Greengirls » Blog Archive » 10 things I learned in my garden

10 things I learned in my garden

Posted on September 27th, 2007 – 8:03 AM
By Robyn Dochterman

So, what did you learn in your garden this year? Here’s my list:

1. Red plastic mulch is alright, but it’s a pain to put down. Entertain the neighbors and decide to do it on a windy day.

2. Green plastic tomato supports were great in May, but burly ‘maters popped off their arms and made them look like weaklings by August.

3. If you plant several kinds of sauce tomatoes and they all grow, you’ll be standing in the kitchen at midnight making tomato sauce several nights a week in September.

4. Potato beetles suck.

5. If you want cucumbers, you actually have to get around to planting them, not just buying seeds and saying “I should get the cukes planted today” until fall.

6. Oregano is wonderful on homemade pizza. I need to grow much more of it.

7. You can grow peaches in Minnesota. At least this year.

8. Planting beans and peas is a nice way to feed the local wildlife.

9. Pollinators like honeybees need all they help they can get.

10. One of the most satisfying things I can think of is sitting down to dinner and counting up the ingredients that came from your garden.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 8:03 am and is filed under Apples, Plums + Tree fruits, Beans + Peas, Bees, Herbs, Mulch, Potatoes, Tomatoes, Peppers + Eggplant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

6 Responses to "10 things I learned in my garden"

Allison says:

September 27th, 2007 at 9:24 am

As a newbie to gardening this year the biggest lessons learned…

Weeds do not go away by themselves, NEVER believe you can plant a garden in the first year and it will be beautiful for the rest of time and part of gardening is enjoying the process…which I am still learning.

Any tips on planting perenial gardens would be great for next spring.

I truly enjoy this column…thank you!

Robyn Dochterman says:

September 27th, 2007 at 10:14 am

Allison — you’re so right that part of gardening is enjoying the process. In fact, that might be the biggest lesson of all!

Judybusy says:

September 27th, 2007 at 4:02 pm

Hi Robyn–it’s been great following your adventures. I would wait and see how big your oregano gets next year before planting any more—mine easily got 2 feet across. (I nicknamed it Oregano thugensis and had to pull it up because it was beating up the monarda, which is not a faint-of-heart plant!)Then again, if you eat *a lot* of pizza….plant on!

Robyn Dochterman says:

September 27th, 2007 at 9:33 pm

Oregano thugensis? LOL! I planted it in my regular garden without realizing it was a perennial. I guess I’d better think about re-homing it. Thanks for your kind words and good advice, Judybusy!

G. Chrast says:

September 28th, 2007 at 8:02 am

I, too, am beginning the process of putting our gardens (vegetable and flower) to bed for the winter. Our vegies produced very well this year, but we watered alot and often. I reduced my tomato plants to nine and still was able to can about 25 quarts of tomatoes, 15 pints of salsa and even tried my hand at tomato juice, along with providing friends and relatives with fresh tomatoes to enjoy. The green beans were great as were the peas (our grandkids loved the peas and couldn’t quite understand why they didn’t continue to produce long after they dried up!!). Our downfall this year were the potatoes. We had so many potato beetles. We powdered and handpicked them off, but still couldn’t keep up. Although we harvested what my family considers a “good” crop, I can’t help but believe their presence caused some losses. Any advice regarding those buggers would be appreciated!! I am now working on our flower beds. Our mums are so pretty that I usually put that garden to bed last. The rest of my hostas, etc. will get a trim this weekend to get ready for winter. My geraniums (planted in pots) will be trimmed, and the roots will go in our basement until about February. I usually have good luck getting them to grow again. Hopefully, it will be a nice sunny weekend to get those final garden chores done, but as always I look forward to spring hoping and praying our trees, perennials and shrubs will all return for another summer of beauty in our yard. Happy gardening to all!!

laura says:

October 2nd, 2007 at 1:41 pm

i learned when buying composted manure, if the bag says composted humus AND manure, it does NOT mean the manure has been composted, and you can expect more weeds than you have ever seen in your life.

i learned planting pumpkins in may will give you pumpkins in august, not october, hehehe. and pumpkin vines attract a whole slew of new bugs i’d never seen before.

i learned you can kill off the grass to expand your garden by laying down layers of newspaper, which works far better than digging out the sod clump by clump.

i’m extremely interested in ways to help the honeybees get attracted to my little garden.