Tuesdays in the Garden: Fruits and Flowers Recap

Last year, I just tried a variety of things in the garden and here is where I had some major failures: 

Bush Sugar Baby Watermelon: this was the only one and it actually turned out to be nibbled on my some little outdoor creature- I was super disappointed since I actually love watermelon

Imperial 45 Cantaloupe- a few grew as in 2 and it was okay not excellent

Honeydew- I love this melon- again I only had 2 or 3 but these actually tasted really good

Overall, it was a crummy year for the melons or they just didn't like me...

Ahh, let's recall the tomato wipeout of 2009. I started the following types of tomatoes indoors- Crimson Cushion Tomato, Rutgers-Select Tomato, Tigerella Tomato, and Yellow Pear Tomato. I ended up with over 100 tomato plants (yeah, insane right) I transplanted them outdoors a little too soon and they were attacked by a little thing known as frost- from 100 to 0 in a weekends time. Now, I really love tomatoes, so my parents went and bought me some tomato plants and I ended up with some of these:

Some lovely tomatoes waiting to ripen...

I replanted the Tigerella Tomatoes (direct-sow) but unfortunately they didn't ripen before the first frost of the fall- again another small failure...

  A Yellow Pear Tomato from a plant from the nursery...and some Cherry Tomatoes also from the nursery:

The lesson learned from these little guys was simple- I do NOT have the patience to pick them. They taste great but seriously annoy the heck out of me when you have to pick them. Last year, the tomato plants around here grew like weeds, had to be trimmed constantly, and produced few tomatoes.

Here was a sample of one days tomato harvest:

I also had some Plum Tomatoes, most of these became a lovely basic tomato sauce that I canned. This year I am hoping to focus on larger beefsteak kinds, heirloom tomatoes, plum tomatoes, and maybe 1 cherry tomato plant. 

Let's talk flowers now. I was hoping to have a cutting garden, so I could have some fresh flowers inside, but that really didn't happen. This year it is one of my garden goals. Frankly, I used to hate flowers, but in time I have grown to love them. 

Snapdragons- these were amazing because they bloomed several times throughout the summer; the only thing I would change would be to put them in a different container because they weren't very tall.

Zinnia Dahlia- I loved these- not only were they pretty but a lot of fun to photograph the different stages of them. I would change the location of these because they were quite tall.

Petunias- these were a good stand by flower and were long bloomers

Sweet Pea Knee Hi Mix- these just didn't make it for me, they didn't even bloom

Cosmos Bright Lights Mix- 1 bloomed the rest died... it was pretty while it lasted ;)

Peppermint Stick Zinnia- I am a sucker for striped flowers. I just love the unique patterns on the petals. 

This year I am going to do a little more research and branch out with a few more varieties. Next week: Recap of the herb garden...