Assessing the summer crop of 2017

By Rennie Phillips

Funny how gardening in the fall isn't nearly as much fun as gardening in the spring. After a summer of weeding and work it's kind of fun to just sit back and relax. I did clean off my hill garden, disc it and get some seed in the ground for fall. I planted some Austrian field peas, radishes, lettuce, beets, rutabaga and turnip seed. Our hill garden is fairly large with it being over an acre. I also planted some Jade green beans in our small garden, and they are up and looking good.

So with fall rapidly approaching I usually take some time and reflect back on the summer's garden. Some was a success, but there were some failures. Probably one of my main crops is tomatoes, so I evaluated this year's. My Big Beef produces some nice tomatoes, but I also found that aphids really like them. So next year when I plant my Big Beef I'll plan on watching for aphids.

My Kellogs and Dr. Wyche tomatoes both did really well. I'm planning on planting them next year. My Mr. Stripey didn't do so good. It was as if they were a different kind of Mr. Stripey than what I am used to planting. I'll plant them next year, but I'll get the seed from a more reputable supplier. One thing I like to do is plant a variety of tomatoes. It seems like every year one variety does better then the others, so by planting several, I'm covered. So we'll plant some Celebrity, Jet Star and Charger, as well as a couple others.

One tomato that did really well was Stupice. It was really early and produced great. The tomatoes are small or about the size of an egg. I picked my first Stupice in my outside garden on May 10, so they are early. I transplanted these plants near the end of March using some Season Extenders. These Season Extenders kept the plants from frosting at the end of March and the beginning of April. I'll start some Stupice for next spring.

We planted several different kinds of cucumbers this summer, and Tasty Jade is probably my favorite. We picked a boat load of these and sold some and ate a bunch. Then we planted some H19 Little Leaf cucumbers to make pickles. They make some great canning-size cucumbers. But we also planted General Lee, which work for canning but also can be eaten fresh. I may try a couple other English type cucumbers that sound really interesting. One is called Sweeter Yet and the other is Sweet Success.

We grew a number of kinds of cabbage this year, and when it all boiled down the early and late Flat Dutch were best. Both produced really well, with the heads being tight and pretty much worm-free. We planted some Chinese cabbage called Rubicon. That's what we will grow again next year. It produced really well, tasted great and seemed to hold well once it was picked. It even held up in the garden when the temperature was getting up there.

We had really good luck growing Butternut squash, which is a winter squash. I got a ton of Butternut squash off our plants, with some being small and some fairly large. Matter of fact, we have them several times a week. We simply slice them down the middle lengthwise, dig out the seeds, place them face down on a plate and nuke them about 4 to 5 minutes. We eat them with butter on them. I'll bet garlic butter would just taste awesome on butternut squash.

We tried to grow spaghetti squash, but we ended up feeding mostly squash bugs. We got a few squash, but not enough to make it worthwhile. We won't grow them next year. We will grow some White Bush Scallop summer squash. We bought four of them in Sikeston a while back and they tasted just pretty good. We grow both the yellow and green zucchini squash or summer squash. We like both, but the yellow is our favorite. About the only way we get zucchini squash is to start the plants indoors and wait till they are about to bloom before we transplant them.

We grew Peaches and Cream corn, as well as an open-pollinated variety from Sandhill Preservation. When it came down to it, we probably got 15 dozen ears off our patch of corn. I think we'd be ahead to simply buy our corn at a local farmer's market and forget growing sweet corn. I think the only reason I'd grow it is because ours would be free from pesticides and such and I'd know it wasn't a GMO sweetcorn.

We had great success growing Yukon Gold potatoes. They do really well. We enjoy taking the little new potatoes and boiling them, then eating with some butter and sour cream. But we also enjoy baking the bigger ones. They are just flat awesome with butter and sour cream and maybe topped with some chopped onion.

We planted some bunching onions, leeks and two different sweet onions. I started the seeds in December and then transplanted them in April. I didn't care for the bunching onions or the leeks. We were really impressed with the Texas 1015 sweet onions, and we'll do them again next summer. It seems odd, but we are only four months from planting onion seed in my little work room.

Spend a little time and jot down how your veggies did this summer. If you want, drop me a note and let me know as well. I find it enjoyable reading these notes from several years ago.