Author Archives: giant veggie gardener

Dismal veggie gardening season in 2023

Hello Folks! Where has the summer gone? I haven’t written since August and I think it’s due to the HEAT, drought and NO MONSOONS. I became depressed because I had to use so much water to keep everything alive. And even then everything struggled in the heat anyways with enough water including me! Plus I wonder, is this the future with climate change? I hope this was just a bad season.

STRUGGLES

It was a tough year in the garden for me. And even though the picture above looked great, there were many challenges this year. The kale got eaten by squirrels, radishes fried, the cabbage rotted or got eaten, the garbanzo beans fried, the pepper patch with 18 different peppers were attacked by mice who ate holes in them to get the seeds. Interesting enough the mice did not attack the hot peppers, only the sweet peppers. The mice and squirrels do not like hot peppers. The deer ate a lot of my grapes, A packrat ate some cucumbers but it didn’t matter because the heat made most of them bitter. Plus the packrat liked tomatoes too. The individual raspberry fruit actually fell apart with the heat so not good there either. I understand all living creatures need to survive and will go into our gardens and eat our veggies because they too struggled this year. I notice when we have a good year weatherwise, they don’t come into the garden so much.

GOOD NEWS

There was some good news-not all bad. The blackberries did well, the tomatoes did come in only later because of the heat and the cherry tomatoes did really well. We just now are finishing the tomatoes for the season and it’s November! The strawberries made fruit and were harvested in early June before the heat really came on. The carrots stalled out but came back once the heat left and now we are getting some great carrots! The lettuce was great in the spring in the greenhouse where the beds there are protected from mice and I replanted in the greenhouse in Sept and now have great lettuce with these cooler temps. The peppers actually did really good production wise except for the mice. Oh, and the flowers did really well which is food for my soul and the pollinators.

I will write more and post more pics in the coming days. May you have a restful off-season and dream of what will be for next season!

And so the cycle of life goes…

‘Show and tell’ garden photos-August 2023

Triple Crown Blackberry
Borage flowers
Buschbonne Cannelino Roso bean
Violetta cauliflower
Cool season bed_chard
Cosmos flowers
Emerite green bean
garden view
Mohawk Beans/flowers
Zinnias flowers
Mohawk dry bean bed
Pasilla Baijio pepper
Zinnias, Himrod grapevine and Amaranth

To see descriptions, hold cursor over each image

Took row covers off tomato plants today-August 3, 2023

I promised my followers that I would tell you when I took my row covers off the tomato plants. I did this today.

Here is a video I took on July 18, 2020 but basically looks the same as today.

I have heard from several sources that we might not get a monsoon pattern setting up here in August and that alarmed me. We have never NOT (I know, a double negative) had a monsoon season in the 27 years I’ve been here and now this. I decided to chance it and take off the row covers. I didn’t see any any leaf hoppers today but that doesn’t mean anything as they are so hard to see.

So I am hopeful that they are gone. Who knows, maybe they have a limited lifespan in summers.

I’m not telling you to take them off-that is your decision, but I will deal with whatever mother nature gives us…and it is soo good to see my beautiful tomato plants! Good luck!

Class followup

GARDEN CLASS FOLLOWUP

Here is the handout with the class notes from Tuesday:

2023 FALL VEGETABLE PLANTING

I also had someone ask me about the 2 Perennial Chard-Spinach and Perennial Arugula which is called Sylvetta that I talked about. You can google them to see which seed companies might still have some for this year. You just have to give them a space where they can come back each year. I am just now trying them so I don’t know how they will do but hope they will do well in my garden and yours.

Fall Garden Class August 1

Hard to believe but it is time to start your fall veggie garden! Fall is one of the easiest season to grow veggies. Please join me, “The Tomato Lady”, to learn how to plant a successful fall garden. Presented by the Santa Fe Extension Master Gardeners

Planting Your Fall Vegetable Garden

DATE: Tuesday, August 1st, 5:30- 7:30 p.m.

LOCATION: Southside Library 6599 Jaguar Dr. Santa Fe, NM

COST: FREE!

Free seeds will be available from the Seed Library located in the Southside Library

HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!

2023-A beany kind of year!

