- Stupid garden mistakes -

[Acre4Me]

2018 was first time I had a garden in several years due to house moves. We have raised beds here. I planted cucumbers, tomatoes, and butternut squash all in one bed.. oh, and carrots at the bottom...what was I thinking! It was like a jungle!

I put up some chain link support on the outer edge for the squash (we got 6 good sized one), and the cukes grew everywhere, ending up stunting the growth of the tomatoes, but the cukes were great! The carrots grew well, too. But it took using a pitchfork at the end of the season to find all the carrots.

We naively bought seed potatoes...which was enough to seed 2 raised beds. They grew well, but we still have lots of potatoes left, months later!

We’ll be a little better prepared this year I think..I hope!

 

[WaterGoat]

My biggest gardening mistake was not researching what would grow well in my climate. I had grown up in Southern California where it is hot and dry and my family would grow corn, tomatoes, and peppers really easily. As an adult I settled down in the Pacific Northwest in a coastal NorCal town where it cool and damp year round (summer days over 70F are considered HOT here), so when I first started my own veggie garden I tried planting the things I knew. My corn got about knee high before getting covered in mildew and falling over and my tomato plants grew about a foot, put out two tomatoes that never got ripe, molded, and fell over. It didn't help that I tried it in a north-facing patch rather than south.

I tried again a few years ago after we moved (same town) and have been doing great with cool weather crops and even found some tomatoes that like it here! (south facing patch now too! )

 

[NewBoots]

We're moving to the Oregon coast and we've already been told to forget corn. I am betting peppers too until I get the greenhouse set up. We will have tomatoes though no matter what. Might have to get some of the cold tolerant varieties but I am betting the black cherry tomatoes will still work.

 

[WaterGoat]

We're moving to the Oregon coast and we've already been told to forget corn. I am betting peppers too until I get the greenhouse set up. We will have tomatoes though no matter what. Might have to get some of the cold tolerant varieties but I am betting the black cherry tomatoes will still work.

I've had amazing results with Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes. I had so many I couldn't keep up with them and I only had two plants! I've heard there are varieties of Russian tomatoes that do well in the cooler weather, but I haven't tried them. This last year I (successfully) grew sugar snap peas, scarlet runner beans, bush-type green beans, lemon cucumbers, zucchini, sweet meat pumpkins, beets, cabbage, sunflowers, kale, chard, and lettuce.

 

[NewBoots]

The sweet 100 cherries produce a scary amount and they are incredible dried! I add them to meatloaf and spaghetti sauce and I bet they'd be great baked in a bread or roll. I plan to try pickling some hopefully this next season.

The rest you mention sound great, all good for colder temperatures. I'm planning to get the raised beds done (hopefully) before spring 2020 and we,ll have a go at them.

 

[WaterGoat]

Ooh! I haven't tried them dried. Do you just use a dehydrator?
The two plants I put in this last year took over half of a 4x8 ft raised bed and were just dripping in tomatoes.

 

[NewBoots]

Ooh! I haven't tried them dried. Do you just use a dehydrator?
The two plants I put in this last year took over half of a 4x8 ft raised bed and were just dripping in tomatoes.

Yup, we just split them on half and put them in the dryer. You can do that with store bought cherry tomatoes too but they are never as good, but if they aren't getting eaten fast enough they won't go to waste.

 

[5.3acredream]

I have a few doozies. I didn't get a soil analysis of my backyard until AFTER my entire garden germinated, then dropped all fruit and flowers. Turns out my soil pH is 5.1. I now have 9 blueberry bushes, have limed the rest of the soil heavily, and am getting 10 yrds of compost trucked in to balance the sandy soil.

Oh, and I found out that while pepper seeds need to be warm to germinate, jacking up the temp of your grow room to 74 degrees Fahrenheit, and having an led light over the covered seed tray makes the soil about 100 degrees. I cooked my seeds, guys. Ah, well. You learning by failing, I guess.

 

[Searsmom]

Fails, well, DH and I agreed to let the neighbor across the street and his buddy with a tractor, use some of our field for a 30'x40' garden one year. The guy across the street got a cancer diagnosis right after tilling, so we decided to help. Planted corn, tomatoes, peppers, runner beans, summer squash, cabbage, spinach, and bush beans. Broke our backs. After we planted everything, guy with the tractor showed up one day with a buddy, left the gate to the horse pasture open and was bragging to his buddy about his garden. He got chewed out for not closing the gate behind him and apparently his feelings were hurt. If you've ever tried to chase down horses that got loose on a main road, you know he got off easy. He never came back. So we continued to break our backs. Neighbor across the street's wife never even came over to pick when crops were ready. I picked a huge mess of runner beans, cause I heard her say they were her favorites, and brought them to her because her husband couldn't. She gave me a lecture about how I should have picked some for the guy with the tractor. Lots went to waste because it was a full time job for retired guys, which is what they were.

Needless to say, not opening our land up for neighbors anymore. Lesson learned.

 

[Searsmom]

I killed it.


I have another one. Planted wormwood one year to make sachets for storage cloth..think winter coats boxed up, etc. It keeps moths away. So if you've ever grown wormwood from seed, you know how miniscule the seeds are, and how hard it is to germinate. Out of 1 new seed packet from Eden bros, I ended up with one plant to put in the garden. Not their fault, wormwood is tetchy. So it survived a year and came up the next spring, I was tickled pink! Then DH decides to weed my herb bed for me and pulled it up.