Plans for the vegetable garden

The past few years my role in the vegetable garden has consisted of watering the plants and tending to the ornamentals around the edge of the garden. It's a role I am getting a little tired of to be honest. I feel like I'm watering more failures than successes. I think we should give up trying to grow any tomatoes, for instance. We have some sort of rampant mutant wilt here that takes down every tomato except for Matt's Wild Cherry, and even that refuses to grow in the vegetable garden. We can't seem to grow any other tomatoes very well here, no matter where we plant them. In the ground, in pots with brand new medium, it doesn't matter.

I used to start the plants from seed but Gene took that over. He wanted to start them inside early. I don't think there's any advantage to doing that, as I used to do it and found the plants were better if I started them outside in pots on the front porch after the last frost. But he wanted to do it. If I start them this year (likely basil, eggplants, and peppers), I'll just start them outside on the front porch in small pots.

There are too many plants in pots in the garden itself. I want to grow Kentucky Wonder pole beans on the back trellis, no pots. G. put them in pots and I just could not water them enough to keep them happy. We have plenty of chicken wire to keep the rabbits from eating the stems. Sweet peas before that posssibly. No lima beans. They have never produced here. It's a picky crop, often sensitive to moisture levels. The variety we had this year just grew and grew and grew and only produced tiny little pods that never matured.

I want to try corn again, although somehow that's only been successful once. How hard can corn be to grow? I don't know but this is one past failure I want to try one more time.

In 2011 we grew corn

The front trellis needs to go or at least the pole needs to be shored up or replaced, one of them is listing markedly. It can only be used for early sweet peas, otherwise it shades too many other things out.

Sweet peas on the back trellis

Peppers probably don't need to be grown in pots because they are water hogs. Basil and eggplants do well in pots, and we have to grow sweet potatoes in pots due to the voles.

This year I really want to make notes on my calendar to start fall crops from seed or buy them to get them established before cold weather arrives. Broccoli from the garden is often better than broccoli from the grocery store, and Buttercrunch lettuce is amazing mixed with romaine in a big salad.

Asparagus has done well but Gene has never harvested any of it. It might have been overgrown by seashore mallow by now. Seashore mallow has a way of taking over areas but is easily dug if we need more room.

Gene grows squash and okra on the compost pile since they get so big. That worked out well this year since we had frequent rain.

OTOH, Veilenchbleu and swamp rose has done well at the edge of the vegetable garden. I've always thought that growing flowers was easier than fruit and vegetables. Everyone wants to eat crops and they've been bred more for productivity than disease resistance. Still, I think there's more we can do to figure out what consistently does well here and stick more to that. I don't even know the particulars of what each crop needs, and and if I knew that would probably/possibly help. G. wants a vegetable garden but is too busy to concentrate on it much.

In 2009, one year after we moved the house, the area next to the vegetable garden was so open, and the swamp rose planted there was so small. There was a lot of Gulf Coast Penstemon, a short-lived wetland perennial perfect for that place since it gets wet from all of the water running down the driveway.

Now the swamp rose is full size, at least 7' in height.

Then two Veilchenblau were planted and they've gotten pretty big too.

Next to where we park the cars are Verbena bonariensis and small beardtongue (sent from Gail of clay and limestone)

and (not pictured) daylilies that form large vigorous clumps like 'Hyperion' and 'Blackjack Cherry'. Between the parking area and the vegetable garden are (also not pictured) cup plants. I wanted some of these after seeing them covered in butterflies at the NC Botanical Garden. This past year the swallowtails hatched out too late for the flowers, but the year before that the cup plant and summer phlox were absolutely covered in butterflies. A plumber came out to fix the leaky hose bib on the well and he and his daughter were impressed by all of the butterflies. I grew some parsley and bronze fennel for the black swallowtails and had to go and buy more as the caterpillars just devoured the plants.

Between the driveway and vegetable garden there's bee balm, a hibiscus, crinum

and iris. I've got a few Louisiana iris and blue flag there

'Sinfonietta'

but I'd like to get a colony going, as well as more Gulf Coast Penstemon again. I've got more around that I can grow from seed.