This summer I decided to get a community garden through Denver Urban Gardens. I had a gigantic plot (20'x20') at Delaney Community gardens near Alameda and Chambers in Aurora. I, unfortunately, chose the wrong summer to start gardening in Colorado and had a rough go at it. It was a very hot, droughty summer and our community garden was attacked by evil rabbits and grasshoppers that wreaked havoc on my crops. With the freeze this week, I am sad to say that my gardening for the season is over. It's now time to get the garden winterized for next year's (hopefully better!) growing season!
So, these are my lessons from the garden this summer.
1) Start early! I didn't start to work with my soil until the middle of May due to being out of town for a few things. The soil here is very heavy and needs to be composted with compost, grass, leaves, etc. The soil was really difficult to work with (and it didn't help that the tiller was broken, so Adam my awesome friend, tilled it by hand...). A lot of stuff that I planted didn't transplant very well due to the soil and that it was really hot during planting season (cucumbers, pickles, peas).
2) You cannot win the battle with weeds! I tried, I really tried! Our gardens are organic, so we aren't allowed to put down any fertilizers that are not organic. Of course, all the weed killers are not 100% organic, so no dice. I would spend about 2 hours each weekend weeding the garden. After a month or so, I said fuck this and let the weeds take over. After that, I would pick the largest ones, but it wasn't worth my effort.
3) Rabbits and grasshoppers are motha f'ers! Most of my plants this year were lost due to the rabbits and grasshoppers that plagued our gardens. I had to replace most of my peppers this year because the grasshoppers attacked them first, then the rabbits attacked them afterwards. A rabbit ate my Thai chili pepper, I would have thought it was too hot to eat?? Other victims of rabbits and bugs: basil plants, watermelons (about to pick those, come back the next day and they were eaten), green beans (apparently the sprouts have a lot of water for the rabbits to eat, grr...).
4) One zucchini and one summer squash plant is enough! I made the mistake of planting two zucchini plants and accidentally planting 6 summer squash plants! One of my zucchini plants didn't look like it was going to make it, so I planted another one. I could not give the zucchinis away fast enough and I have a freezer full of them right now. The squash was a different story. I had initially planted two summer squash plants. Later in the season, I planted what I thought were 4 pumpkin plants that I had grown from seed. Yup, they turned out to be 4 more summer squash plants. Right now, if I had to eat summer squash again, I would rather starve. There's only so much that you can do with summer squash...
5) Peppers are my friends! I had a total of 10 different pepper plants of different varieties. All survived except for the Thai red pepper that was eaten by rabbits. I grew: serranos, jalepenos, Big Jim chiles, Yummy orange peppers, red and green bell peppers, garden salsa, Spanish Spice. I froze a lot of the peppers back to use throughout the season.
6) Tomatoes are sometimes my friends... But, I was not the nicest to them. I did put them in cages, but forgot to stake them and they became this gigantic sprawling mat of tomato plants. A lot of my tomatoes also had blossom end rot. My dad says that I need to add some lime to the soil during blossoming which will help with that.
7) Corn was a colossal waste of time... I had maybe one ear of corn of like 10 plants that was edible. By the time that the corn was desired stage of ripeness for me, the bugs had gotten to it. So, I just picked the ears and gave them to the rabbits to eat.
8) Gardening is really cathartic! I come from a long line of gardeners. My great-grandfather and his siblings ran Dege Garden Center in Minnesota. Whenever we lived in a house, my dad had a salsa garden. It was nice and relaxing to go out to the gardens a couple times a week, work in the garden, and watching your plant babies grow up and produce delicious food for you!
9) I tried out new foods! I never really gave the squash family much of a chance before. I decided this year to give it a chance. I grew summer squash, zucchini, butternut squash, and spaghetti squash. I am excited to try out the spaghetti squash and make some soup with the butternut squashes.
10) Fresh herbs from the garden are much better! I grew basil (regular, Thai, and holy), lavender, mojito mint, rosemary, and two different kinds of oregano. It was so nice to go out to the garden and pick the fresh herbs to use in my dinner that night. I am going to dry the herbs now and use them throughout the winter.
Plan of attack for next year
1) Try mounded gardening with the soil to conserve water.
2) Install a drip water system to water the plants.
3) Organically fertilize more to get more out of the crops!
4) Start early!
5) Grow only what I want to eat.
6) Start more plants from seeds then buying plants.
7) Show those tomatoes more loving!
8) Buy a canner and can my tomatoes, peppers, pickles, and beans :)
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