The vegetable garden shivers under snow.
Hello to all! It’s time to share with you what I learned
from my garden in 2018 so that your gardens might benefit.
As I say at this time each year, whatever I attempt to learn
from the garden takes place within a much broader conversation, that of the
garden with the weather systems and other beings which affect it. With
that in mind, let’s look at the weather during the 2018 growing system to learn
how it affected the garden as a whole and the plants that grew in it. The
following is based on the St. Louis NWS’ annual climate report for 2018,
supplemented with my on-site observations. (To read the climate report, click on Local under the Climate heading at the bottom of the St. Louis NWS site. On this page, click on the radio button for Annual Climate Report under Product and Archived Data under Timeframe, and then choose January 1st, 2019 if it’s not already highlighted. Clicking the Go button will bring up the 2018 report.)
When I tell people about the weather in St. Louis in 2018, I
say that it was the year with no spring and no autumn. I don’t mean that March
through May and September through November didn’t exist; they happened here at
the same time as they did everywhere else in the northern hemisphere. Nor do I
expect long stretches of near-average temperatures in either season in this
part of the US as these seasons usually feature wide and rapid swings in temperature. But there wasn’t much swinging of temperature in either
season in 2018. Instead, the weather seemed to lock into either winter or
summer for most of both. April was a continuation of March weather-wise while
May took June’s place and June acted like a month-long extension of July.
September through the first third of October acted like a continuation of
August, with the rest of October taking the place of November and November
behaving like December. I don’t know who stole spring and autumn, but my garden and I missed them.
The last frost in 2018 came late, on April 20. The garden
received well over normal rainfall in May, somewhat less than normal in June.
All else being equal, then, I would expect that crops favoring cool weather
would yield less in 2018 than in years with more typical spring weather.
In autumn, the first low temperature under 40F / 4C didn’t occur
till October 12, later than usual, and there were only three days with low
temperatures under 50F / 10C before this. However, the first frost followed rapidly
on October 16, with the first freeze occurring on October 21, and three days of
measurable snowfall by November 15. Furthermore, we received little rain after
a drench of 3.1 inches / 7.9 cm on September 9. All else being equal, this suggests the
likelihood of lower than normal yields for the autumn crops which I plant in
August.
With a growing season from April 20 through October 16, and
with plenty of hot weather and good rains during May to establish the crops
that like heat, it would be reasonable to expect good yields from those crops,
assuming I planted and cared for them properly.
The low yields of the crops favoring cooler spring weather, whether
direct-seeded or transplants, are easy to understand. To begin with, not only
was March cold, but it was also cloudier than average. Because I start my seeds
on our solar-heated sun-facing front porch, a cooler and cloudier than normal
March, the month I start seeds for transplants, slows down their growth.
Because it was so cold during April, I wasn’t able to plant these and the
direct-seeded crops until late April to early May, two to three weeks later
than I prefer to plant them. Then the heat of May and June adversely affected
their growth, as well as that of the potatoes, the one spring crop that I
planted on time. I wasn’t the only one having trouble with spring-planted
crops; the Missouri Extension reported that farmers across the state suffered
from poor yields in crops like broccoli. (None of my broccoli plants headed
out; all I harvested was a few meager side shoots.) The only pleasant surprise
was the good performance of the romaine lettuce ‘Kalura’, which has become one
of the two consistently good performers among the lettuce varieties I’ve tried.
With the generally favorable summer weather, the lackluster
performance of the peppers, blackeyed peas, and zucchini needs an explanation.
The zucchini plants made plenty of zucchinis; however, they made too many of
them while we were out of town for a week or so. When we returned, the patch
had gone feral, producing at least nine 3 to 6 pound monster zukes that proved
inedible; I only reported the weight of those zucchini we could eat. I planted the blackeyed peas too late; when frost came, the plants were loaded with
immature pods. As for the peppers, their seeds require very warm conditions at
sowing time in March in order to germinate and grow. Even with a heat mat under
the flat, the porch proved too cold an environment for good pepper seedling
production. I re-seeded both pepper varieties on March 27, and even then did
not raise as many seedlings as I had space allotted for in the garden. Then
most of the plants succumbed to disease in the unrelenting heat. The only
problem with the ‘Arkansas Tomato’ tomatoes was that we were out of town during
part of the first flush of ripe fruits (my neighbor, whom I’d given permission
to harvest ripe tomatoes while we were away, told me she’d gotten quite a few
of them). Some of the ‘Old German’ tomatoes suffered from sun bleaching but
otherwise it’s proven to be a beautiful and good-flavored tomato, and ‘Cherokee Purple’ tomato again impressed with its taste and yield. We liked the
‘Mitoyo’ eggplants better than any others I have grown so far, and they yielded
well for being so widely spaced.
