Fall Harvest!

Over the past two months I've had the fall harvest come in from my community garden plot. It was my first harvest at this new garden and a bit less than I had hoped for, but I learned a lot about my soil, plot,  and what I need to do for next year - raised beds are an absolute must! Our community garden is located where a grain bin once was, right next to where the train used to run. Therefore, I go only a few inches down and hit the old foundation (not all areas of the garden are so shallow). I also have a steep angle that caused all the water to run to the bottom of my plot so that the herbs at the bottom end did well but the plants at the top never received sufficient moisture. I'll have to level it off when I build the raised beds next spring too.


My carrots were maybe 2" at best before they started to grow in mangled formations and ended up being mostly a waste of space. My tomatillos and yellow summer squash were the only things that really thrived (except for a brief battle with squash bugs - yuk!). The yellow squash actually grew too well; it killed off my zucchini early on, I barely got any cucumbers because of it, and I was shocked when I actually grew a few butternut squash this fall. My tomatoes barely produced anything - I'd eat most of them right there in the garden as only a handful of cherry tomatoes came ripe at a time. My large tomatoes never ripened at all. (I also now know which varieties I want to grow in the future.)

My basil did well, but then I accidentally wasted it all - don't try to wash it and then not process it immediately afterwards - it all turned brown overnight and was a total waste. It managed to grow a second crop before the first frost, but it wasn't the healthiest or greatest tasting. The potatoes came out ok, but fewer than I had expected. The hot peppers did decently starting in early fall, but I won't plant so many varieties next year. The sweet peppers only gave me three very small green peppers in the weeks before the frost.

I had a few plants that I inherited form the former gardener of my plot (in addition to millions of thistle seed pods!), but I've decided to dig most of them out next fall - I'm debating about the peppermint that smells great but I'll never use it enough to be worth growing. Lettuce and spinach were pretty much a waste, but other gardeners have said they are quite difficult in our garden; I have to find the right variety and make sure it has tons of shade next year. Observing others, I think I'll plant a harder green next year, like kale. The beet greens were amazing! I never knew they were edible until a neighbouring gardener told me. The beets themselves were pretty small.

Theft is a bit of a problem in our garden, and I knew this going in, so I did my best to get a plot as far away from the main paths as possible and put a three-foot chicken wire fence up around my plot. I didn't want to put a whole lot of money into my plot my first year (not that I had the money either) until I figured out what grows well and what I want to do with my plot going forward. That being said, I didn't have a whole lot of trouble with theft until the end of the season and produce started to become sparser in the entire garden and thieves became more daring. (I understand there are hungry people out there, but I need my garden to survive too!) It was my butternut squash that really irked me though. I finally started to grow some and was waiting for them to get bigger and ripen when someone stole both of them! They weren't even any good yet! So, when my third, and final, butternut squash showed up I wrapped fencing around it, protecting it from theft. But then the frost came and it was slightly damaged so I had to pick it even though it was barely larger than a baseball. It has managed to ripen on my kitchen counter but will still give me very little food. Luckily I was given another small one form a neighbour whose plant produced a bit better.

Over the summer I checked out a book from the library, Vertical Gardening, which I highly recommend for anyone gardening in a small space. I'm going to use many ideas from that book next year. I'm also going to build the raised beds up a couple feet (luckily our community garden brings in a huge heap of compost every year). I'm going to build a higher, stronger and more permanent fence, as well as change the entrance to the top side of the plot where there is almost no foot traffic at all, I'll be putting a gate up too. Or at least this is the plan; I'll see where I am in life come next spring.

Well, that's my fall harvest report! I'll be posting more soon about how to dry herbs, save seeds, and ways to preserve the harvest to last through the winter. Cheers!