When shopping for seeds this spring, I noticed a seed packet labelled “Lemon cucumber”. This seemed interesting, so I got it and planted them in the garden.

Surprisingly, things actually grew in our garden this year. I guess setting up containers and getting a bunch of ‘fresh’ compost helped a lot. We’ve got a crazy amount of tomatoes. We’re getting 20-30 red cherries a DAY, plus some yellow pears, and we’ve even had some roma and brandywine tomatoes (although the brandywine seem to get overripe when left outside, so I’ve been picking them when they’re just getting to be the right size).

As usual, we’ve had no luck with leafy greens. The spinach just died and the baby bok choi just decided to go to seed almost instantly and would not take no for an answer.

The carrots are turning into real carrots, but I think we planted them too think and didn’t bother thinning them out. They might still make it, but we know better for next year.

Surprisingly the peas and edemame didn’t do too great, although the edemane seems to be trying really hard! The vines are pretty high.

The popcorn has juuust started producing some kernels, so we’ll see how that goes.

We’ve got some pretty prolific-looking potatoes, but we won’t know how they’re doing till we pull one out! Same with the garlic.

We have a whole bunch of hot peppers coming in, too. I planted some tomato plants next to the garlic and hot pepper plants to see if we get garlicy spicy tomatoes, but I did that pretty late in the season.

Oh, there’s zucchini that we’re not too sure what it’s trying to do – the plants are pretty big and have been blossoming for a while, and there’s one fruit but we’re not sure about it. Still, it has a few more weeks of growing time.

We also have some nice brussel sprout plants, but something’s been eating those. The dog is great for scaring off bunnies and deer, but not caterpillars! They’re not supposed to come in till later in the season (although I’ve been seeing them at the farmer’s market) so we’ll see.

Even if nothing else grows, though, and even if all the tomatoes stop producing, this has still been the most successful vegetable garden I’ve ever had (and I’ve tried almost every year I’ve lived here). I’m very happy about that. There’s nothing quite like making a fresh salad with tomatoes that are still warm from being on the vine. And that you planted.

I’m already half-planning for next year’s garden. The most successful plants this year are the ones in the double-height container, so I plan on doubling most the containers next year. We’ve also been composting, so that might save us a trip.

I also thing it’d be a good idea to space out the tomato plants a bit more. I’ve got about 12 plants in a 4′x4′ container… it’s a bit of a challenge to get in there to pick the fruit sometimes. Especially since we had that big storm which kind of pushed them all into each other. The bamboo stake supports I made are nice and all, but they’re not nearly as rigid as metal cages… so I might invest in some of those, too.

It’s been a pretty good year for plants, really. Plenty of rain (I’ve hardly had to water the garden at all) as well as plenty of really hot sunny days.

Well, time for lunch. I think I’ll go pick some tomatoes.