Soil Quality

The first season I ever gardened, all my produce was exceptional. Fat juicy tomatoes and huge bell peppers (that’s all I grew in the beginning). However, in the last few seasons, I noticed some of my quality slipping on things. Tomatoes weren’t as big. Peppers weren’t as plentiful. Melons were struggling. Everything was growing but not like it was. I thought the soil might be lacking in something. So I decided to go buy two truck-beds of top-quality garden soil. It was a bit overkill but made a super difference and now I have very good soil for the next couple of seasons.

Truck Bed

My truck always holds its garden worth every season, as do most trucks. It did that even more so, in 2018. I decided to buy my mulch by truckload in 2018, instead of individual bags. It was cheaper but required more shoveling on my part. Once again having a truckbed proved it’s invaluable.

Empty Bin

I built a wooden container for potatoes a few years ago. It rotted over time and wasn’t the best idea. Plus I never got any potatoes from it.  2018 found me tearing it down and having a pile of good garden soil leftover. I turned the pile of soil, into my herb & banana pepper bed with excellent success. Although it always nagged at me that I never put a border around the outside. Just nitpicking I guess.

Tomato Trellis

In 2017, I decided to ramp up my tomato supports with heavy-duty fencing and support posts. They worked great and continued to work great through 2018 as well. The lesson that I learned was that fence posts do not hammer well into TN dirt, no matter how many times you til the ground beforehand.

Water Pressure

I set up two sprinklers in the 2018 garden and bought a faucet adapter. I arranged each sprinkler in the garden so that their water patterns would overlap. My theory sounded good. In reality, I needed more water pressure than my home allows. It worked, but not how I thought it would.

Garden Hose

I learned to always remember to pick up the garden hoses BEFORE I mow the lawn. Shred.

Zucchini & Squash

My plan for 2018 was to try and grow 3 rounds of each before the winter set in, and turn it all into homemade chow-chow. I found that was easier said than done. I grew two good solid rounds at first, but that third round didn’t quite happen. Days mattered for that 3rd round because I was up against the first-front clock. I needed to be more precise with my 2nd and 3rd round plantings.

Okra

I learned that Okra wins its war every year. I can’t seem to stay on top of harvesting during the peak summer days. Pods that were too small to pick in the morning, are the size of my arm by that afternoon. It’s a constant battle.

I also learned that I need to pull my okra before it completely dies at the end of the season. In 2017 I let my okra completely die off after the frost. The side effect to that was, the okra seeds in the pods fell into my garden bed. So in 2018, I had a random pattern of okra sprouting up. I decided to let it go because it was doing so well. That was a mistake because I had also planted my melon seeds in the same bed. In short, the okra over-took my melon plants and cut into my final melon yield.

Cucumbers

In 2018 I decided to experiment and turn some of my cucumbers into pickles. That was a surprise winner. The end result was perfect.

The lesson I learned was to grow more cucumbers in 2019