years ago when we moved the garden. I may be sorry I did this, since once you have a horseradish in a spot, you have it forever. But this will make it much easier to harvest. We don't eat it often ourselves, but it makes great gifts. In the middle I plunked a leftover hollyhock that had survived from another move a few years back. It seems to be quite pleased with the new arrangement. I know I am. I can't wait for next year. 

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