As for the fall garden, the excellent yield of arugula may
have to do with my planting only one short row of it rather than two, so that
we harvested and ate almost all of the arugula. I’m not sure why the daikon
radishes grew so well; maybe I happened to thin them just right. Still, I
consider the fall crops a success because all of them, even the lettuce, grew
from direct-seeding, a much easier way to grow crops at this time of year
compared to growing transplants. I froze the lettuce seeds for several days
before planting, as suggested by some garden writers. Perhaps that’s what made
the difference with them, as I had not been able to raise lettuce from
direct-seeding in August before. I was also pleased with the Chinese cabbage
variety, which grew fast enough to head up before it got too late in the
season.
Regarding other new varieties I tried, the ‘Garnet Butter
Gem’ lettuce looked pretty and tasted good, but it was small and an early
bolter. The ‘Lorz Italian’ garlic out-yielded ‘Inchelium Red’, tastes as good,
and has lasted as long in storage. Of the two bell-shaped sweet peppers I trialed, only ‘Ozark Giant’
fruited, and it made only two peppers (but they were large and tasty).
Fortunately, the dependable ‘Italian Frying’ peppers again proved their worth,
and I got enough peppers to save seeds for this year’s crop, though not without
drama associated with needing to re-seed them in order to get the six seedlings
that I planted into the garden (as opposed to the eight seedlings I had
intended to plant). Beyond the problem with cold conditions during seed
germination, the seed was too old to germinate well. I’ve learned that I must
save seeds of peppers every year; they do not last long under my storage
conditions (an unconditioned basement). It might be worthwhile to store just
the pepper seeds in the refrigerator in order to keep them viable for longer.
The fourth figure gives the total weight for the vegetables
and the popcorn that I harvested in 2018 as 391 pounds, almost equal to 2016
(392 pounds) but much less than in 2017 (536 pounds). Why so much more in 2017?
It could have been because of better weather, but it could also have been
because among the commercially grown seedlings I used that year were some
hybrids that benefited from hybrid vigor, along with other possibilities I
haven’t considered.
The fourth figure also gives the weight of various fruit crops
that I grew in 2018. The beds for the raspberries and strawberries are within
the same fenced area in which I grow the vegetables and corn; the trees are
scattered across the rest of the property. I tried using tomato cages to hold
up the raspberry canes last year, to keep them from shading the crops in the
beds on either side. While some of the cages tipped from the weight of the
canes and will need to be staked or replaced, the cages did corral the canes
that I allowed to grow within them, reducing the shading that raspberry canes
have caused in the past and making it easier to harvest the berries. I had to
spend time hoeing or pruning out canes that grew outside the cages and push
canes back inside the supports as they grew, but I felt the effort was
worthwhile.
In general, 2018 was a good year for fruit crops, despite
the frosts and freezes in April. The apple, pawpaw, persimmon, and
strawberry yields were much higher in 2018 than in 2017, plus I harvested some
ripe apricots and peaches, and would have gotten more of each if we hadn’t
traveled when most of them ripened. The chestnut yield was much less in 2018
versus 2017, possibly due to a tendency to biennial bearing. As the apple,
pawpaw, and persimmon trees mature, I can probably expect more fruits each
year. The peach tree may be nearing the end of its lifespan, but it continues
to bear, though squirrels usually get the crop before it ripens.
I had intended to write a post following the May 21 post
last year about the experiment I ran on the popcorn beds. The writing fell
by the wayside, but I did perform the experiment. Because this post is long
enough already, I’ll discuss it in a separate post. Till then, may your gardens
grow well in the coming year!