Rouge de Paris dry bush bean from William Woys Weaver

The past 2 years, I’ve been growing out some rare veggie seed varieties from William Woys Weaver  (I call him W3), who has collected many rare seeds over the years. Last year for him I grew rare cowpeas but this year I chose beans. This is in addition to my regular tomatoes, zukes, winter squash, cauliflower, chard, beets radishes, cukes and peppers and different varieties of berries/grapes .Good thing I have a BIG garden!

W3 wants his growers to grow out seeds that are getting older to keep the varieties viable. He sent some seeds, you can’t even find online. So this year I’m growing Landreth’s bush bean, Six Nations bush bean, Early Mohawk bush bean, Rouge de Paris bush bean, Wild Pigeon semi-pole bean. All of theses are dry beans. I am also growing one cowpea, Big Red Zipper, a pole cowpea (think black eye peas as we call them in the US) which has long pods with 8-10 large red cow peas that are so beautiful.

The only seeds that did not germinate well was the Landreth’s bean, where only 6 plants germinated out of 30. The seed I received for Landreth’s bean was 6 years old, so it is getting up there in age so I won’t get a lot but he will get whatever I get in the end. This is a good lesson to start saving your seeds! I am also allowed to keep some of each variety as well if I want.

In addition, I am growing out my friend, Lava Ewersmeyer’s, Garrofon Pintat pole butter bean which hails from Spain and Buschbonne Cannolino Rosso bush bean from Germany-both are beautiful white with red splashes. Lava lives in Berlin and here in Santa Fe, enjoying duel citizenship. Lava also gave me seeds for the Lava Red pepper ( a Corno de Horno variety) and Ruthje cherry tomato, both are outstanding which I grow each year as well. Thanks Lava!

Growing new varieties of seeds I’ve never tried before keeps me interested in gardening and I am saving seed that might otherwise go extinct which is important. Hopefully some will be fantastic! I really like bean seeds as so many of them are really beautiful.

Oh and I am growing one green bean for fresh-eating-Emerite pole bean which is a gourmet french filet bean that you can get in the US. I just have to keep up on picking them as if you let them get bigger than a pencil width, the skins get woody. So I pick often when they are ready (which they are not yet).

July Garden- Tomato Update

Last year’s Black Cherry tomatoes. They are still green right now.

In case you wondered what happened to me, I have been super busy putting in the garden in May and June. The garden is now completely in. I just noticed I haven’t posted since March. Sorry-the garden called.

So instead of giving you what’s been going on in the garden all at once, I will break it down into several posts.

Let’s start with my favorite crop, TOMATOES!

I started my tomato seeds inside on a heat mat, under lights on April 14th. The tomatoes have been in the ground since May 10th. I put them in young. I don’t wait for them to get to gallon size. They seem to adjust better outside when I put them in younger.

I consider that date kinda late since I usually try to put them in the ground the first week of May. We had a cold snap the first week of May so I waited. I always put them in the ground with wall of waters around them for protection from cold nights, especially when I put them in early. My goal is to get them to set some fruit before it gets too hot. They are out of the wall of waters now (one must take them out when it gets hot and it is hot 90°F+ right now and they are protected from the beet leafhopper under MEDIUM WEIGHT row cover NOT heavy weight which will hold in too much heat at this point. Funny I hadn’t seen any leafhoppers until we got hotter. Now they are here. Keep your tomato plants completely covered until the monsoons come. Looks like it is coming in later than last year but hopefully within the next 2 weeks. I’m tired of looking at the plants with row cover over them, but whatch you gonna do? To take them out now could spell the end to many of your tomato plants, so keep them covered. Leafhoppers bite the plant and give them a deadly virus hence the cover. And since tomato plants are self-pollinating, they can be covered.

I did see some of the plants set their fruit (earlier before the heat set in) when I peaked inside the covered cages. And more will come so I don’t worry. Just wish the extreme heat would end.

When the heat reaches 92°F and above, the tomatoes will drop off their blossoms. This is called blossom drop. They will set the blossoms into fruit when the temps are lower than 92°F. Tomatoes continuously put out blossoms. Once the fruit is set, the plants aren’t picky about high temperatures and the tomatoes are not likely to fall off. Then we get to worry about other things-more diseases, bugs etc. but not while they are covered…

I try to grow some early mid and late season varieties of tomatoes so I get some throughout the season. Here is a list of my tomato varieties this year 2023:

CHERRY TOMATOES
Ruthje-red pointy-as sweet as Sungold-65 days to harvest
Moby dwarf (trial)-yellow-63 days to harvest
Black Cherry-black-65-75 days to harvest
Fruity-cherry-red-65 days to harvest

