I think I can say that this was a pretty disastrous gardening year. The tomatoes grew a thousand feet tall, produced bushels of green tomatoes, but never really ripened up to their full potential. As soon as they started ripening in earnest we had a patch of cooler weather and they just stayed where they were, refusing to die, but also refusing to produce tomatoes. Maybe next year I'll try out some floating row covers and see if I can keep them warmer on any cool August nights.
The okra have pretty good potential, but, as I already mentioned, they mostly came while we were away.
The zucchini failed completely, which is a terrible sign. What idiot can't grow zucchini? But, I tried to keep them from taking over and trimmed them back and they never forgave me.
I don't even know what happened to my cucumber plant. One day it was threatening to break out of its bed with vigorous growth, the next day the entire vine was a shriveled, pathetic wreck. It still produced a few cukes, but they weren't really any better than grocery store cucumbers, so I don't really see the point.
Were there any successes? I'm hoping that maybe the brussels sprouts will work out, and I suppose the basil did alright, as did the hot peppers. Hot peppers are the easiest thing in the world to grow.
Early in the season I had some decent lettuce and spinach but I failed to keep seeding it and so that ran out as soon as it got too hot. I tossed around some lettuce seeds at the end of August, hoping to have a few respectable leaves for sandwiches, but it's still not even at the baby greens stage. It's like embryonic greens even now. Ironically, I grow lettuce not because we eat a lot of it but because we eat so little--I just like it on sandwiches that I pack for lunches and it's annoying to buy a new head of lettuce every week when you just need a few leaves.
So, that's about it. Gardening sucks. But there's always next year....
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