The new garden: tilled, tamped, mounded, fertilized and planted! What a glorious feeling that was. Now that its the middle of December, I remember only the satisfaction and not so much the hard work. Putting in a new garden where there was none seems to have both pros and cons. Cons: Digging up sod sucks, soil needs lots of amendment usually. Pro: Its need and clean without years of weed seeds built up, and it doesn't have an established population of pests! Almost no slug problem, unlike our last home. We did, however have a lot of rain this summer, which was very helpful for irrigation but we had a terrible earwig problem. I never knew earwigs could be a problem! They eat everything, they are not picky. The ate holes in all my cabbages and hid under the leaves. Super gross. We also had quite a few tomato hornworms but I guess they are a problem almost anywhere. And mice. I guess we should get a cat but I really am a dog person.
We had pretty good success this year with our crops. A few things did better than others, perhaps I should pay better attention to crop siting and companion planting. I always need to remember to space out my tomatoes farther. They are always to close together and get tangled up and hard to harvest. I thought 18 inches would do it, but 3 feet would be better.
We are now enjoying a freezer full homegrown veggies and blueberries! Its seed catalog time again, and I will soon be drooling and circling everything in the book with my highlighter...