EARLY SEASON
Large Barred Boar-bicolor-65 days to harvest
Goliath-red-65 days to harvest
Large Barred Boar-bicolor-65 days to harvest

MID-SEASON
Black Sea Man-black/purplish-75 days to harvest
Cherokee Carbon-Black/purple-75 days to harvest
Cherokee Purple-brick color-75 days to harvest
Marmanade-Red-67 days to harvest
Juane Flamme-orange-70 days to harvest
NEW! Abraham Brown-black/brown-75 days to harvest
Paul Robeson-black/brick color-75 days to harvest

LATE SEASON
Lucky Cross-yellow-74 days to harvest
Big Zac-red-80 days to harvest
Virginia Sweet-yellow bi-color-80 days to harvest
NEW! Giant de Bolzano-red-80 Days to harvest
Goldman’s Italian American-red paste-85 days to harvest

Greens update

 

I grew too many greens this year. I planted more seeds than I needed because I thought the seeds might be too old so I planted more in case the germination rate was low. Guess what? They all germinated.

Lettuces have been transplanted outside in green house-Thursday Mar 23, Pak Choi, Bok Choi, arugula, spinach and a few more lettuces are going into cold frame up by house. I had to fix 2 areas from mice or bigger animal-one big hole where someone dug in from  the under a side board in my cold frame and in the green house, mice were getting inside a completely covered bed that has been mice proofed for 3 years. I dug down in the cold frame, removed the soil where it was. I used hardware cloth to block the underside and the inside and outside of the wall to block out whatever got in there. Hopefully this will solve the problem. And on the inside of the green house, where I have 2 eight foot beds that are completely covered I put self sticking window gasket on the edge of the lid and a latch where there may have been a gap for a small mouse to get through to close up that possibility. The green house looks good with no one nibbling on the lettuces. Since I just planted more in the cold frame, the verdict is out if I’ve thwarted the rascal. A few days will tell if I succeeded.

When I put the lettuces in the green house last week I forgot to look at the weather for that night before I planted them and afterwards saw the projection! It was suppose to get down to 21 degrees that night here in Santa Fe. Stupid me! I’m always telling everyone to look at the forecast before planting in early spring. The greenhouse stays about 5-10 degrees warmer than the outside air. I freaked a bit so I put down 2 sheets of medium weight row cover on top and that night I put a 3rd sheet of row cover over it, hoping they would all survive. I use medium weight row cover which has about 3-4 degree protection from freezing weather. It worked-so all of them came through beautifully. Just goes to show you I should listen to my own advice! I lucked out!

Successful Seed Planting class handouts

For those of you who attended the class I taught last night at the Seed Library in Southside Library, Santa Fe, thanks for coming! All 58 of you! And thanks to the Santa Fe Extension Master Gardener for putting this class on. Even if you couldn’t attend the class, you may find the handouts useful.

Don’t forget you can pick up seeds at the Seed Library at Southside Library starting MARCH 25.This will be in lieu of the various seed booths around town.

Below are the handouts as pdfs so you can print them in case you need them.

SEED STARTING SOURCES

soil temperatures for veggie seeds

Seed-Starting Calculator-2023

COOL SEASON:WARM SEASON CROPS

SEED STARTING BASICS

Easier seed starting schedule

So after thinking about my last post, I realized it might be too much info (TMI). So today I am giving you just some starting dates and planting out dates that I use here in Santa Fe, Zone 6B.  You will need to transplant anything you start inside as it gets bigger before planting outside.

This schedule will be simpler to follow (especially if you only grow a few veggies) and if you want to see when to plant up to a bigger size pot, you can always go to my very detailed schedule from before. Also be aware this is MY schedule and I use row cover and wall of waters to be able to put the crops outside earlier AND weather will always influence when I plant outside. If you don’t use these aids, transplant tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in JUNE.

