What I Grew in the Best Garden

What I Grew in the Best Garden

I want you to know that I am talking from experience when I give you advice on how to grow a garden in 2022.  This year I have grown a large garden using both raised garden boxes and raised beds with no border frames.

I have included several different methods that I will give you feedback on the performance of the different methods for you to check back on to see what I have determined to be the best method and varieties to grow.

I am growing these organically to provide the highest quality vegetable, herbs, and fruit for my family and friends to eat.

My hometown is Eugene Oregon located in the Willamette Valley.  This year we had a very cool spring and early summer so we are about two weeks later than normal years for crops.  An example of the late season is our strawberries are usually in June and this year as of July 18th we are still harvesting strawberries in late October.

We had what is known as an Indian Summer which included temperatures in the 80s until the 20th of October.  We actually had the most 80-degree days in October ever, which has allowed our tomatoes and peppers to ripen when normally we would have pulled them out for the year.

We are expecting rain as of today October 21st and the forecast is for temperatures to drop to highs in the upper 50s and lows in the 30s so it will be time to harvest all of our tomatoes and peppers remaining in the garden.

If you leave tomatoes on the vines in heavy rain they will split and rot, and temperatures in the 30s will kill the plants.

Here is a list of the Vegetables I am Growing

Tomatoes

Pineapple

Bloody Butcher (3)

Prairie Fire (4)

Sungold (3)

Bush Beef (1)

Big Zach (2)

Yellow Boy

Big Beef

Purple Cherokee (1)

Genuwine (1)

Jubilee

Gladiator (1)

Celebrity (1)

Cucumbers

Diva

Lemon

Dragon

Pickling

Armenian

English

Martini

Peas

Shelling pea

Oregon Sno peas

Onion

Candy

Beans

Gold Rush Yellow Wax Pole Beans

Crocket Bush

Peppers

Jalapeno

Tam Jalapeno

Sweet Red

Sweet Banana

Anaheim

North Star

Purple Bell

Peperoncini

California Wonder

Gypsy

Long Red, Orange, and Brown Peppers

Large Green Pepper

Pablano

Squash

Cubes of Butter

Green Zucchini

Romanesco Zucchini

Trombone

Butternut

Egg Plant

Cantaloupe

Carrots

Pumpkins

Cinderella

White

Grey

Mini pumpkins both orange and orange and white striped

Here are the herbs I am Growing

Basil

Mamouth Basil

Sweet Basil

Dill

Oregano

Mint

Here is a list of the Fruit I am Growing

Grapes

Strawberries

Blueberries

Thornless Blackberries

Pomegranates

This is the first year I have planted the pomegranates, not expecting fruit for 2-3 years

Fig

Brown Turkey Fig

This is the first year I have planted the fig and I have 1 fig on the small tree

Here are the new Methods I am testing

String Method for Tomatoes

The string method will be tested further to see results with Tomatoes, and Cucumbers.

Aspirin and Baking Soda Spray for Tomatoes This is now a new method that I will continue to use when growing my tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.

Removing suckers on Indeterminate Tomatoes, I am testing this again in 2023 and I will post the results.

Here are the Different Organic Fertilizers I am testing

Complete Organic Fertilizer Mix

Tomato Tone

Rock Phosphate

Results of What I Grew in the Best Garden

This year we had a late start to the growing season since the weather was cooler and wetter than normal in May and June.  Once the weather improved by warming up and drying out the garden took off.

Our tomatoes did phenomenally well with no blossom end rot for tomatoes, peppers, and squash.  We also had a large crop of tomatoes once they started to ripen.

This was the best year for cucumbers that I can recall with cucumbers all summer long.

We planted lots of peppers and our crop of peppers was great throughout the summer.  This year I am trying to overwinter our pepper plants since they did so well.  I will keep you posted.

Eggplants grew very well and we had nice large plants with plenty of fruit.  I had the best results on the plants on a hill and I used black plastic to keep the soil warm.

Pea and bean crops produced an abundance of vegetables for us and we harvested seeds from the beans for next year’s planting.

All varieties of squash did very well in the early and mid-season but slowed considerably in the late season.

We had considerable issues with rats this year, trapping 35 rats and losing lots of tomatoes and all of our grape crops to them.  I will start early with the Tom Kat traps to see if I can reduce the population in our area this next year.

Overall it was a very successful year in what I grew in the best garden thus far, like all gardening it was not without mistakes but these are all situations to learn from for future years.

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