Summer Time Summary

Note:  Although his wasn't finished, but it does have some good information, so I will publish what is here.  It was written in September of 2012.

What a busy, fun, interesting summer it has been.  While not much has been going on in this blog, I have fortunately done better in the garden.  I did keep up with basic records on Sprout Robot, and while it is a good basic record keeper/indicator of when thing should be done, that's all it is.  Nothing is in order, and if a certain crop doesn't work out for whatever reason, there is no way to indicate that.  So, for my own mind, I will do a basic summary here.

April: Put in broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprout, and cabbage plants during the first week.  In the middle of the month, I also planted dill and started picking radishes.

May:  At the beginning of this month, I was able to start picking peas & lettuce.  For some reason, the peas did not do well this year.  They looked like they developed some type of disease and literally shriveled and wasted away.  The lettuce however did awesome, and I had a very hard time keeping up with it. (except the green leaf lettuce which never came up)

By the end of the month, the swiss chard was also ready.  It was really the only green that did well this year. The mustard, kale, collards and spinach hardly came up, and what did never grew very well.  I think some of this is due to old seed.  The spinach was also not in that great of soil.  Now that school was out, I was able to plant cucumbers, summer & winter squash, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.

June: By the beginning of this month, the broccoli was ready to harvest followed closely by the cauliflower.  The broccoli did well.  I had plenty for a while and was able to freeze a little, although not nearly as much as last year.  The cauliflower would have done well also, but I was unsure about knowing when it was ready.  I let it go too long and it got blackish yellow on the top.  I just had to compost it.  I also put in cantaloupe plants.

In a couple of weeks, the cabbage was also ready.  I was able to make sauerkraut successfully from my own garden!  Again however, I don't think the cabbage did quite as well as it did the year before.