FEBRUARY-MARCH
-Start COLD SEASON CROPS-INSIDE-greens-lettuce, arugula, spinach and Asian greens, cabbage

MARCH
-EARLY MARCH-INSIDE COOL SEASON CROPS kale, chard, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi

-EARLY MARCH-INSIDE-start peppers and eggplants

-MID-MARCH-TRANSPLANT OUTSIDE COLD SEASON CROPS (with protection) IN GREEN HOUSE OR COLD FRAME OR MINI GREENHOUSE-all greens that were started in FEB

-LATE MARCH-inside-start tomatoes

APRIL
-Transplant starts OUTSIDE-beets, kale, chard, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, cabbage, onion sets, garlic

-OUTSIDE-DIRECT SEED-Radishes, flowers, carrots, beets

MAY
-plant OUTSIDE-tomatoes (WITH PROTECTION), flowers, and anything above you haven’t planted outside yet

JUNE
-Plant OUTSIDE transplants of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants (if you don’t use wall of waters)

-DIRECT SEED WARM SEASON CROPS OUTSIDE-more flowers, corn, beans, cucumbers, squash, melons, pumpkins

Here it is as a pdf  SIMPLIFIED SEED STARTING SCHEDULE so you can just print it out.

 

Seed Starting Schedule-2023

With all the snow outside right now isn’t it too early to start seeds inside? NO!

My radio show will air on Saturday, Feb 25 on KSFR 101.1 radio station and airs the last Saturday of every month where I give tips and advise about gardening for the following month.  March will be about my seed starting schedule which I’ve already started but many veggies can be started later too from the schedule.

I want to talk about my planting schedule for 2023. Thought you readers might be interested. Of course, the dates are not carved in stone and changes a little each year but it tells me when I should get growing and how I think when starting crops. Some are started inside and later many warm season crops are started inside and more warm season crops will be direct seeded into the ground when the ground warms up in June. If you plan to grow veggies this year, it is good to be organized. I need to see it in writing.

This may seem a bit much to make up such a detailed schedule but I grow so many varieties of veggies and they each have their own growing season so it keeps me on track. You can use mine or make your own up-you can do it simply in a notebook but I hope this will help you start to think of your planning.

You can listen to the show and pick up the notes and schedule after the show or get them here. This is shown BELOW as a jpeg, but you can print it out the pdf ( 2023 SEED STARTING SCHEDULE) I also have it as an Excel file (2023 SEED STARTING SCHEDULE for those of you who have it-that way you can adjust your own schedule)

Please note that once I plant the early cool season crops outside, I use row cover (polypropylene fabric) over them on a cold nite to keep them from freezing. I have people ask if they can use a sheet-NO and one person told me they used a sleeping bag-NO! It didn’t work! ( I told them the only way they could use that was if they were in it!)

For germination tips, go here:  Also here is (Zone 6a):  SEED GERMINATION CHART which gives the optimal soil germination temperature of crops and how long to germinate.

Later when ready to transplant tomatoes and peppers/eggplants outside, I will use wall of waters (WOWs) to help start the season earlier so if you don’t use either of those aids, then you will have to wait till danger of frost is over. These two aids are invaluable and will give you a head start on getting some of the crops outside in earlier.

I have already started INSIDE with lettuces, spinach, arugula, bok choi, and pak choi. All these will go from the germination trays to pony packs and then after they are big enough, go in either the Green house or cold frame. Seems early? YES but I want to get to harvest the cool season crops before the heat comes and they take 30-60 days to grow to harvest. Must get them out of the house before we start tomatoes inside on March 28 as we need the space inside by then!

PEPPERS

The next thing I will start are peppers inside on Mar 1 (on the schedule), because they take a long time to get sized up.  I always said wait until June 1 but if you have wall of waters (WOWs) they might help get your pepper plants outside a little sooner. Even then, it is still very cool at nite. What happens to peppers if you plant outside when it is still cold at nite? They will stall out and stop growing! And they won’t start growing again-then you would have to buy some because it will be too late to start them again.

TOMATOES

Next- will plant tomato seeds on March 28.

NOTE: Before it get’s hot in JUNE, take off the WOWs as you can fry the plants-all plants.  BUT if you don’t have WOWs, wait till June 1 to plant peppers/eggplants and May 15 for tomatoes outside.

_______________________________________________

For March-to recap

Cool season crops inside, under lights -NO heat mats early March

Warm season crops inside-Tomatoes/peppers/eggplants under lights with HEAT MATS and a THERMOSTAT will help keep the temperature at the correct germination temp. Notice peppers/eggplant seeds are planted earlier because they take so long to size up before planting outside and tomato seeds are being planted Mar 28 this year.

If this is too much info, go buy your plants ready to transplant-you can still use the schedule. Why do I grow my own varieties? Because there are so many more great varieties of veggies you can grow IF YOU START THEM YOURSELF.

