Garden Review 2012: Part 2 The Middlin's

In Part 2 of my 2012 garden review I am going to talk about the veggies that did middlin' for me this year. In other words, they produced, not badly but could be improved upon either in size, output or flavor. These vegetables have certainly added to the total pounds and variety of the garden and will be back again. Perhaps I'll try different varieties next year or plant them differently. My garden is in a constant state of soil improvement and I am always reading great suggestions for improving things. It is so interesting how each year it is different vegetables that shine and some that did great last year fail this year or vice versa.

Wait! My summer squash did fantastic! How did I forget to include it in Part 1? I had my first EVER successful year of zucchini. But in all honesty, it could be included in middlin' because it died out way too soon, being utterly destroyed by squash beetles. Thankfully, not until I'd had a very nice amount to harvest for once. The zucchinis were Raven and Jackpot, with Jackpot the winner for best output. The yellow squash was Saffron and it did less well than the zukes. The pattypan was an utter failure, producing exactly one useable squash. For the record it was a Bennings Green Tint.

My onions. Sigh. They were small and few this year. Last summer this bushel basket was full and so was another on almost as big. I grew a few varieties: Pontiac, Ailsa Craig, Prince, Copra, Redwing and Stuttgarter. Some were leftover seed from last summer. None of them really did very well this year.

I grew several varieties of carrot and a total of five beds of them. Three of the beds were fall carrots and above is the healthiest one. I'm still unsure if they will have time to get to a harvestable size before the ground freezes. The majority of my carrots were Scarlet Nantes and Danvers Half Long. I had leftover seed from Mokum, Napoli and Nantes Fancy. My carrots simply take forever to size up and they really were small.
Last year I had a terrific harvest of beets. This year was absolutely middlin'. Early in the season I had a plague of cutworms that cropped the beets as quickly as they sprouted. Eventually they grew and we enjoyed them, but we had far fewer. I have always had some degree of trouble getting beets to size up, but they are improving. I have yet to have the least bit of success with any beets planted after the initial spring planting. Will have to work on that one! I planted Lutz Salad Leaf, which I love because it can get really huge, but still taste nice and sweet, Cylindra, Detroit
Dark Red, Early Wonder and Crosby Egyptian. No one variety really stood out this year, except maybe the Cylindra because of its distinctive shape.

Winter squash is improving for me, but I have a long way to go! Four years ago I managed to grow one tiny New England Pie pumpkin. Three years ago, ditto. Last year I finally beat the SVBs and managed to get six winter squash of various types. This year, ta-da! I got seventeen! Yes! That sounds like great success, yes? But wait...

Here they are, all in a row. They are very, very small. Not that I'm not happy with them, I really am. We are moving in the right direction and I will work on improving things again next year. The plants also succombed to the squash beetles early, and I'm sure the poor plants lost energy fighting those nasties and couldn't properly grow those squash very large. I grew butternut (not enough, more next year!), kabocha, variety Sunshine,which was quite a success I think, Burgess Buttercup, Long Island Cheese, New England Pie pumpkin and blue hubbard. After four unsuccessful years of blue hubbard I am throwing in the towel. The few I get never grow to maturity.
Well, this post is getting too long, so I think my three part series is going to have to become a four parter...next time I will continue to review the middlins!