Winners and Losers of 2018

Here we are with one day left in 2018.  It's been one of those years & I'll be glad when it's firmly in my rear view mirror.

In my last post I wrote about what went wrong and what went right this past gardening season.  Regardless of the proportion of each (because no year is all good or all bad) one thing is for sure – the harvest will be impacted.

This year, the losers outweighed the winners by a fair bit…but there were still a lot of winners (hurray!).  The great thing about having a variety of veg in the garden is that a growing season where absolutely everything does badly is a rarity.  Usually, conditions that are not favourable for one type of veg (i.e. peppers and melons will sulk in cool temperatures) are relished by others (lettuce & broccoli thrive when summer temperatures are on the lower end).

Eggplant was one veg that appreciated our hot weather this summer
Pictured above:  Farmers Long

Even if you completely neglect the garden, you’ll probably still get a good harvest of the more tenacious crops that can hold their own such as chives or mint.  And who hasn’t heard of that ubiquitous squash growing spontaneously from a compost pile with zero intervention?

Chamomile is one crop that, once in the garden, needs no coddling

and self-seeds for years to come if given the opportunity

This Year’s Losers

So on to the losers – ‘cause I like to get the bad news out of the way first 😊.  All percentages reflect the change from 2017.

The biggest losers this year were:   Potatoes (-61%), broccoli (-62%), turnips (-65%), lettuce (-58%), carrots (-81%), garlic (-54%), scapes (-78%) and sugar snap peas (-74%).

The broccoli harvest was down both due to the hot temps
and not harvesting frequently enough

It's important to note that, for these crops, I grew the same # of plants in the same amount of space as in 2017.  Therefore, these decreases are all about a decrease in productivity rather than growing less purposefully.  My harvest of shelling peas, for example, went down by 37% but I also reduced their spot by 25%, which puts their actual yield for the space used within what I would consider the “average” range.

We still harvested enough shelling peas this year to freeze a couple of bags

There were a few zero harvest losers as well:  Figs, sweet potatoes and collards.  And with barely a handful of strawberries harvested, those also hit the list this year.


This Year’s Winners

Now on to the good stuff – and what makes us keep at it in the face of the inevitable difficulties, disappointments & failures that every gardener goes through (some years more than others!).

This was the first proper year of harvesting asparagus.  The patch is in its 4th year (from seed) so I limited the harvesting to only 3 weeks & am more than pleased with the over 7kg (15 lbs) picked.  Next year I’ll be upping the harvest period to 4 weeks and will hopefully see a nice jump in the harvest.  Fingers crossed the asparagus beetles didn’t do too much damage to the roots.

The asparagus harvest was beyond my expectations this year 😃

I’m calling tomatoes a winner, even though the harvest was down 35% from the prior year.  Considering the number that went to waste in September and the irrigation issue in the one bed (that I spoke about in my last post), I still ended up harvested over 100 lbs. which is nothing to sneeze at.

My hands down favourite new addition
to the tomato lineup this year was Mexico Midget - nom, nom!!

When it came to winter squash, I only grew 2 butternut plants, which I squeezed into the end of the pea bed, and ended up harvesting 15.5kg/34 lbs.  Yup…that’s a winner in my book!

My winter squash stores also include a couple of Tromboncino that hung on the vine a bit too long.  Apparently, these guys are equally good used as a winter squash so I cured them and will be trying them out over the next couple of months.

Butternut squash together with a couple of Tromboncinos that went past their fresh stage.

Beets were another winner, not for the quantity harvested (which was less than a pound) but for the simple reason that I had never grown them before and I ended up liking them…a lot.

Other winners this year were cucumbers (+41%), eggplant (+94%), summer squash (+29%) and onions (+257%! – I wrote about my successful onion experiment HERE).

Ailsa Craigs...'nuf said

Now, I grew many more veg than reflected in the above lists (beans, Chinese greens, kohlrabi, kale, etc.) that yielded fairly average results, so they are not highlighted one way or the other.

With everything that went wrong this year & the rather big decreases in the harvest for a good number of veg, I’m rather surprised that I still ended up harvesting over 400 lbs. worth of produce – 209 kg (461 lbs) to be exact.  I honestly thought that I had harvested around half that.

So, when I really think about it and put things in perspective, 2018 was not as bad as I originally assumed.  In fact, it was pretty darn good...considering.  It's funny how certain events can overshadow others until you sit down and really take stock (a worthwhile exercise for every gardener and, IMHO, life in general too).

And that is that - another year done and a new one about to begin.  Cheers & wishing everyone a bountiful and floriferous 2019 with many garden adventures....preferably of the good kind ;)