_________________________________

LEGEND FOR SEED STARTING SCHEDULE below (in case you don’t know what my initials mean)

seeds/i=starting seeds inside under lights/no heat for cool season crops/warm season crops also get a heat mat.

tranplant/pp/i=transplanting up to pony packs-still inside under lights (4 or 6 cells-like what you buy flowers in)

transplant GH/CF-transplant into unheated Greenhouse/cold frame. Use row cover over crops at nites to protect from cold-I sometimes use 2 layers of row cover if very cold.

DS outside-Direct seed outside

I write notes all over the schedule so I see what I did for next year. For instance, I changed my cold season crops (lettuces/spinach/arugula) to a later date. No reason except I didn’t check last year’s dates and am late, but not too late. I try to be done with them when it gets too warm in the green house or cold frame which is usually around late April-early May before they bolt. Bolting is when they produce a flower stalk which makes them bitter. I either compost them then or feed them to my chickens. I don’t like bitter greens.

2023 SEED STARTING SCHEDULE (EXPAND TO SEE BETTER OR JUST DOWNLOAD ONE OF THE THE FORMATS)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pepper varieties & how to grow

People ask why don’t I grow green chiles from southern New Mexico or red chiles from northern New Mexico. If I did that, I would need an acre as we eat chile all the time. New Mexicans call their hot peppers chile, not chili, (which refers to the dish chili) while most of the US call them chilies but not here in New Mexico! Confused? I was-when I first move here! The heat of New Mexican peppers can vary drastically so I prefer to buy them already peeled and rated from mild to hot in the fall. (I’m a wuss-I like mild). So I’ve spent some time the last few years growing other less hot, less known pepper varieties and have found some real winners-if you don’t like hot. Besides I want room in my garden to grow other things as well.

 

Normally I grow 4 varieties of peppers-NONE are hot—Jimmy Nardello, Lava Red (a variety of Corno di Toro), Habanada, which is sweet, (NOT Habanero which is very hot), and Poblano (which is mildly hot-used for chiles rellenos (dried it is called Ancho pepper). I don’t like store bought bell peppers as there are so many better sweet varieties out there.You just need to grow them!

 

This year, in 2023, in addition to growing my staple of peppers above, I’m gonna grow some new varieties to me. They include Piquillo Lodosa Basque pepper (left pic-courtesy of Secret Seed Cartel), ‘Ancient Sweet’, Calabrian Caviar pepper (I got all from Secret Seed Cartel). None of these are too hot either but look interesting. Secret Seed Cartel has other peppers from all over the world.

 

 

 

 

In addition, I just bought some hard to find seeds for Chilhuacle Negro Hot Pepper, an ancient chile from Oaxaca Mexico area. I’m getting those seeds from Terroir Seeds. Suppose to be the original pepper seed for mole negro dish. Hope it’s not too hot!

 

 

 

So when do I start peppers?
-End of March or first week of April, I plant the seeds inside in germination trays, under lights, and on a heat mat.

Around April 15, I transplant them out of their germination trays-maybe 2 weeks (after they get their first true leaves-pic left) and into 4 inch pots where they will still stay inside, under lights till I plant them out in the garden the last week of May through the first week of June. And if they do outgrow the 4 inch pot, transplant them up to a bigger pot before transplanting outside.

 

-Around May 25-June 1-When I transplant them outside, I put them in walls of waters (WOW) for a week or two to keep them safe if we get one of those cold nites again. But don’t leave them in the wall of waters too long (pull the WOW’s off) as you also don’t want to fry them either and we go from cold to hot quickly here in Santa Fe although lately the past few years, it has been getting hotter sooner. So it is important to really watch the weather to see when it will change to take off the WOWs.

-Why plant outside so late? Because if you plant them earlier outside, the nights are cold and the peppers could stall out and stop growing-FOREVER! Then you would have to start over and they take 10-12 weeks to get big enough to plant out which is not enough time with our short season.

-Most people don’t start the seeds early enough here. Timing is everything.

And lastly, if you don’t want to bother with growing your own pepper seeds, I suggest you go over to Agua Fria Nursery, here in Santa Fe which has many different varieties of pepper transplants starts later (not now). There may be other nurseries here that sell pepper plants but I bet AFN sells more varieties.

 

SEED LIFESPAN CHART and viability test

For my February garden show, I talked about seed lifespan or viability on my radio show amongst other topics relative to February.

