Do you live in Michigan and are considering starting a garden? Do you live elsewhere but enjoy seeing what others are growing, and getting ideas for adjusting your own space? Read on for a recap of my third-year, small-space, lots of vertical-growing garden!
It’s been three years since we moved from the neighborhood home where we lived for 10 years onto our current two wooded acres. While I tried to grow a vegetable garden a few of the summers at the old house, it was mostly just a few plants for fun. It was surprisingly frustrating — between super sandy soil and pest issues, I couldn’t even get zucchini to grow most years.
When we toured the new house it was early summer, and the previous owners had a small fenced-in garden area with raised beds along the back corner of the house. I was ecstatic.
The first spring we were here (2020) we added two more raised beds, a couple loads of wood chips for the walkway, and off we went. I tried to keep the area manageable, planting only green beans, cucumbers, zucchini (only got 1 fruit), lunchbox peppers, and carrots.
Every year I’d like to try something new in the garden, and so the following year (2021) I added garlic, lettuce, tomatoes, and watermelon.
All of this to say: I wanted to record exactly what I grew in my 2022 garden, what I’ve thought of the varieties and my technique, and share some thoughts and plans for next year!
SPOILER ALERT: It’s been a rough year for lots of gardeners, myself included.
CONTEXT: I’m located in Zone 5b, with a last average spring frost date of May 20 and first average fall frost date of September 30.
Bell Peppers: King of the North & California Wonder
Last year my KOTN peppers did AMAZING, and I was able to cut and freeze enough to last almost the entire winter and spring for use with pizza, eggs, fajitas, etc. Because I was so pleased I even took the time to save seeds, so that this year’s crop would be entirely free!
I’m not sure if it was the fault of the seeds or the weather, but this year’s plants grew ridiculously slowly, and many died after transplanting. I stopped at a local nursery and grabbed 6 new CW plants to take their place. Those grew almost twice the size of the KOTN, yet I still have only picked one pepper. ONE.
Because bell peppers are something we use a lot of, next year I’ll get a packet of KOTN directly from a seed company again. Fingers crossed this year was just a fluke.
Broccoli: Waltham
Broccoli is my husband’s favorite vegetable, and this year I tried to be proactive in combating the dreaded cabbage moths that destroyed my crop in 2021. I started the plants from seed indoors, to give them an early boost. I had heard cabbage moths are territorial, so I created little decoys out of white plastic and strung them along the row. I dusted the plants regularly with diatomaceous earth.
I think I deterred the little green cabbage worms, but suddenly I found little striped ones instead. And so The Battle for the Broccoli began.
Long story short, I picked worms off my plants every day for weeks, lost a few plants, a few plants became stunted in their growth, and none ever even started setting heads. I gave up and fed the plants to the chickens.
Three strikes and you’re out… Next year I will try ONE MORE TIME to grow broccoli — investing in insect covers — and if I still have issues I will resign myself to only buying from the farmers market.
Carrots: Danvers Half Long, Cosmic Purple, & Nantes
This year I dedicated one entire original-sized GreenStalk Garden Tower to carrots. Top two rows Danvers, one middle row Purple, and bottom two rows Nantes.
I will 100% grow carrots in the GreenStalk again!
The Danvers and Purple were ready to harvest earlier than the Nantes, so I pulled them and replanted, hoping for a fall crop too.
Carrot-growing tip: Because the seeds are so tiny, they need to stay constantly moist for germination, so either surface water once or twice a day or place a board overtop to hold moisture in until they’ve sprouted.
Cucumbers: Straight Eight & Early Fortune
My kids and I love fresh cucumbers, and every other year I make a batch of dill relish. I direct-sowed about 6 of each of these varieties along one side of a cattle panel trellis… and waited and waited and waited.
Eventually I ended up with 3 plants. Total. And I’m honestly not sure which of the varieties they are. #facepalm It’s the beginning of September, and while the vines have grown up and up and overtaken the panel and produced lots and lots of flowers, I’m only seeing a couple of baby fruits so far. We’ll see if I get enough for even half batch of relish this year.
Garlic: Musik
Garlic is a unique garden plant, as it’s planted the previous fall and harvested mid-summer. This was my second year trying garlic. The first year I planted a soft-neck variety, as I’ve heard it stores longer and I love the look of a string of braided garlic. However, those bulbs barely grew any larger than the cloves I planted.
This year I chose a hardback variety, and wow did it produce as expected! The half-pound I planted at Halloween gave me 17 beautiful, large bulbs, harvested late July and allowed to dry until late August.
The plants flourished in my raised bed, mulched with straw. Next year I’ll see about dedicating a whole bed to garlic instead of a half.
Green Beans: Kentucky Blue (Pole)
For the sake of space, I only grow pole beans in my garden. Last year’s Blue Lake pole beans were extremely prolific (I finally cooked up in July the last of what we froze last year!), and this year I thought it would be fun to try a different variety.
Kentucky Blues are a cross between Blue Lake and Kentucky Wonder, and I’m honestly torn about my crop this year. On the one hand, the beans themselves are BEAUTIFUL, easily 7-8” long (Blue Lakes only got to be about 6”). But on the other hand, maybe I didn’t plant as many but the trellis isn’t nearly as filled in as last year, and I’m not going to have anywhere close to the size of last year’s harvest.
I also had issues with Japanese beetles that I didn’t realize until quite a few leaves were destroyed.
Beans are crazy-easy to grow, but I’m not sure which variety I’ll go with next year. Maybe some of both, to compare side by side…
Greens
I’m grouping all of these together, because I used one of my GreenStalk towers (the “Leaf” tower, with shorter pockets) to grow a variety of them. On each of 5 tiers I had one pocket each of Parris Island Lettuce, Crisp Mint Lettuce, Tatsoi, Swiss Chard Perpetual Spinach, Russian Red Kale, and a Mixed Lettuce that came free with the tower.
