You Just Never Know

Gardening is always and adventure, and always a learning experience. Every year we make a plan, drawing on knowledge gathered from book, blogs, and experience. Every year we tend to the best of our ability, and hope for bumper crops. And every year curve balls are thrown into the plan, and surprises occur. This year was no exception.

This was the year of the newbies. We expanded the garden significantly this year. This opened up a lot of space for items we usually don't bother with because they aren't very practical or because we haven't had much success with them in the past.

I've been amazed at how most of these items flourished. I wasn't pleased with them all. We just can't seem to produce eggplant, and I was less than satisfied with our carrots, but those were the exceptions.

We planted a row and a half of sunflowers on a whim. We did nothing with them, but put the seeds in the ground and hoe around them a few times. They were beautiful. We saved quite a few seeds to roast, and the chickens enjoyed the rest of the bounty.

We planted what seemed to be an insufficient amount of okra, maybe a dozen plants. They too were incredibly easy to care for. I think I fertilized them with corn gluten once. When they started producing, we promised ourselves we would plant more next year. A few months later, and they are still producing, we've promised ourselves we will plant the same amount next year.

Planting pole beans was an experiment too. We've always planted bush beans before. They grew wonderfully along the garden fence. They also produced way more than we needed. We will be planting these again, but in a smaller quantity.

Watermelon graced our garden for the first time this year. We've so enjoyed the sweet juicy melons. They are significantly smaller since the end of the summer has turned dry, but they still are delicious!

Then there are the pumpkins.

I didn't plant any pie pumpkins this year because the produced so poorly the past two seasons. One volunteer came up anyway. It produced a dozen or so pumpkins; plenty for some pies, and to freeze.

There was some space at the edge of one of the gardens, so we decided to plant some jack o lantern pumpkins. The kids always want to carve pumpkins, and it kills me to pay for them, so why not try to grow our own? They produced the largest pumpkins we've ever had. Pictured above with my five year old is what we harvested the other day. The largest weigh over 40 pounds. Plenty of carving material for the kids!

One lesson I'll be taking from the garden this year is to keep trying new things. You just never know what kind of wonderful surprises will be waiting for you when you do.