Here is a seed lifespan chart that I compiled from several charts online: SEED LIFESPAN

This is a general guideline and depends a lot on how the seeds were taken care of. I’ve had seeds germinate that were way past their prime. In fact, my giant green squash, ‘Jabba the Hut’ set a new NM State record in 2011 of 340 lbs! It came from a seed that was over 8 years old, which according to this chart, the lifespan should have been between 4-6 years old but it was the only seed I had. In fact some seeds have been germinated from tombs in Egypt centuries ago. So if you have a special seed, try it despite what the chart may say.

Below is a chart for optimal seed germination temperatures if you are growing from seed inside. It is very important you try to germinate seeds at their optimal temperature-too cold a temperature then the seeds might not germinate or even rot and too hot of temperature, the seeds may fry. This chart is also good as to what temp the soil should be if you direct seed outside.

(Zone 6a):  SEED GERMINATION CHART

This is an important topic this time of year as many of us are deciding whether our seeds are too old to germinate or still good and if we need to replace them. Here is some of the info I gave on the radio show:

‘Every seed has a shelf life. You can search how long seeds can be stored and how to test their viability. Fresh seeds are essential for good germination. Older seeds have less success of germinating.

To test them, take 10 seeds and soak them in water overnight and then put them in a damp paper towel and put them in a Ziploc bag and on a warm windowsill or on top of your refrigerator (but not a sunny place, you don’t want to fry the seeds). Then in a few days check them to see how many have germinated.’ If all 10 seeds germinate, then you have 100% germination, 5 seeds would be 50% and 2 seeds would be 20% and so on. I will usually get rid of any vegetable seeds 30% or less.

 

In the case for old flower seeds, I just throw out the seeds in spring and see what pops up. This is from last year’s garden-fantastic but of course we had a very rainy summer so that helped!

Look on the package to see the year the seed company sold them. I have noticed that some seed companies do not put the date on the packages, in which case I write down the year I bought them on the package.

Hope this helps when making decisions about which seeds to save and optimal seed germination temperatures when starting them.

Happy New Year!

Ok, I for one am glad 2022 is over and looking forward to a new year and a new growing season. But I have much to be grateful for despite my dismal yield of tomatoes last season. So instead of looking at the negative which there is plenty of that in the news, I’m going to focus on the positive from last year’s garden. So here are some of the successes in 2022:

-Because we had such a good rainy season (monsoons), my annual flowers (in fact all my flowers, perennial and annual flowers were absolutely fantastic. All the annual seeds I threw out on the ground (I didn’t even start any inside last season) came up and in fact I had to thin out some of them to keep from overcrowding. I don’t think I have had a more beautiful flower garden inside the veggie garden.

-Actually most veggie crops did well for me except the tomatoes. All cool season crops continued to produce very well throughout the summer because of those rains and cooler temperatures-kohlrabi, kale, chard, lettuce, onions, potatoes did great.

-The raspberries and finally the blackberries  produced LOTS of berries, again because of the rains. Still, no salmonberries or honeyberries last season but am hoping for their berries to show up this year.

-My winter and summer squash did exceptionally well with very little disease-I grow butternut squash and Friulana summer squash because they usually don’t get many (if any) squash bugs. Only one butternut squash out of 8 squash got them but it is interesting to note that all the butternuts were crowded in one bed (as in overflowing) so they were all very close together and only one plant got them and none of the rest got them and no squash bugs or disease in the Friulani summer squash plants either.

-I grew Yukon Jack potatoes in 2021 and that harvest was dismal. But in that same bed I had 5 volunteer potato plants that came up and produced very well and most were good sized spuds. I guess I missed some of the teeny-tiny potatoes during the previous year but again with all the rain, it was a good harvest.

-My carrots were bodacious! I still have about 10 lbs stored from this last season. I really liked the ‘Dragon Purple carrots with their dark purple skins and bright reddish orange flesh inside.

-The Italian dry pole bean variety, Casalbuono di Panzareidd, a white bean with red splashes was super productive and super tasty.

So as we enter the new year with many new growing possibilities, I get excited with new hope for a great 2023 growing season. I wish you all a happy new year where you all prosper and flourish in your gardening and personal lives.

Last fall Harvest of 2022 on Oct 10

I just found this video on my last harvest of my veggie garden for 2022…Enjoy!