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
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)
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
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.
