I haven't checked in for a while here. Hope everyone has been well and their gardens have fared better than mine....by the looks of recent damage from hail storms I have a feeling that like me, everyone's figuring out new swear names for Mother nature.
My in the ground garden did rotten. Our spring was cool and soggy wet. Everything perished from standing in water for too long and no amount of drainage ditches hastily dug out, helped. My garden was a rice paddy. I still managed to harvest a bucket full of small yukon gold potatoes and another half bucket of onions. The potatoes are the right size for stew, browning in butter or boiling but not much else. My squash did well at first, but then after a downpour following a few really hot days, I went out to check on them and the plants looked fried. I have no idea what happened to them. The only thing I have left in the ground is a few sweet potatoes and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to harvest a few from them.
The rest of my garden was planted in pots. Some vine green beans....got one picking off of them and enough for one meal. I may try again next year but put my pots in an area of the deck that doesn't get as much sun. The only thing that did really well was my Jalapeno peppers and that was after a lengthy battle with horn worms that cost the plants their leaves. Luckily the plants held on until the peppers were ripe. I would check them in the evening, no worms, go out the next morning and pull three big worms off the plants. Hate those things.
This will be my last in ground garden. I was diagnosed with cervical stenosis/degenerative disc disease last month. The rheumatologist and pain doc I saw took me seriously when I told them my neck was causing me pain and ordered an MRI. I knew raking/hoeing/shoveling was causing me trouble and that the pain was getting worse. Now I know why. Next summer my garden will be 100% planters on our deck within easy reach of the house.
My in the ground garden did rotten. Our spring was cool and soggy wet. Everything perished from standing in water for too long and no amount of drainage ditches hastily dug out, helped. My garden was a rice paddy. I still managed to harvest a bucket full of small yukon gold potatoes and another half bucket of onions. The potatoes are the right size for stew, browning in butter or boiling but not much else. My squash did well at first, but then after a downpour following a few really hot days, I went out to check on them and the plants looked fried. I have no idea what happened to them. The only thing I have left in the ground is a few sweet potatoes and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to harvest a few from them.
The rest of my garden was planted in pots. Some vine green beans....got one picking off of them and enough for one meal. I may try again next year but put my pots in an area of the deck that doesn't get as much sun. The only thing that did really well was my Jalapeno peppers and that was after a lengthy battle with horn worms that cost the plants their leaves. Luckily the plants held on until the peppers were ripe. I would check them in the evening, no worms, go out the next morning and pull three big worms off the plants. Hate those things.
This will be my last in ground garden. I was diagnosed with cervical stenosis/degenerative disc disease last month. The rheumatologist and pain doc I saw took me seriously when I told them my neck was causing me pain and ordered an MRI. I knew raking/hoeing/shoveling was causing me trouble and that the pain was getting worse. Now I know why. Next summer my garden will be 100% planters on our deck within easy reach of the house.
So sorry to hear about your neck pain! You are smart to make adjustments so you can continue to do what you want. i have a suspicious hip, making it painful to be bent over for any length of time, then of course I can't sit for any length of time, 
!
Wow what a lovely garden you have! Thank you so much for sharing those pictures, they are so inspiring!
