Seasonal hindsight.

As another season draws to an end it's time to reflect on how the summer garden worked.

Next year I will:

• Plant way more tomatoes and get some more variety of type. Granted, this summer was cool and tempered the harvest, but I think I could do with a lot more tomatoes.
• Plant less Chard. I did three rows of three feet each, and I really didn't need that much. At the rate we ate it, it grew back sufficiently before we cut any more leaves. We haven't even touched the last row.
• Plant less green onions!! Back when I was planting seeds I thought about the bunch of green onions you buy at the grocery store. I thought that if I used onions at that rate, one two-foot row would go in a week! I, of course, did not use them at that rate. I pulled one or two at a time as I needed for meals. There are still so many green onions out in the garden that have been there since the start and I just don't know that we will ever get around to eating them all.
• Keep growing lettuce through the summer. After my lettuce started bolting this summer, I stopped sowing new seeds. I waited until it was time to start up on the fall seeds to sow any more and we have been in a lettuce drought for over a month because of it. By the time the cucumbers and bell peppers were ripe, the lettuce was long gone. Overall I need to plant less lettuce over a longer period to keep us in salads through the summer.
• Plant more beans with more fertilizer! My beans were sad this year. Again, it's hard to tell if it was because of the unseasonably cool temperatures or something that I did. Either way, I could do with more green beans.
• Plant more cucumbers and more variety! Not all my cukes took after transplanting and I was left with only one lemon cucumber plant for eating, the rest were pickling. In the end we had 3 lemon cucumbers total. Again, I blame the cool summer. But, I would also like some classic slicing cukes next year.
• Plant more peppers! Refer above, same applies. Although, peppers are notorious for not growing well here. Maybe I'll get a hoop cover.
• Even though I thought 3 zucchini plants would drown us, it ended up just about right. Again, blame the cool summer. If we had had a warmer one I bet we would have drowned.
• I do want to do a larger variety of summer squash next year too though.
• Have a real herb garden. I had some herbs in pots, but it was simply not enough. I'll have to designate space for some serious basil and friends.
• Have a strawberry patch! I have a strawberry pot (which is still producing) but I really want a patch so I can have a real harvest and not just 2 strawberries at a time.