My garden is nearly finished for the season. Probably one more tomato picking, sweet potatoes when it gets cold enough, and bush beans just coming into flower. The pole beans are finished.
General thoughts - pole beans do not like going into a bed where garlic was just growing. My pole beans with the sweet potatoes did much better.
I have probably half a year's worth of diced tomato sauce in the freezer. Half of that was a box of tomatoes from the grocery store, half my tomatoes. The Romas were plentiful but small, way too much work. The Italian Heirloom (indeterminate) was good but I needed scissors to cut the stems, not easy picking, plus ridged adn a big core so a lot of waste. Last year there were 2 large paste tomatoes in the box of Romas from the grocery store and I saved the seed. I grew one plant from that, the tomatoes were like Roma but much larger. Also a bush. I've no idea if this is a known variety whose seeds got mixed in with Roma seeds, or a mutation, but they were perfectly fine tomatoes. Frugal Lizard, if you want some seeds just let me know, I have plenty.
My medium size eating tomatoes did well. None of the cherry tomatoes did well, they were slow to ripen and a lot of them split.
I usually grow wax beans but I tried a green and a purple pole bean as well this year. Purple Peacock had amazing yields, the plants wanted to be 12' tall, and the whole plant was full of purple pigment - reddish leaves, deep pink flowers, purple beans. They turned deep green when cooked. Taste was good. Garden of Eden was a green bean, taste was wonderful. Both survived the garden snails that were everywhere this year. Beurre de Rocquencourt did fine as my wax bean, the other variety may have been delicious but the snails ate all the plants at the 2-3 leaf stage.
Garlic harvest was good. The plants in the middle of the bed did best, the ones near the edges not so well. Music did better than the 2 reds I planted, the bulbs are big.
The onions did well, I planted Utah. A good (not great) keeper but I have enough to get me to January, so keeping a long time is not going to be an issue. Definitely a better harvest than when I plant sets, so starting from seed was worthwhile.
Peppers did well until recently, when the rain brought out the snails and the snails started eating the peppers.
The yellow zucchini was a success, I actually picked them at a nice small size because I could see them! The rest of the squash were a bust, slow growing, 1 squash (last year I had many). The cucumber vines died for no obvious reason.
The little rhubarb plants I planted last year did really well this year, I have lots of rhubarb in the freezer. I am giving some of them away, when they get into full production next year I won't need as much as they will produce.
The asparagus was healthy this year. I think I will be able to get a small harvest next spring.
All that is left is to weed, pull stakes, and put all my equipment away. My car can finally stop being a mobile garden shed!
