A Growing Year In Review

Well it appears that the growing season is over. For me personally it was a great one! this was a first year I made a raised bed for gardening.

Previous years my planting would be done in the brick flowerbed in my backyard. It is something that worked but it was hard  to always try to get to the back of the tomato plants because they were against the fence. Last year 2015 I decided that my goji berry plants would be permanently planted in the spot where I would usually do my gardening.

It turned out to actually be the perfect spot for them, due to the fact that  in my area  there is really nothing but Clay soil  which is something that they  tend to like or do better than in than most plants.another good thing that came out of it is knowing that I will not be disturbing the soil which is very important for building the soil and not destroying  the very delicate and essential ecosystem  or food web.

these are just two of the many handfuls harvested this year of goji berries,

By next year,  hopefully most of the plants will be in full production.

This year I planted  three green zebra tomato seeds with only one successful plant.  It was a very productive plant and very successful and towards the end  it took up  nearly the entire  raised bed. Here are  the seeds that I have saved for next year.

Towards the beginning of the year I also planted the Little Marvel  Garden Pea variety. Here are the  seeds I saved from them as well.

I believe I originally planted six or seven seeds which grew into very productive and healthy plants.

I almost forgot to mention that I also planted Bloomsdale spinach, this variety is very good in hot weather  as compared to other spinach varieties. I had three plants  which I started from seed and they were very productive. So productive they got to a point where I would fill my large strainer bowl to the top where it would overflow and I would still have leaves on the plant. I was able to save hundreds of seeds from these plants.

one of the things that I planted that I didn't think I would get any seeds from was the Cherokee Trail of Tears Bean. Two out of the three plants didn't make it in the third plant didn't seem like it was good to make it to but it somehow got established and was able to produce  a fair amount of beans.  I did try one of the pods and they were really good. However due to the fact that it was my only plant I wanted to be able to save seeds from it so I let all the pods dry out so the beans can be saved  for seed.

Here are some pictures of the pods and  a bowl of the dried beans.

Now I also planted crook-neck squash and Connecticut pumpkin or your standard Halloween pumpkin. I was only able to get one good crook-neck squash  but sadly no seeds.  The Halloween pumpkin plants on the other hand I was able to get  one from each. The first one I picked a little too early but the second one grew to full maturity.

I was hoping by this time we would've used the pumpkins for pies for Thanksgiving  but itdidn't happen so hopefully for Christmas they will be used for pies then.

ThenI could show you how many seeds were in them.

I would say that's pretty much it for this year, I would say was pretty good and I can't wait for next year to continue planting these heirloom varieties.

I have been working on a few new projects which I mentioned in previous posts. One doing a campaign like posts to spread awareness about bees being endangered and how we can help them.

The second one is that I was picked to be a manager to one of my friends who wants to have a music career writing and singing her own songs. So hopefully soon we can debut her doing covers of various songs. More details to come later.

Thanks for reading!

Keep on Steeming