End of Season Update

Oh what a year it’s been for the garden!

It started out pretty rough, the seedlings were weak when transplanted, and I wasn’t sure they would all make it (they did!). Then they all grew so fast, my plots were like tiny little jungles in the middle of the prairie. Then it got hot – and stayed hot, even at night. So when they did finally start producing fruit, a lot of them dropped early on. I actually stopped weighing the harvest as I went along, because I knew the data I was collecting wasn’t indicative of a regular year at all. And, to tell you the truth, the numbers were bumming me out.

So finally the fruit starts ripening (very, very late – late August for the early varieties), and then it started raining. Constantly. So, the blight started with my one ‘Lyana’ plant I had, and then ripped through the whole patch in the blink of an eye.

We even had a little bit later of a killing frost this year, but it didn’t even matter because the plants were practically dead at that point anyway.

So, bit of a rough year.

A few of my varieties I didn’t get any fruit from – too hot, then too rainy and they just gave up (I could commiserate, I felt like doing that at one point too). I did get fruit out of the vast majority before the blight came, but not anywhere near the harvests I normally do.

So, the good news is, there will be seed! The bad news is, not as much to distribute as I normally have in a given year.

I’ll be updating quantities I have, the seed sale will start within the next 1-2 months, and the wiki of course will be getting updated over the period of the next two weeks.

Then it’s onto looking at what needs to be grown next year! Although I think I’ll have to give the soil a bit of a rest and grow mostly non-tomato crops next year (gasp!). I’m such a tomato fiend, I have no idea what that’ll look like.