Well, that's it, folks. The Great Gardening Experiment of 2011 is officially over.
We move out of our house, beginning on Monday, so this weekend I'll be ripping out the last of the tomato and pepper plants. Everything else has already been harvested and ripped out, and I've been removing tomato plants as they die/stop producing. It's a shame, I think I could get a few more weeks out of the pepper plants if it doesn't get too cold, but oh well.
Here's my verdict: tomatoes were the clear winner. I harvested bushels, all different kinds, all exceedingly delicious. Herbs were the runner-up. Out of everything else, here's what I got:
Corn: 2 spindly ears, maybe the size of a finger. I don't think they got enough sun.
Squash: Several zucchini, 3 baby-sized butternut squash. They were doing well until Hurricane Irene, but all the water killed them off.
Green beans: A few handfuls' worth, nothing of note, and they never got very big. Not sure what happened there.
Kale: Lots of baby kale in the beginning; the groundhog ate it down to the ground in August and I pulled it up at that point.
Cauliflower and carrots: Lost to the rabbits.
Cucumbers: Several baby ones. Ditto Hurricane Irene (see squash, above).
Peppers: Coming along very nicely. None of the bell peppers got very big, but perhaps that's just because I've been impatient and have been picking them as soon as they get bigger than a golf ball.
Lessons for next year: Well, next year we'll be in a city apartment with no yard (okay, there is a yard, but it's a bricked-in patio), so it'll be all about the container gardening again. But I will expand the container garden to include tomatoes, more peppers, and more types of greenery. I'll also keep some of the herbs inside this fall, to try and keep the basil and such alive as long as possible.
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