I tried to do some succession sowing, planting the bottom tier then waiting a week or two before planting the next, and so on, to have a continual harvest throughout summer. A good idea in theory, but didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped because of so many different varieties.
The cabbage worms that ate my broccoli also ate my kale. The spinach bolted before other greens were ready. Crisp Mint lettuce sounds like a good variety, but wilted much faster than Parris Island.
Next year I’ll pick just a couple of things (probably Parris Island and Tatsoi) and plant entire tiers of them. I still like the idea of succession planting, I just need to perfect the timing a bit.
Onions
I won’t go into too much detail here because… this experiment was a complete FAILURE for me. I need to do more research and be better prepared next year.
I had ordered Ailsa Craig Exhibition onion plants, they were out of stock and sent me Sweet Spanish Yellow instead. Maybe it was my soil, maybe it was too much or too little water, maybe it was lack of mulch, but I killed them all. All 100 little plants. They started out well, growing very quickly in the first week or two, but eventually just stopped and faded into the dirt.
Peas: Tall Telephone
Another complete failure, but this time I don’t think it was my fault. I was excited to try this variety, as my entire harvest last year from a different kind was 2 whole cups of peas for the season. The Tall Telephone is a shelling pea plant, growing 5-6 feet tall along a trellis. Taller plants equal more harvest right?
Not a single pea sprouted. And I’m 95% sure it’s because something dug and ate all the seeds. I even tried to plant them twice. Both times, nothing but dirt kicked around.
I’ll try these again, but be more proactive about pest control.
Potatoes: Red Pontiac & Kennebec
This was another completely new experiment this year. I’ve never-ever grown potatoes, plus I tried them in a GreenStalk tower! The reds I bought from a friend and the Kennebecs (a white/russet-type) I ordered. I had 2 tiers of reds and 3 of whites.
I probably harvested them a little early, but of course when I checked the dying plants (that’s the signal it’s about time to harvest) and found a nice big potato underneath, I didn’t realize that would end up being the biggest one of the entire lot.
If I do potatoes in the GreenStalk again, I’ll try putting the potato piece almost at the very bottom of the pocket (I planted them 1/3-1/2 way down this year) and only covering them slightly, so I can add soil as the plants grow similar to “hilling” potatoes in a traditional garden. Not sure if it will work, but gardening is all about experimenting right?
Pumpkins: Howden
My garden has one square of soil surrounded by cinder blocks, and each year it’s been a just-for-fun experiment. Last year I tried a couple of watermelon plants (they didn’t ripen in time), and this year I grabbed a 3-pack of pumpkin plants at the local nursery.
WOW do pumpkins vine out. A lot.
I’ve seen at least one green pumpkin growing, so maybe we won’t have to buy our Halloween porch decorations this year!
Tomatoes: San Marzano Lungo
My family doesn’t really like tomatoes except the occasional slice on a burger or as things made with sauce (marinara, pizza sauce, chili, etc). While I did a combination of SML and Amish Paste last year, this year I went all-in with only SML.
(Weird side-note: Some of the fruits look exactly like they’re supposed to, some are as big as my hand, and some are small and perfectly round. So strange.)
Overall I’ve been extremely happy with my tomatoes this year, especially the plants I grew along the arched cattle panel trellises. I NEED MORE PANELS NEXT YEAR. SML are an indeterminate variety, so they will just keep growing and growing and producing fruit until frost kills them. It’s possible to tie them up on poles or strings, but let me tell you — the arched cattle panels have been amazing.
There you have it! For this growing season what I’m most proud of are my garlic and tomatoes. I don’t know that I have ambitions to try anything new next year, I have so much room for improvement with all of the above.
All of my garden seeds and starts have come from either Baker Creek or Jung Seed. I prefer to grow heirloom varieties, as eventually I hope to seed-save quite a bit, and only heirlooms will produce identical crops the following year (a hybrid will revert back to one of its parents, or not produce seeds at all). Baker Creek only sells heirloom varieties, but they are located in Missouri. I like Jung because they are in Wisconsin, which has a similar growing climate to us, so I trust their plants have become accustomed to our weather. I’m thinking of ordering some seeds from MIgardener for next season, to shop even more locally.
This blog post was written in participation of The Blogging Bee — an online gathering reminiscent of the quilting bees and sewing bees of days past when women would bring their work together to create art. If you enjoyed this post with the theme “Summer Scrapbook 2022,” take a look at these posts from other farmers, small business owners, homesteaders, and creatives:
Summer 2022 by Joanna Shepherd
Summer Fun at Midwest Prime Farms by Heather Leak
Storyteller Farm’s Summer Adventures by Jessica Haberman
Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
-Genesis 1:11-12
I am growing my beans (bush) and peas in my GreenStalks, and they are doing so well in there (so far). I’ve heard that potatoes won’t get too big grown in there, but I think I’ll be trying carrots next year (I considered it this year, but didn’t do it).
My garden this year (also 5b) didn’t do well. Squash bugs got my zucchini for the first time in the 5 years I’ve lived in this house, and killed them early on (they also killed my Chicago pickling cucumber plants). My lemon cucumbers look great, and my okra is going to kill me with production. My tomatoes look like crap this year, but my peppers are all doing well. Voles at my Calima beans (jerks), so those were a fail too. It wasn’t a good year for me, but there’s always next year.
Why do you have the one GreenStalk top flipped upside down?
Sorry to hear you had issues this year too! Hopefully next year is better. That tower with the upside down water reservoir is what we had just harvested potatoes from, and I hadn’t replanted anything in it, so that was my way of telling my daughter (whose chore it is to water the garden) that she didn’t need to water that one.