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@gardening
Seems like a good time for a seasonal reckoning here! I’m a second year gardener, finishing up my second summer on the Puget Sound, so almost everything is new to me. I tend to ramble so I’ll try to thread this.
My particular bit of the world was rainy and cool for a long time this spring, then stayed cool and dried out all summer. We had one short heat wave in the mid 80s (I *know*) but that’s it, it’s back to crispy and cool now. The vast majority of my beds have drip irrigation, so the garden is ok.
The only thing I tried to grow this year that just utterly failed, no second chance, was #onions. I planted seeds in compost that was too rough and too cold, and I didn’t react in time to replant. Last year’s onions, in a different bed, grew like mad but then flowered early. Lots of lessons learned, and why not, I’ve ordered some fall onion sets. Onwards!
@gardening the last of the half-wins:
#basil. Basil is, like, *the easiest herb* to grow. I’ve grown basil in apartments! But not in nice concrete planters, not this year, oh no. Took me three different sowings to get two knee-high plants.
#beans. Most important lesson learned: I *love* filet green beans. I could plant ten times as many as I did this year. Lots of frustrating failures too, though.
Slugs love beans. Don’t plant the beans too near the slugheims.
My bush dry beans are pretty puny. One full bed of them is struggling along at less than knee high. Another bed, home to many failures, ended up with a thriving tomato and two clumps of thriving bush beans. We’ll see if they make.
All of the pole beans were whimsical late May plantings, grown in unimproved soil near the garden fences. I LOVE FILET BEANS. I’ve been eating them raw. Peas are my spring salad, beans are my summer salad.
#Peppers were a real mixed bag. I lost most of my transplants to the cold. Both sowings, a month apart, hardened off - but the highs didn’t get above 60 until some time in May.
The two peppers that lived were the ones nearest the south wall of the house. One is in a concrete planter, proving that it’s not the soil that’s the problem with them. The other is in a fabric grow bag, in a plastic bin, tucked up beside the house. It’s the warmest sunny spot in the entire property, and that pepper grew huge and set like fifty fruit so far. It’s also concealing one of the wasp nests, and they don’t appreciate me bungling around too much, so I’m not counting.
Both of the peppers are “bridge to Paris” sweet peppers. They’re nice. I wish some of the hot peppers had lived! No complaints about the variety, I just wish I’d had others too.