ex gardens

I hope you enjoyed reading the first part of my annual garden review, and I’m back again today with the second part. I’d like to start with tomatoes, which are a favorite crop of mine and with many other gardeners too. The early rains this year seemed to favor the growth of the vines after planting, and a dry spell in summer helped prevent rotting when the tomatoes began ripening. I got just over 50 pounds of them in total, which was about half of what I got last year. We had plenty for fresh eating, though not a whole lot for processing into sauces and such. tomato harvest I always like to trial new varieties of tomatoes and other vegetables as well. This year I had great results with two new ones (Queen Bee and Honey Bee) bred by Johnny’s Selected Seeds in collaboration with the late Fred Hempel (Artisan Seeds) . Both are pink and yellow striped and late-blight resistant, and quite tasty. Queen Bee is the larger of the two, though only slightly bigger, and both were good for fres...

Once again it’s time for my annual review of what did well in the garden this year, and what didn’t. The yields of many crops were disappointing, and I’ll dig into the details here in a bit. I usually like to start with a recap on the weather first, since those conditions certainly have a big influence on home and community gardens everywhere including here at Happy Acres. According to my records, in 2024 we got 50 inches of rain, which is a bit more than normal for our area. In 2025 so far we have had a whopping 57.83 inches, which makes it one of the wettest years since I started tracking our rainfall back in 2011. 2025 rainfall We had an extremely wet spring here, and above average rain throughout the summer months.  August was the only really dry month, as the rains came back for the fall and winter. The 11 inches of rain in April delayed planting of some spring crops, and when I did get them in the ground many of the young seedlings drowned. We have a fast-draining silty l...